DCAGUY

Stayed the weekend of the transition, Aug 17 to Aug 19. Very responsive and pleasant staff. Was Marriott Gold, staff responded promptly to my request to be recognized as Plat on transition day. Concierge noted in my reservation that I would have access to the exec lounge. Lounge is small and breakfast offering is very basic - scrambled eggs, bacon/sausage, fresh fruit, pastries, cereal. In the evening lounge offers hors d'oeuvres/honor bar. We were not there for evening offering.

There is nothing of interest around the hotel, but as others have noted it is near U of Richmond and has easy access to downtown from I64.

Rooms and common areas are spacious and well maintained. One of the two elevators was out of service, so longer than normal wait times.

We just had a midday snack at Crossings, the bar/restaurant. It is spacious and pleasant. Appetizers were reasonably priced and tasty.

All in all, a good choice for a business hotel in Richmond.

GrayAnderson

I went to book the Westin Richmond for tonight at about 8 Eastern. It was showing availability [1], so I booked with an FNA (set to expire in about three weeks).

Well, I showed up. No room at the inn (hotel totally sold out), but an offer to "cancel without penalty". No offer of alternative accommodation (which they're supposed to do in a walk IINM). I raised the point of the reservation guarantee; the on-duty manager said he was powerless to grant it (I've left a message for the General Manager). Ultimately, my FNA got transferred to a separate hotel (the Marriott downtown) by a CSR at Marriott's reservations system. The CSR also opened a ticket; she offered 10k points for the trouble of being walked, but I demurred (I pointed out that the program entitles me to rather more...90k+$200).

The issue is apparently a computer glitch, but to say that I'm unsympathetic is rather an understatement (when this happened with Hyatt a while back the folks on the phone line promptly closed out the reservations; the Marriott rep clearly didn't do this). I'm...rather beside myself over this since IINM what they should have done is "walked" me to the Courtyard and given me the compensation.

Any thoughts on how to chase this if I need to?



[1] And it still is, several hours later:

jxd

Bonvoy!

Mr. Vker

What irritates me is that the desk agent SHOULD be empowered to provide the items in the URG. We have to claim immediately. We shouldn't have to leave "wondering" if it will happen. Ability to collect these greatly decreases when one leaves the property. PLUS Marriott CS trying to reduce the URG benefits too? Ridiculous.

cfischer

Push for the 90k points, $200 in cash and return of the FNA certificate as the night you get walked is 'free'.

Kacee

Yeah there's no way I'd let them get away with this. I'd pm the Lurkers, email David Flueck, write to Marriott corporate, even sue the property in small claims court.

When properties learn they can get away with flagrant denial of published benefits, it just encourages further misbehavior.

Oxon Flyer

Did you find out any more about the details here ? Was this a case of Marriott's web system displaying availability and accepting a reservation because it was out of sync with a local hotel system, which knew there was none ? Was the hotel able to look up your reservation on the central system ?

GrayAnderson

So, I just spoke with the AGM of the property. He was more than a little bit sheepish, said it seems pretty open and shut, and has promised me a resolution by Tuesday (the $200 might be done via a CC credit instead of cash). He observed that there might have been a few "teachable moments" (he expressed displeasure that I was not, for example, given a "walk letter" and that the guy on duty tried to "just" give me an email), and he took a detailed statement from me. As I told him, if it was a stray night auditor who had been overwhelmed I'd have been rather more understanding.

[I'm less worked up over the FNA than I might normally be because it was so close to expiry - about three weeks - but I will still ask for something on that front on general principle. If I'd paid cash, this would have been a...much different conversation at the front desk since I would have been explicitly insisting on them handling the rebooking, and pressed for the Marriott as an equivalent property (over the nearby CY).]

Depending on how Tuesday goes, I may consider a missive to corporate. The AGM was clearly displeased at what transpired, and so any letter I write is going to be accounting for both his efforts and the night-of-arrival failures.

Per the AGM, the central system will allow them to be overbooked by up to five rooms per night on the basis of no-shows (it's a 250-room property) but they don't have the churn on weekends to justify that (during the week, they do), and apparently the property can't override the website or cut it off (or maybe it needs a manager to do so). Now, whether that's a corporate decision or a "brilliant" decision made by a franchise owner is another question entirely. But there was a clear, known issue...it just seems that they didn't have anybody who could actually tell the computer "No, the space really isn't available".

1mileman

all the property has to do is contact their revenue manager and close out the hotel. Certain people have the ability to close out the hotel if the revenue manager isn't available.

Marriott Bonvoy Lurker II

We are very sorry to hear of your experience.

Could you please send a PM with your account information and reservation details so we can check for you?

Please let us know if you need further assistance.

Best Regards,

Abbey L
Specialist, Social Media
Marriott International

[email protected]

arlflyer

This is very insightful and is in line with my suspicions upon reading the original post, as well as my personal experience. My general understanding is that, when it comes to inventory management, there is an element of local control and an element of centralized control. Where that line is drawn, to your point, is not fully clear. My experience is that I've run into several hotels where local staff were frustrated that basically the marriott.com system lets inventory be sold out from under them, even when it's not available (I've encountered this both in the context of specific room types as well as total sell-outs).

It seems like corporate is more than happy to make plenty of reservations and let the hotels deal with whoever shows up. Also sounds, from the last post, that local management can tell the corporate system "no", but the timing of sellouts (e.g. often late at night, on weekends, etc.) generally tends to coincide with times when management isn't around (of course, the fact that management never seems to be around when their properties are busiest is certainly a pet peeve of mine).

In this OP's particular case, it sounds like the management was very forthright once they were brought into the discussion. Personally, I'm a bit biased and willing to give this property the benefit of the doubt as I've always had great stays at this property and found it to be very well-run (reflected in the fact that the AGM was not very happy with the actions of their front desk staff).