(emphasis mine)

Have you spent much time in southern states, especially in the "more rural" areas of said states? I do agree that Marriott would have quite a problem on their hands, and that the odd hotel which would not accept the GC's for payment would be the exception and not the rule. But, if any odd hotel did not accept the GC for payment for whatever reason, I would not recommend walking out without resolving the matter, anywhere, including the southern USA or any foreign countries!

Substantial time spent, yes. Please see my previous comments; this wouldn't be a matter of not paying - payment is authorized on your credit card upon check-in. Therefore, I'm not sure what you mean by "not resolving the matter". They'd simply charge your credit card instead, as is normally the case when someone departs without special requests, and you'd be left needing to protest to Marriott corporate to get the GC charged instead (of course, you could also easily dispute the CC charge and have it reversed).

Corrupt police, whether in the US are abroad, exist, but aren't related to the issue of GCs. Any Marriott employee, who is an agent of Marriott, conspiring to falsely imprison a customer for *any* reason would be a major issue, and one with legal, PR, and other consequences. Nothing to be concerned about relevant to GC use in particular. I suggest starting a separate thread for debate about legal issues regarding employee behavior. If anyone believes a particular property to be not participating, I'm sure that if you post a direct link to the property's page on Marriott site and request that a Marriott rep - either here or over on the Marriott Insiders forum - clarify for you, they would.

Believe me, it would not likely be an issue of employee conspiracy, it would be an issue of employee ignorance (about some aspect of their job), or laziness, or outright stupidity, or some combination of the three. This is my last posting on this subject, in this thread.

the uproar is deafening...........

and why do you think all international property personnel are Marriott employees??

This is a Marriott thread discussing Marriott GCs at Marriott properties only. I'm not talking about non-Marriott properties. If you believe there is a Marriott property included in the participating brands mentioned in the T&Cs that isn't honoring GCs, I strongly suggest posting a link to the property here or on Marriott Insiders and asking a Marriott rep for clarification.

if you read back through your posts you'll find that YOU brought up the subject of international (negative) reaction to a Marriott employee getting a guest arrested for trying to use a GC that wouldn't clear their bill...........

my question to you was why you considered all the staff at an international Marriott property Marriott employees ('cause IMO they aren't).........

Raised in response to the assertion that one could be arrested for fraud or non-payment upon GC rejection when in fact payment is authorized by credit card before check-in and the GC is therefore irrelevant regarding whether you've paid. It's merely a potential substitute.

Marriott is accountable for anyone working at any Marriott property (employees, contractors, and the like), internationally or otherwise. Should one of them - out of ignorance, corruption, criminal intent, or any other reason - wrong a customer, there will be recourse for the customer and substantial fallout for Marriott.

Marriott clearly states participating brands for GC acceptance, including internationally, and makes no exclusions. If you believe a particular property is wrongly excluding them, check with Marriott and they will clarify. In the meantime, you can always count upon your ability to walk out of a property, asking them to charge your GC but knowing they might charge your CC instead, and have ample recourse with Corporate if needed, later. There's no reason to worry about corrupt police with regard to GC requests any more than there is regarding anything else you do.

how naive.............

Experience. The beauty of markets, especially for a highly visible publicly traded company, is that such matters don't escape notice easily. FT itself would be abuzz with any report of major abuse. (I'm not talking about minor "wrongs", but even they often get reported here.)

Getting back on topic ;), Marriott Concierge says there's an internal dept to call.

Two quick questions for Marriott Concierge: 1) is it staffed 24/7, given that we stay at properties worldwide & also check out at dif times; 2) is there a name for the dept so that we can tell the ill-trained FDC (ill-trained when it comes to gift cards)?

ncfinfan, thanks for the codes to tell the FDC.

Cheers.

Another question to ask Marriott Concierge:

Does Courtyard Berlin only accept GC payments during weekdays? I was there in Sept 2012 and I was told that my $900 GC will be confiscated (they don't even mention anything about mailing back to me) if I choose to pay with GC.

The problem with the GC in Europe is that only FD Supervisors have to user ID and password. A lot of European FDs are scared of authority (i.e. their superiors) so they will try to resolve the problem by telling you that's impossible to do.

+1, I have experienced this for myself, especially at hotels in The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and to a lesser degree, France.

That's another good reason to carry a facsimile or otherwise document your card info in detail. If the FD gives you that kind of nonsense to the degree where they steal your card, you can get the credit back later. You always have the upper hand because, as long as you're in the right, you can charge back your credit card for anything that is improper. Not hard to do.

Honestly, I believe Marriott intends to have their GC's applicable everywhere in the world for any charge at any of their brands (possible exception being Ritz - I haven't attempted to use one there and I notice it isn't on the list in the T's & C's.) If a typical U.S. Marriott hotel decided to unilaterally opt out of accepting gift cards, there's a good chance that state's attorney general would have a problem with that. Gift card scams are a hot topic in a lot of states' AG offices, and I don't think a generally reputable company like Marriott is trying to play fast and loose with their gift cards.

I've long had a range of minor issues with gift cards, as well as the various iterations of Premium Pounds / Extra Euros / Bonus Bucks / etc. that Marriott used to paper the world with. But I truly believe they've always been training issues, not malicious intent. Marriott makes a lot of money selling gift cards and I don't believe they want to establish a rep as a dirty gift card player.

As such, it would never cross my mind to call the cops or double-dare the hotel to call the cops on me. If I truly had no more Marriott stays in the upcoming months, I'd get a GM phone number and try to resolve the problem after the fact, perhaps with Marriott corporate on the line. I'd be irritated, but I wouldn't make a huge scene about it...especially not in a foreign country where I really have no idea how the cops would actually react.

Bad PR? What media outlet is going to devote a bunch of time to a one-off dispute between a hotel guest and a hotel over a gift card?

The reason I started this thread is because I'm frustrated that there isn't a simple internal FAQ or help system the employees can easily get to. Or, if it's there, they don't know it. Processing a gift card shouldn't be more than a few steps in a procedure file. If it *is* more difficult than that, then the process is broken and they need to replace it, perhaps with the older one where they could swipe the card as a Visa.

All MI branded hotels accept all MI branded gift cards regardless of brand of either the gift card or the location accepting it (ie you can use a Marriott branded gift card at Ritz-Carlton hotels)...and all hotels accept gift cards