Marriott Concierge: What does it take to get points posted?

First I am currently traveling in India right now...

Starting about 3.5 weeks ago I stayed at the Jordan Valley Marriott, Petra Marriott, Amman Marriott, Dubai JW, and then Hong Kong JW Marriott.

Jordan Valley and Petra posted quickly but short about 4600 and 2600 points respectively.

Once I reached Dubai, over 2 weeks ago, I called Plat Premier line and they first said that these were discounted rates booked through Expedia. I told them they were not, that these rates were booked on marriott.com, which they were, and they were Marriott Rewards rates as shown below:
She then put me on hold (Skype from my iPhone) for about 25 minutes at which time I called the front desk and asked them to make a collect call to Marriott HQ in Bethesda, MD. They connected me where I was summarily transferred to Marriott Rewards in Salt Lake City. After I got Marriott Rewards on the line I ask for an email address where I could send copies of my folio. They gave me the address [email protected]. I emailed in copies on my folios and called Plat Premier line back to ask for them to confirm that the email was received. They put me on hold again and checked with SLC and came back and told me that the Marriott Rewards department is not the same one that receives the email and they could not confirm the receipt of my email but assured me that it would be taken care of within the next 10 days.

OK, so now that I am in Agra and finally have decent inet I call PP line again. After being put on hold for 35 minutes I get auto transferred to customer care who were of even less help. The customer care guy said I need to fax in the folios to Marriott Rewards. I told him I already spoke with MR and emailed in the folios twice but never received a response and was trying to send it to someone who could confirm receipt and forward the folios to Marriott Rewards. He said I would have to call Marriott Rewards on Monday. Total time of call, most of which was on hold, 65 minutes.

In all cases PP, CC, etc I have to go through all the details, I told these folks I was in India, have limited phone service in India, won't pay $20 bucks to FAX folios in order to correct their errors. I used the email mechanism they provided and requested email confirmation, never received one nor have I seen my point totals corrected. I also asked for a real persons email so I can confirm they received it while I am on the phone, etc. - no go.

All-in-all spent close to 2 hours on the phone dealing with this issue. Customer Care was pathetic and provided no options outside their limited script and couldn't care less IMO. Platinum Premier line is a joke IMO.

I have forwarded my folios to Marriott Concierge to see if they can be of any help.

Almost 11:30 PM here so I am off to bed.

In my experience, this is an ongoing problem with Marriott Rewards.

I guess you could wait until you got home to sort it out.

It is frustrating and it gets old having to fight for points that you earned.

Maybe if you sent an e-mail to the CEO about your situation, they will try to fix the problem at heart.

Actually that is a good suggestion. However, being the organized/anal person I am I tend to not let things wait that long. Also I won't return home until Dec 7 and then just for 6 days before heading to Micronesia. Needless to say I will have a lot of other things to take care of then, so things like this become even more of an annoyance then.

If this doesn't get resolved inthe next week,then I will probably peck away at this when I get to Phuket at the end of next week if Marriott Concierge can't help. I could ask the Phuket Renaissance to FAX this to Marriott, but IMO they shouldn't have to pay for a call (FAX) to the US because other Marroitt's screwed up.

when these problems occur here in asia, I found it easier to just scan the invoices and e-mail them to MRs to obtain proper points...........

So my husband shoud be paying me more to handle all of these pesky things for him?

Oh that's right, I don't get paid!

That's what I do as well. Marriott Concierge a few years back provided an e-mail address for us to use for that purpose:

[email protected]

It usually gets fixed within a day or two.

While I did not expect a reply until Monday, I actually received a response from customer care that the points have been adjusted and would be reflected in 24-48 hours. Considering it is the weekend I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't until Thursday at the latest when they show up in my account. This restores my faith in Marriott customer service in general and is inline with my expectations and experiences prior to the most recent indifference of yesterday's phone call with CC and the good intentions but inefficiencies of the PP line.

And with regard to the last issue, while it appears that PP is providing above and beyond service to the PP members, when PP line puts the PP member on hold, calls MR and then comes back to the PP member with the wrong of scripted response from the MR line, then has to put the PP member back on hold, and repeat this process until things are finally settled is a huge inefficiency IMO. Instead the PP member talking directly with MR could facilitate things much quicker and seamlessly. This appearance of an improvement is actually a huge mistake and one that wastes the time of all participants.

After staying up to midnight last night dealing with this and then being up at 5 AM this morning to go see the sunrise at Taj Mahal I am calling it quits for this evening (8:45 PM here) and heading to bed early. Another 5 AM wake up call in the AM as I am off to Khajuraho on a morning train.

Thanks again for all your suggestions and putting up with my rant.