Written confirmation always necessary?
 

My recent stay at the San Diego Marina Marriott was cut off abruptly when my family and I were booted out a day early.

One year earlier I had made reservations at the hotel for a conference from Saturday July 29 to the Sunday August 5. At the time I made the reservation the Y2K computer concerns were not allowing online reservations after December 31, 1999.

I had never experienced a problem with hotels honoring their reservations and did not insist upon a written confirmation. Probably the travel wise know this was a mistake. Nevertheless I recall making reservations by telephone with Marriott before and not getting a written confirmation. I called and confirmed the reservation a couple of times and when we checked in the front desk clerk verbally stated we were confirmed until Sunday August 5. We did not receive a written statement of the check in and check out dates.

We ended up having to return home a day early unexpectedly. On Wednesday we let the front desk know that we would be checking out one day early on SATURDAY. However, on Thursday a warning "To Those Who are Checking Out on Friday" was slipped under the door. It warned that a "big conference" was coming in on Friday and no late check-outs would be possible. I thought I had better make sure they had us checking out on Saturday and spoke with someone at the front desk. Sure enough they had changed our check out to Friday.

When the front desk attendent checked the reservation record she said it had been changed many times. When I insisted that it had not been changed by us, except for having the courtesy to advise them of our checking out one day early, she said something about how their reservation system could change the reservation automatically(?!?) She also kept questioning me about the documentation that I did not have: Didn't we have a mailed confirmation? Didn't we have a written statement of the check out date? I told her that if Marriott had provided it I would have had documentation. She stated they were "over booked" for Friday and she didn't know what she could do but assured me she would do some checking into the reservation record and leave a message. When I got back late Thursday night there was no message.

After my business meetings were concluded on Friday I returned to the room to find my husband had begun packing our things. He said the hotel took the position that if we did not have documentation of our check out date they did not have to honor our reservation. If we did not check out they would physically remove our belongings from our room. The only concession they made was to pay $14 as the difference between the rate we had had at the Marriott and the rate (not including tax) we had to pay at the Gas Lamp Hilton (a new hotel which is a good alternative to the Marriott for a convention center hotel in San Diego).

The result was that we had to spend hours of our last day packing and moving to another hotel, getting settled and then packing again in the morning for our departure from the area. It was not an experience I would like to repeat.

The moral of the story is:
With Marriott make sure they put the departure date in writing.



[This message has been edited by 2bgrounded (edited 08-13-2000).]

I thought this sounded vaguely familiar. And you know what, I was right.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum63/HTML/000354.html

Ah, but now the story has been made more exciting with the "If we did not check out they would physically remove our belongings from our room." I really liked that part. Is it just me, or has anyone ever checked into a hotel where they don't say "please verify your rate and check out date and then sign at the bottom". Geez - most hotels actually have you inital the rate and check out date. So where's that part of the story in this saga?!

Thank you UpgradeMe.

Upgrademe wrote:
I thought this sounded vaguely familiar. And you know what, I was right.

What I thought was that I must have accidently lost my previous message or else I was going nuts. I did a search on myself but didn't find it that way either. Sorry for the duplicate post.

Thanks too, to BeantownFlyer who wrote:
Is it just me, or has anyone ever checked into a hotel where they don't say "please verify your rate and check out date and then sign at the bottom". Geez - most hotels actually have you inital the rate and check out date. So where's that part of the story in this saga?!

This part was complicated (for me) by the fact that my husband checked in while I entertained our daughter. He and I each had a conference at the same convention center during the very same days. How many times does that happen?

Anyway, my husband is much less belligerent than I. He was also the one who accepted the move to the other hotel while he entertained our daughter. What can I say, he's a nice guy.




[This message has been edited by 2bgrounded (edited 08-14-2000).]

Well 2b - even if you had written confirmation showing the later checkout date, wouldn't they just (rightly) say "here's the card you husband signed at check-in verifying the (earlier) checkout date and rate"? So I'm not sure the lesson is to make sure you have a written confirmation - isn't the lesson (perhaps for your husband) to carefully examine what he is signing on check-in - or suffer the consequences (i.e. explaining to you what he screwed up this time). Or maybe the lesson is for you - not to trust your husband to check in!!! Anyway, sorry you had any aggravation at the hotel!

Easily remedied......book with Marriotts on line and don't you always check at check in, what day you are planning to leave. Seems like a bit of commonsense to me.

Mike, I agree. In fact, I now book almost all my hotel stays online. I then take the e-mail confirmation I receive and cut and paste it into my Palm Pilot - so if I have a problem at check-in I don't need to worry if I remembered to take a paper confirmation - I just show the desk clerk my Palm's display.

so do I BeantownFlyer http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

In over a hundred stays with Marriott I've never had a written confirmation. However, like most people I do verify my checkout date when checking in -- and Marriotts normally give me a little folder that has my checkout date printed on the back. I must admit I normally just toss the folder.. but it's there... the rate and the checkout date.

I am stubborn and given the circumstances, I would have like to see if they would actually physically remove me from that room. I know of colleagues who have had a similar experience but simply stated that they would not be leaving because this was a reservation problem (your word against theirs) and let them take the next step. It would be poor customer relations especially for a frequent guest.

Then again, trying to find your belongings at "Lost and Found" in the hotel wouldn't be any fun either.

The Palm Pilot aficionados have the technological edge to be sure. Not being as electronically enabled, a paper copy of an online reservation would have accompanied me if I could have had one.

I made the reservation early in 1999. Once the reservation system was making 2000 reservations I thought it wasn't worth changing from a $142/night rate to $165/night or more. It would be a good trick to change a telephone reservation into an online one. I have changed an online reservation by phone to a better rate if I saw it online. I have no experience going from a phone reservation to an online reservation, except where the rates came down and the former could be cancelled.

It is reassuring to know other stubborn travelers would have fought and, no doubt, won the battle. The thing is, at check in the date was correctly the Sunday date. The mess occured when we changed our checkout date to Saturday and they made it Friday for their convenience.

The assistant manager agreed with me when I said the message was that we should not tell them our checkout date until our bags are packed. At least with Marriott there is no penalty for doing so.



[This message has been edited by 2bgrounded (edited 08-15-2000).]

Good point. No early checkout penalty. Normally if I plan to checkout early, I tell them the night before, no earlier. That works for me; I still get the bill under the door, and it's just like any other checkout.