Currently on the phone with a CSR who clearly is ESL (English is a Second Language) trying to use my Marriott visa free night cert. I have tried to be patient but have now repeated myself 5 times to explain that I am using a certificate. Now on interminable hold while she is no doubt consulting someone who knows what they are doing. Nope, just disconnected (maybe that was for the best )

I sincerely hope Marriott is not following the ill fated route of DL and UA by employing poorly trained overseas call center CSRs. If you are going to outsource you need to spend a lot of money to provide proper training, or I will be defecting to your competitor. It is not my job to provide training or be inconvenienced due to your incompetence.

Addendum: Called back and reached US-based agent who handled everything in about 3 minutes. Like night and day!

i don;t think so, but ITA as i made 6, yes SIX calls to the Plat Premier line and CS to get something fixed, and it did sound like they were out on Jupiter or something....

it has gotten hard to understand some reps...but i think it depends when you call....seems that i get people that are easier to understand on weekend days and week nights....but maybe it's just my luck...

Funny......my issue was with that cert as well!! lol. a visa night, a regular redemption and a paid night...i finally just made 3 ressies myself and had the hotel join them...

MI has always had global call centers but that doesn't mean they are routing any differently today than they did 10 years ago (well I guess if you consider Ontario, Canada off shore perhaps they are routing more calls there these days) but US/Canada calls are handled at US/Canada call centers (I know Starwood hands off US/Canada calls to Ireland at some point during the day)

I'm not so sure any more about the term "call centers." Although there probably still are call centers, clearly there are at least some reservation agents who now work from home.

I recently made a reservation for this fall. When the Marriott representative saw my email address, it turned out that she had recently retired from the company that I work for. In chatting with the CSR, I learned that she had moved from my state and was now working part-time from her home computer (in Ohio) for Marriott. Her home computer was set up so that she had full access to the Marriott reservation system.

I think this makes good business sense. It saves Marriott the expense of renting all that office space, and it allows the individual employee the comfort of working from home. As a customer, I like dealing with happy employees.

Working with the clients I do (I'm a travel planner for sports professionals), I call Marriott multiple times a day. I have gotten a few agents who had accents, but I've never gotten an outsourced call center. I also get a lot of agents who work from home. When Marriott closed its LA Area (Orange County I believe) call center, they offered those agents the chance to work from home. For a while Marriott also did some business with an agency that employs disabled people to work from home. You'd be surprised what you learn about an agent when you need to make 45 minutes worth of reservations at a time....lol

I can tell you Hilton and Priority Club do use outsourced call centers, but IME Marriott, Starwood, and Hyatt do not.

Here in the UK (European hours) Marriott definately uses a call centre in India at certain times of the day, and at weekends.

Personally I call Marriott around 7am UK time when I can - the European Platinum line then gets me straight through to very professional operators based in Canada.

I agree.

For us in the Britain, all our reservations are dealt with offshore.

Whether India or North America, its all some corner of the empire

Don't you mean "bloody colonists"?

and Ireland too... (which technically is offshore ) but we won't go into the empire thing with Ireland - will upset someone