I made a post today on a similar situation

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum63/HTML/001951.html

We had called the hotel from the airport and the person who answered the phone said sure they had our reservation, come on over. Then at the front desk the senario virtually mimicked peter42's. It happened to several others also. They were placing us at different locations around the lobby until the night manager could tell us what they were going to do for us.

We have finally been compensated very well. Did Marriott jump at the chance to take care of the matter easily and follow through on their own initiative? No. They came up with the compensation only after several calls to the Heathrow Renaissance Manager and then 3 calls to Customer Service.

While we did finally receive a nice compensation package I don't agree with the statement that we dream of these overbooking situations happening to us. I'd rather not deal with hassles. I get especially irritated when a business fails to follow through.

This trip was a biggie for us and was 2 years in the planning. There were 4 different accommodations in 2-1/2 weeks. Each had some sort of minor/major irritant. For my own peace of mind I hope to adopt a better "go with the flow" attitude (like Dave M). Does that mean I'll let the company off the hook when they mess up. Not at all. If all the customers did that we might as well kiss good service goodbye. I just won't be so surprised from now on at the lack of follow through and make a mental note that any problem will take a bit of action but Marriott's always (so far) come through in the end.

I've also learned to short cut some problems by:

1. Calling ahead to check on reservation
2. Book 2 rooms with 2 reservations
3. Call regarding square footage of room
4. Get a written note from person in charge about any agreement before leaving the property.
5. to be discovered. . .

Boy, sounds like I'm dealing with teenagers and having to be one step ahead of them. . . .


[This message has been edited by gardengirl (edited 08-23-2002).]

But don't complain afterwards if you're charged for two rooms ...

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif LH738, surely you understood that only when needing 2 rooms would I book each with it's own reservation. That was the whole point to my first post.

We were a family of 4 and legally had to have 2 rooms. When the Renaissance didn't have either and walked us, the rule for compensation is for Marriott to find accommodations and give the Rewards Member 2 nights and $200. This was my first experience with this rule and I read it to mean 2 nights/$200 per room. Thanks to Dave M I can now see it as Marriott intended. To me it's like one of those black & while pictures that if you look at it quickly it can either appear as two faces staring at each other or as an hourglass.

To alleviate this problem in the future, when we need 2 rooms we can use both of our Rewards/Credit Card numbers.

Since many flyertalkers could also be travelling using multiple rooms I thought it a tidbit of info they might think about.