I know technically that cheques are not allowed on AAA rates, however, in practice, most hotels either do not care, or do not know, or do not comprehend that "no rate which requires identification" actually refers to customer identification other than some kind of picture identification, and for most hotels, IMHO, it is either not care or not comprehend, because I have used cheques on AAA rates several times, at several different properties, some more than once.

Also, I do not get the impression that MI cross references incoming cheques with the actual customer folios the cheques were applied to. Because, if MI was doing that, the first time it happened to a hotel, and there was a chargeback from MI against a hotel, there would be a sign posted somewhere behind the front desk of that hotel which says, in BIG BLOCK LETTERS "DO NOT ACCEPT MARRIOTT CHEQUES ON ANY TYPE OF DISCOUNTED MEMBERSHIP RATE SUCH AS AAA, by penalty of death."

Finally, please keep in mind, that even if a hotel knew they could not accept them on the actual AAA rate, the cheques can be applied to ANY kind of incidental charges, from food to beach chairs to alcohol to movies to some kind of tour booked through the hotel and posted to the folios.

The head of finance at the Curacao Marriott told me that because I had in excess of $2000 worth of charges (room plus food for a week) that my bill would probably get audited by corporate because of the gift cheques. They reluctantly agreed and I never heard from them again.

Interesting that you know that. I never knew that, because I've never used them on a business trip, or on a folio that large, because, for me, a stay of over 7 days or of that size that would have been a business trip, and I never used them for business, only for personal (and never on a folio of that size either), since that would have screwed up my taxes.

I have used them on personal stay folios which were over $1,000 though, and never gave a thought to the size of folios likely to be audited by MI corporate.

hoping Socrates can weigh in to see if that was true or not.

To see if WHAT was true or not?

That MI might audit the folio or if they made that up.

I'm trying to think of the last time a guest folio was audited by corporate (that I knew about)....I know it's happened in my lifetime...maybe once, twice...but even then it wasn't the size of the folio that triggered it, as I recall (it's been a long long time) I believe it was an issue with Honored Guest Awards (yes the old HGA program now known as MR)...there really is no reason to audit individual folios to see what the method of payment would be....the expense would be huge and I haven't a clue what the benefit would be, sure there's a small amount of discount on the checks but it certainly wouldn't be larger than the amount of ill-will generated by contacting the guest after they departed to gain another form of payment - it's up to the individual hotels to be sure they maximize their profitabilities

I'm sure that MI audits folios occasionally, but there are some hotels which might have a $2,000+ average folio at certain times of the year.

I don't stay at $400-500/night hotels often, but I have once or twice (and did not choke to death), such as back in 2008, when the lowest rate in February at Wailea Beach Marriott Resort & Spa, $475 per night plus $25 resort fee, where I was staying on a 7 day Island Hopper reward (no longer available), and was one night short, so I had to pay for one night there.

That means for a relatively routine stay, or even average stay, of four nights, a folio there at that time would be considerably over $2,000 (the rates there now are much lower). So if a hotel has over half of their folios which cross $2,000, would MI actually audit all of those? I would find that hard to believe.

This would probably be true in very high cost cities such as London or Paris or Moscow or Tokyo or even New York or Boston, and maybe even all year round at some of their hotels. Boston was the one other time I paid over $400 per night for a hotel room, but that was more than fifteen years ago, and I think it was also $475/night.

thought it was worth noting I have no issue with the above post

WHEW!

;)

Could you imagine the extremely high number of and dollar value of chargebacks for hotels on some of these relatively arcane program rules?

Even without chargebacks, it would not surprise me that frustration with some of the program rules, AT ALL CHAINS, not just MI chains, if more than 10% of hotels going private or reflagging were doing so due to frustrations with some of the arcane, or small print, rules which need to be memorized by staff and management, on the huge multitude of these frequent guest and promotional programs.

I mention all the time that I have done this, or I have done that, being blissfully unaware that something I did involving a hotel stay or car rental or airline travel was against some rule that I had never even heard of, much less memorized! Just talking about some of them makes me feel like my head is going to explode. (However, this conversation, about cheques on ID rates, is not one of those times.)

+1

I am on the fence whether to go in for $2K or $3K.

If the offer is again extended at the 11th hour I can just order $1K and not have to worry about expiration dates.

We stayed at the Marriott Curacao this Thanksgiving for 5 nights, 2 rooms for us, grandma and 2 kids, and well over 2000 between the room rates (elite only 119/night), food, snorkel trip, etc. Paid part of bill with cheques, no problem. We have used checques here three times (both elite only and AAA rates), with the low room rates it very rarely made sense to book on points. So sad this is no longer an option. I got the feeling this hotel sees far more than Michelle's stated 0.002% usagage of cheques. They are extremely familiar with them.

Can anyone confirm whether or not cheques are usable at Ritz Carltons? I don't see anything on the website to that effect but a CSR assured me I could NOT use them at a Ritz.