HR_Traveler

I don't agree.

It's certainly true that succeeding in a dispute for a charge where you failed to arrive is almost impossible, but this is different. Both the confirmation screen and email on the Marriott site are clear that you are providing your card to guarantee your arrival and they both outline the specific charge in the event that you fail to arrive or cancel. Neither however speak to any other costs nor the policy regarding charges for smoking in non-smoking rooms.

When you provide your card in your profile there is no language on that screen or in the terms/condition which are referenced which give the hotel permission to make charges to the card at their discretion, or on their policy regarding smoking and potential penalties.

A guest only agrees to the hotels policies when they check-in and therefore the agreement is with the person who signs at check-in not with the person who books the room. Booking a room for others is a very common practice, the room booker does not sign on to police the guests once they arrive, they only commit to paying for the room if the guest fails to arrive.

Finally; the issue of the certificate being non-transferable is separate and irrelevant to this issue. At most the hotel may have cause to charge for the room and refuse retroactively to accept the certificate. Even this would be a stretch given that they have already accepted it, and therefore agreed to ignore those terms.

The hotel was wrong to believe that they had authorisation to use the card provided at booking for any other reason than to hold the room and a dispute should be successful since this penalty charge did not form part of that agreement.

socrates

that is correct - because the OP has contacted both the general manager and Marriott Customer Care they have admitted to making the reservation in their own name the OP would not win a chargeback dispute

Often1

Well - OP certainly hasn't provided all of the facts. I presume that if the reservation was in OP's name and his relative checked in, that there was some sleight of hand which led the check-in clerk to believe that the individual checking in was OP.

OP ought to watch it. These things can have cascading effects: 1) Chain cancels the reward account; 2) CC issuer cancels OP's card; 3) CC issuer cancels brother's card. Hotels & banks lose money on transactions such as this even if they are sorted out in the end. It's to their advantage to dump the customer(s) involved.

calitequilasippergirl

It doesn't say anything about your 'incidentials' either
And for your verbiage - Check the door of your non-smoking Marriott room

SkiAdcock

I'm still astounded the OP is trying to go after Marriott vs. just telling his little brother to pay him the $250, even if he has to do so on a payment plan.

I'm guessing some of this is because it got charged to his corporate card & if his corp has an expense reporting system where things need to line up, this one won't & he has to explain it to the accounting dept and/or his boss. If that's the case, then I'd contact Marriott, provide them with another card (his or his brother's) to charge it to, and then have them reverse the charge to the corporate card.

But I don't think he has a chance of the issuing bank doing a chargeback based on what he posted.

BTW - he keeps saying Marriott hasn't responded. They did. They said they found cigarettes in the beer bottles left in the room & the room had a smoky-smell. They also said they'd try to contact his brother for another card but if he doesn't provide one or it's declined, that the charge will stay on the OP's card. So there's no 'radio silence'. If he decides to do a chargeback, Marriott will challenge it.

Cheers.

DillMan

As least they were distinguished cigarettes. Nothing worse than getting in trouble for undistinguished cigarettes.

The problem the OP has encountered is similar to one I've been dealing with lately. I have one CC in my profile, a corporate card. It seems many hotels, particularly non-FS, default to that CC regardless of what you tender when you check in. So I'll be staying on a personal stay, most recently for a bowl game in Orlando, and check in with my person card with tons of room available. When I check out, I'll see my corporate card was charged. Even when I point out to FD agents that I want to move to this card and specifically ask them to delete the card from their computer, I'm only successful in getting the proper card used maybe 50% of the of the time. Super frustrating.

As to the OP's situation it seems a bit like a self incrimination situation. Since the vouchers are non-transferrable (right?) I would think even if the OP prevails on the charge situation they'll be able to take punitive action agains the OP for breaking the rules.

calitequilasippergirl

Actually, he will probably lose. Bottom line, room was in his name with his credit ultimately responsible. When hotels first started doing this, there was alot of push backs and it became a he said/she said. Credit Card companies began requiring hotels to provide proof (pictures of cigarette butts, etc). If the hotel has such pictures and OP files dispute - the hotel has the smoking gun

Chickenpants

Ahhaha. I see what you did there!

sangreal

Sure, they might have a smoking gun that he is responsible. That doesn't clear them to charge his card. The proper recourse if they feel he is responsible is to send him a bill, sue him, send it to collections, etc. His authorization to charge his credit card the room rate for failure to check in is not authorization to charge whatever they want to his card. This is an unauthorized charge and would almost certainly hold up in a dispute (which does not clear the obligation to pay it).

Also, reward certificates really are transferable even though the T&C say they aren't. You just have to go through Marriott to do it (which is also noted in the T&C). If you call (OP said he booked online), they can change the name on the reservation and void/reissue the cert in the new name

Moriens

Some time ago, I stayed at a hotel while wedding party members had a fight. The room service waiter told me that a guy swung a standard lamp through a flatscreen TV. (This is the same hotel where I found cake on the curtains.)

It would be painful if every hotel had to put a hold for the full cost of renovating a room on every guest's card. And what would happen if you got upgraded?


OP, if a reservation is in your name (because of the non-transferable certificate), you can probably be held responsible for damage to the room. (Whenever I've booked rooms for third parties, I signed a form detailing whether or not I would be paying for just the room rate, or also for incidentals.)

You should take the smoker to small claims court. Or on Judge Judy!

socrates

uh...too early after a super bowl game

socrates

uh - never mind- too early

User Name

To all those who confidently state that OP has no chance of succeeding with a chargeback - can you substantiate your view above and beyond reading Ts&Cs or just what your gut tells you?

Mrs User Name worked in various front office supervisory and managerial positions in a few different limited service MR properties until a year or two ago, and reports that she can count on one hand the number of instances in which the hotels were successful in challenging the chargebacks they would regularly receive. It was the smoking violation one in particular that they were never able to enforce. I'd say, based on experience, that the OP would likely win a chargeback - but that's not to say that there couldn't be other repercussions (as mentioned by others already).

You've got to remember that many of these hotels are franchised operations run by a skeleton team stretched as tightly as possible by the hotel management companies. They simply don't have the manpower to mess about with this kind of thing.

I am not endorsing this as a potential course of action for the OP, for the record. He can and should go after the occupant of the room. That said, I'd be pissed off too if MR chose to charge my card for any reason in this type of circumstance (i.e. when I was not present at the property).

calitequilasippergirl

I can substantiate based on my knowledge of contract law. A little research of the different kind of contracts one can enter into will shed some light on this. Smoking charges must be physically proven if disputed. Probably why the wife saw what she saw.

Did the property go about it in the wrong way, yes. Should they have notified OP to arrange for payment, yes. Were they required to? No. A contract is implied by the use of the card number as a guarantee. Just like a rental car - if there is damage, they can ultimately see to recoup damages on the card used to secure the reservation.

I know someone who used an invalid credit card as a guarantee at Marriott. They no-showed at several properties. He was given the ultimatum of changing his default card to a valid credit card, or lose his Marriott account.

User Name

That's a valid analysis, of course, but nontheless contract law is fine if you're stood in a courtroom - but as this would realistically never get that far then I think that I'd take more of a pragmatic view on this one. So far I've shared the only real-life experience regarding what actually happens. It's a (very) small sample size, but it's all we have so far until someone else shares.