Common Practice When Overbooked
 

I am a Plt member and arrived Thursday evening to the CY in Lufkin, TX and was informed my reservation was cancelled the previous day and was also informed the property was overbooked. I told them that this is not true and the Desk Agent went into the back room to talk to someone. Minutes later she was able to check me in and said that they would have to bump someone else.

I checked with my travel agent the enxt day she had no record of my reservation being touched and told me she had heard of other people having the same issue with other properties in the past when properties are overbooked. My concern is that either:

- I was lied to since they were overbooked even though as Plt Member I am guarunteed a room if booked 24+ hours

- Is it that easy to mess around with someone's reservation?

Just curious if this is common practice by Marriott or the industry. Thanks

You had a reservation. You got a room. I fail to understand the concern.:confused:

The fact they could be possibly lying to customers because they overbooked. Not exactly great business practices

The OP seems to be pretty clear. He's questioning if this is common practice. I fail to understand what's not clear for you... read slower next time :confused:

The one time I had a big issue with this (many years ago), I had reservations at the Orlando Airport Hyatt through Travelocity or someone else. A ton of flights were cancelled and they were unable to find my reservations (with wife and 2 kids).
It took me about an hour to sort it out; my name was misspelled on the reservation. They eventually checked me in so all was good.

I've never had the issue you're talking about - that's something that Marriott corporate should be made aware of IF it wasn't an honest mistake.
I've had a few very minor issues with details of reservations so I now find myself printing out my reservations so that I've got a hard copy.

"was informed my reservation was cancelled the previous day and was also informed the property was overbooked"
Doesn't sound like an honest mistake. Sounds like they wanted to dump reservations and not pay compensation.

One time I was speaking to a rep. at the Platinum line and I asked about this specifically--it never happened to me, but was curious. I was told that your res. number will maintain the history of the cancellation including how it was cancelled and the cancellation number. Should have asked for those--which would have been either made up or non-existent. PLUS, ALL cancellations and reservations on my Marriott account are emailed (no matter how they are cancelled), so I would know they were lying. They OP probably was in the same situation. I wonder if that didnt happen if the reservation was still active and could have been checked on-line.

(Ok OP was working with a travel agent, but I guess they would still have the Marriott conf num.)

This is exactly why I thought this was all BS as I never received an email from Marriott or my travel agent plus when I talked to my travel agent the next day she pulled up my reservation and said there were no changes.


I did inform Marriott and am concerned as this is a property I will stay at 2-3 times a year and there are not any other Marriott properties in the area.

I am pretty sure the desk agent was not supposed to inform me they were over booked either.

Then it sounds like they may have been looking to avoid paying compensation. Glad you are following through with it. I am surprised they chose a platinum to target--unless they had no other options.

I tried to read it more slowly, but I kept seeing the reflection on my screen of my lips moving and it distracted me...

Whether or not they had to bump someone else is irrelevant. The Plat guarantee worked in this case.

The possibility that the travel agent screwed up and is lying is just as plausible as the possibility the hotel screwed up and is lying. MARSHA might have hiccuped and nobody is lying. All those and a few other possibilities.

It just appears to me that since he got a room on the date he had a reservation, then the system worked.

Remember I'm on the other side of the table here but TA's like to do that (blame others for mistakes)...not saying the hotel couldn't have done that, they absolutely could have BUT if you'd like to be sure you could ask the hotel (or contact guest services) to see who actually DID cancel the reservation, MARSHA tracks all changes and who made them - if the TA did it in the GDS it would still show this (right down to the terminal they did it on), if the hotel did it would tell which individual did it...but to answer your question no it's not common practice but I have had a number of occasions where I've given guests printouts showing the TA made the mistake so they could follow up with them

The guest is platinum - if a hotel was silly enough to purposely cancel a ressie to avoid "walking them" I highly doubt they were foolish enough to pick the guest who at the top of the food chain - but it's possible they were that foolish, I'd recommend the OP contact guest services to have them review the transaction

just 1 correction - automatically recieving changes to your GNR's via email is not the default, unless requested econf's wont be sent (not sure if there's a setting one can change in their profile or not) they will not be sent

It could be the TA's mistake but I receive an update to my itenerary if there are anychanges to it (air, car, or hotel) which I never received and I had print out of my reservation from that morning. Will be interesting on how Marriott responds as the Desk agent said they had no record on how or who cancelled my reservation as they do not receive this information she said

the desk clerk looking in PMS (FS/PMS or FOSSE) can only see limited information, they'd need to log into MARSHA to view the full history