My recommendation is to contact customer service at this point - 800-831-0224 (I believe you said you stayed at a CY, if I misread that they can transfer you to the correct team)

Still no credit after last night's audit.

I will see what the customer service email response is and then contact CS by phone tonight if there is none. They are open until 8 pm CT.

It was a Residence Inn.

I could deny the charge on my CC but that makes it my responsibility and allows them to try and slip through charges. I feel that is an insidious change in point of view for these type of situations. Their job is not to charge as much or as many times as they can and see what I'll pay. Their job is to be honest and process the transactions correctly and timely. I resent the fact that I have to watch so closely to make sure they can do their job.

Different phone number for Residence Inn & TownePlace Suites (note they are open until 11pm CDT):

Phone: 800-899-7224

Hours: 0700-2300 Mon-Fri, 0800-2100 Sat & Sun (Central Time)

How is paying "only" once instead of twice stealing?

Their company policy was to steal.

Credit to Visa finally appeared. Funny how the charges will show as pending in minutes but the credit appeared as posted with never being pending after the following email was sent.

"Dear Denvercccc,
Thank you for contacting Marriott Customer Care. We appreciate the opportunity to respond to your billing related questions for your stay at the Residence Inn Salinas Monterey.

Please accept our apology for any inconvenience this incident may have caused. To ensure your concerns are addressed, your comments have been sent to the hotel's Accounting Department for further research. They will investigate the situation and contact you within three to five business days.
Denvercccc, your patronage and goodwill are very important to us. If we can be of further assistance, we invite you to reply to this email.

Thank you for choosing Marriott. We look forward to serving your future lodging needs.

Regards,
Marriott support guy
Marriott Customer Care

It is my understanding that the hotel told him they had a policy whereby they had to charge the credit card without regard to the fact that the gift card was charged since they are only a franchisee. If I've misunderstood the facts, my apologies to the GM of this unknown property. :)

Major pet peeve of mine: I never, ever want to hear "we're a franchisee" from a hotel employee. I should never know and it should never have any bearing whatsoever on my interactions with the hotel.

If the back-office systems are different, so what. If Marriott sells me a gift card, then it should be seamlessly usable wherever I see the Marriott brand name.

For what it's worth, I don't personally have this problem with Marriotts - most recently, I've been hearing it at a couple Sheratons that don't want to follow Starwood's global standards for that brand. I also hear it at rental car agencies from time to time, always in the context of someone attempting to rip me off or otherwise withhold a standard service provided at that brand.

Funny how it's never "We're a franchisee and our policy is to treat you *better* than the corporate locations do."

I'm a former avid user of Marriott Gift Cards. Guess I'm going to hold off for a while until the dust settles on the new processes.

^ FWIW, I have never had a MR employee say this to me, yet.

I am going to have to remember this in the event I ever hear the "we're a franchise" reference as I can always come back with, "so that means you are going to treat me better than the corporate locations because you want me to come back and not report back to Marriott that you are using the "franchise" excuse to provide shoddy service... BTW, where is the presidential suite?" :D

+1 on both comments & LOL re: the Presidential Suite.

Cheers.

I have had quite a few opportunities to say, "I have a policy, too." Then I describe how my policy differs from their policy. And why should their policy prevail over my policy? It's led to some interesting conversations. (One of the most interesting was at a doctor's office. They told me their policy; I told them mine, which came as a surprise, apparently. In the end, I got my way.) :)

Bruce

Many years ago I was able to witness one of these discussions at one of the first PBI/FLL DO's....you can be extremely persuasive (and I am being sincere here) :D

I got the "we're a franchise" line at a FS today when trying to use my weekend BOGO.
We don't participate in that program. We're a franchise." My favorite line was actually, "that looks like it was just printed off the internet, you could have gotten it from anywhere." Ummmm, your rules?

I had to educate the booking manager and the GM, both. They even refused to call the MR Helpline that's mentioned on the cert. Man, I hope I get a survey for this place. Bad thing it, it's the only hotel within 40 miles of this client that isn't a motel. And I'll be here for 12 more weeks...

Please don't mention the property.

Today I checked the balance on a gift card that I used to pay for part of a room last month and the money was never deducted from the giftcard.