My first experience with LNF
 

So, I booked two rooms at the Marriott Savannah Riverfront for the nights of 7/29-31 on marriott.com. The rate was $189.99.

Within minutes I found a rate of $152 at hotels.com, submitting an LNF claim at 1:18pm on 7/28.

At 3am the 29th I was rejected with the message "The Terms and Conditions of Marriott's Look No Further(SM) Best Rate Guarantee require claims to be submitted at least 24 hours prior to check-in. According to the claim details you submitted, our records indicate your reservation is confirmed for arrival today."

At 9am the 29th, I replied assuring them that the claim was submitted more than 24 in advance. I got a prompt reply rejecting my claim again "According to the Terms and Conditions of Marriott's Look No Further(SM) Best Rate Guarantee, Marriott will verify your claim within 24 hours of receipt and notify you of the results. The comparison rate must still be available at the time Marriott validates the claim. According to our review, we have determined that, as of the time we attempted to validate your claim, the accommodations with which your comparison was made are not available as described in your claim. We have no means of determining whether such accommodations and rates were available at an earlier time."

At 10:30am, I wrote back that the rate I quoted may have been available when they first rejected me, if they had handled it correctly, instead of misreading my submission time. They wrote back (third reply, third person) suggesting I read the T & C. This annoyed me.

At 3pm, I cancelled the reservation. Stress does not make travel fun, and getting a different answer with each rejection (and no acknowledgement of the change in response) killed our interest in this diversion we had planned.

I wrote them a few minutes later asking for an apology. I also pointed out that the hotels.com rate was still available!

No answer to that email, however when I saw unexpected points on my account today, I checked and I had been charged for one room for one night. (at the higher rate!) CS thinks they had split the res in two, and only cancelled one. She assured me the hotel will get right back to me....

Perfect, can't wait to try LNF again!

That's pretty bad customer service. I used the SPG best rate garantee twice and that worked flawless. I expected Marriott to give similar service.

I think the rejection from LNF is valid because they need time to process. From my experience it takes them from 4 to 20 hours to process a claim. If you are in such a hurry you should have called them and tell them to look at your case sooner, but again you didn't give them enough time to process your claim.

Next time, do it a bit earlier, and if they reject you once, you have 1 chance to appeal. If they reject you again, my advice is to wait it out and try again in about a week's time. LNF dept will stop looking at your case after 2-3 appeals and they are not the most customer oriented people in Marriott. It's not nice but I do think that LNF is a very generous offer from Marriott.

I understand they need time to look at things. It doesn't take hours to do. My assumption is that it takes about a minute, but that many were in line ahead of me. I can't do anything about that, even though the longer it takes, the less likely a good rate will still be available. My beef is that when they first rejected me (due to a mistake inn looking at the date/time) they should have been looking at the rate. The possibility that the rate I found was still available when they mistakenly rejected me the first time is enough that I think they should honor it. Good customer service would not have me possibly losing out because of LNF error.

I did not know that I could call to speed things along, and yes, I will start earlier next time! All I wanted/expected at this point was an apology. I know that is a lot for some people.

Don't give up. It normally takes me at least 5 goes before I get an LNF through. But it is well worth it. (my record by the way was 12 for the Marriott at LAX).

1:18 pm on 7/28 is 24 hours before check-in on the 29th (would guess 3 or 4pm), so the initial rejection was invalid. The fact that it takes mariott until 3am (or however long) does not change the fact that the claim was submitted on time. Now after a couple of emails, I probably would suggest to call and talk to someone, especially during regular business hours. I like to avoid CS calls as much as the next guy (especially since email = no hold time), but sometimes it's just easier to call because there is much less of a chance someone is offshore going off of a script.