Introducing a Quicker & Improved Online Reservation Process on Marriott.com
 

Good Afternoon, all.

I just wanted to share our announcement on Insiders regarding our new and improved online reservation process:

You asked for a faster way to book your stays with Marriott. And you wanted quicker access to hotel rates, deals and packages – including valuable Marriott Rewards Member and Elite Exclusive Offers.

Well, here’s the news you’ve been waiting for: Starting this month, you’ll have it all with the launch of our new online reservation system. We’ve cut the number of steps in half to save you time – but you’ll still find the same features you've come to rely on, plus some extras to make booking easier:

1. Find all available Marriott Rewards Exclusive Offers instantly – right next to standard rates and packages. Just look for the Exclusive Offers tab as begin your search.

2. Reserve faster than before – in fewer steps and with more information at your fingertips.

3. Save using PointSavers and Standard Redemption rates together – in one reservation. Now when you search using your points we’ll automatically combine these two redemption rate types together for you if it means you’ll save!

4. Chart your progress – As you complete each of the four steps in the new reservations system, your progress will be updated for easy reference.

The new Marriott online reservation process is fast, intuitive and offers you new tools that can lead you to the best value possible – every day, every stay!

See for yourself how easy it is to reserve!

Thanks,

Andrew

Thanks for the announcement.

The video looks nice (if a little jerky) - however no difference when I go to make a reservation when either signed in or not, and when using points (or not) - is this implemented yet?

I just have to chuckle at how every one of ANY corporate announcement ALWAYS starts out...

Just who and how many are doing the asking, requesting, waiting, etc. To quote Jerry Seinfeld, "Who are these people"???;)

Apparently people with much free time on their hands. Give me a web site that doesn't change every 2 weeks once I've gotten it figured out!

All above tongue in cheek, I sure the improvements are for the better.:cool:

Thanks Andrew, when will this actually be implemented?

Andy

Looks like the new reservation system is up and running now. Just going through my first one now.

Looks good. Especially if you put in a special rate (such as AAA), you get a different tab, so you can tab between all the options rather than unselecting and redoing the search. Preferences for room right there when you select the radio button, someone definetly spent sometime figuring out a good UI design.

Interesting, I just tried a search, and get the same old search options and results, with no change in design. Do I need to do something different to get the different search?

The Reservation proocess is all that has changed - search is the same.

MC, the new process is great. Much cleaner than the previous process.

THANKS!

Yep, like it a lot ^

Thanks.

Special Request box is missing?
 

Am I just missing it or it is located on a different page? There was a box letting us to fill in special comments or request before we complete the reservation and it seems to be missing now.

Okay, I stand corrected, I will check it out again tonight!

I dont see it either, must be gone. Maybe Concierge can find out why. I really like the Marriott Rewards Specials tab, very big improvement.

Just made a few bookings on the new res system. Works great!

Agreed - this is definitely more efficient than the old way. ^^

Works well for me too - I like that I put in my corporate code and I can also see, at a high level, the other prices available immediately - which is a good thing as previously I used to do 2-3 searches that I can now do with 1 (my typical search for any stay is corporate, m11 and then normal just in case there is a special deal on or the standard price is less than my corporate).

Marriott's website is by far and away the best of the hotel chains I use (ok... so the main competition is Hilton who have a terrible site) and I like they continue to invest in it to make it even better.

Hilton has no website - they have a disaster.

You mean I need to restart the reservation if I want to change dates or rate codes??

Initially I just thought this was a continuation of the change in presentation that brought us the new site a few weeks ago, and which for IE at least takes a litlt longer to load.

Well, so does this, but it is well worth it loading the options instead of forcing us to enter repeated codes, although it should be noted that not all specials are included so some extra work is required on those rarer codes, nonetheless, this is a great improvement.

The Marriott site was always better than that roadkill of a Hilton site, and the IHG site, now it really has raised the standard again...

And to think, on the original roll out, a couple of months ago, everyone was bashing Marriott about the new design! Now, the new design, along with the new enhancements to the new design, seems to be well received, or at least more positively received than before.

The new reservation system is definitely an improvement.

I just wish the main site would work correctly for me in Firefox. The five unselected sections on the main page (weekends on sale, member exclusives, packages, meetings & events, and elite rollover nights) highlight when I rollover them but nothing happens when I click. Thankfully "Find" is the default selection when the page loads so at least I can make a reservation easily.

Firefox works fine for me throughout the site, and a heck of a lot faster than IE. Well the latter goes for any site. Not to mention when I use FF I actually have system resource available for other things to run. IE sucks.

Like everything about the new overlay EXCEPT the removal of the comment section. NOT HAPPY about that.

+1.

Big improvement! I love this new reservation system. With one check you know if packages, points or specials are available for your dates. It's a great way to make reservations.

Although my e-mail from Marriott contained a dead link, I navigated on my own and made a reseration to try it out. My first impressions are positive. Old system was fine, but this should be an improvement.

I guess I may be in the minority as I do not like the changes. The removal of the comment box is my main gripe as I now have to call in to have a note added requesting a specific room or room location (I tend to stay at the same hotels and most of them used the note to assign me to the desired room). Perhaps that is why I have been having to wait several minutes to get a rep lately as more people now have to call in to have a special request added to the reservation.

Matt, there is a much easier solution than calling.

Since you stay at the same hotel, just get the email address of the Hotel's Reservation Mgr and email him/her directly. After a couple times s/he will know you and the the email will be superfluous. This also allows you to build up a rapport with the staff making your stay more personal.

+1 Maybe removing the comment box is an implicit admission by Marriott that many hotels weren't really looking at it anyway.


--Jon

There are other ways to deal with that besides eliminating it altogether. That is a bit like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. How about requiring the hotels to check a box next to the comment section before being able to proceed or close out that reservation for rooms assignment/control? If they could not close it out without doing that, they would have to pay attention to it in some regard.

I agree there are other ways to do it. My comment is that to date, for whatever reason, Marriott hasn't been able to to get all properties to consistently look at the comments field. If they can't do better, then eliminating the field is better than giving the illusion that it is actually reviewed. My two cents....

--Jon

It is always better to not promise something at all than to over promise and UNDER DELIVER!

I made a telephone reservation with the Plat line yesterday, and it was interesting that the rez agent went out of her way to ask me about my special preferences, what I would ordinarily type into the comments box, which is now eliminated on the terrific new online rez format. It is almost like they took that field/feature away from online and dragged it over to the phone rez line, in an odd sort of way.

reservations has always been able to add free form text in addition to using a set of specific "request codes" such as "lake view, king bed, ocean front" etc

OBVIOUSLY the operative phrase here was "the rez agent went out of her way to ask." Yes, everyone here knows that reservations has always been able to add free form text. I was pointing out that extra attention was paid, seemingly more than in the past, in case that was not evident to anyone who was reading.

The Comments Box is back!
 

Glad to see that the comments box is back.

"Comments
Please limit your message to 45 characters, including spaces"

I actually like the changes. Good job, Web Team. ^

+1

I think the changes are very helpful and a big time saver!