I need to add a night to a reservation at a JW Marriott that is sold out due to a conference I am attending.

After contacting both Marriott and the hotel, I was told that Marriott does not maintain a waitlist for elites (or anyone else) when a hotel is sold out. Instead the customer is directed to check the website periodically or telephone Marriott to see if there is a cancellation. According to the hotel, if a reservation for that night is cancelled at some future date, it goes back into the general system and will appear for booking on the website (not sure if I believe that as the entire hotel is blocked for the conference).

It goes without saying that this system is not efficient for the hotel or the customer. It would seem to me that since the block is under control of the property, it would not be difficult for group sales dept. to maintain a waitlist that could be checked prior to releasing cancelled rooms back into general inventory. Given the # and nature of attendees, I am 100% certain that rooms will be cancelled, particularly as there is no penalty prior to 24 hours.

Needless to say I am not too happy with Marriott. I don't get much that is useful in the way of elite benefits, and this would be something that would cost them nothing to do.

haven't heard of any other brand that has this service either so what's your point (besides the rant) ???????????

I don't know of any either. I can understand the OP's frustration & he's not Plat so he can't force an override. But I don't think hotels are going to offer this service anytime soon. Since the OP has said that he thinks there will be a cancellation odds are he'll get his additional night; it's just that he'll have to continue checking to see when availability opens up.

Cheers.

I could be wrong, but there are no hotel chains that I know of that offer any kind of a waitlist? I see you are elite in other chains so could be missing something. Is this a benefit with any other chain?

Not that I know of. The point is that it is a valuable benfit that would cost nothing as it could be handled by existing staff. I guess Plat override provides the same benefit but using a different mechanism. Of course that dumps another customer from his room, which is not what I am requesting.

It's actually seems like a good idea...something that could be coded into the reservation system without any impact at all on the local properties.

Like an airline standby list, you could offer it up to any guest and the list could auto-sort by elite status. If a room gets dumped into inventory, the person at the top of the list gets an email or text and, say, two hours to accept or decline at the price point offered. If no acceptance, down the list it goes. If it's within a day of check-in, that 2 hours response time could scale right down to 15 minutes or whatever. Simple programming. Probably could be in beta in a matter of weeks.

You could get carried away and actually auction the room at this point, but now you're talking about more complicated software and a whole new can of worms for revenue management to consider...

To the individual property, there's no incentive to do a standby list because they know some random guest will hit the website at the right time and book the room. But to corporate, it seems like a valuable competitive advantage. The higher elite tiers become more valuable at no cost to anyone, and you reduce the chance that your own elites start sampling and enjoying other brands because they couldn't get into their favorite hotel.

You suggest this to the same people who haven't been able to get their website right? Be careful what you ask for.

LOL...good point.

Well, I'd be happy if any of my main three hotel programs tried it. But I realize that if Marriott did it, it would only load quickly with a dedicated OC-3 pipe on Tuesdays between 2AM and 4AM in clear weather...

Where is this property located? In many states a hotel cannot 'kick you out' for over-staying. They will however charge you their rack rate for the additional night. So depending on how much staying at the property is worth to you, you can just choose to be stubborn and refuse to leave.

But the graphics would be mesmerizing!

This is funny.

Several times in the past (and most likely always at Marriott's) I've asked the front desk if I could extend my stay and when getting a "sorry, sold out" response, I've asked if they could call me in the event of likely day of arrival cancellations. They've always said sure, took my cell number, then like a fool I waited for the phone call that never came.

Makes sense now...

I'm not aware of any chains that offer (priority) waitlist as a published benefit, but many individual hotels are willing to do a waitlist, which they might close when it becomes too long to be realistic. Many convention booking outfits also do wait lists, although I would not expect them to give elite priority, although they might well give priority to whomever they consider to be a VIP.

It does? Indulge me please, by saying it. Why is it more efficient for a hotel to collect, track and maintain a wait list, and reach out to customers every time there's a cancellation than to.... do nothing and let the reservation systems take care of it?

Beta? LOL We are talking about the programming staff that brings us all the other wonderful enhancements at marriott.com. While a great idea in theory, surely you jest. BTW beta testing at Marriott, as best I can tell, means they just drop it into production.

That had occurred to me but my boss won't be happy when I submit a hotel bill for $1000/nt

Yes, I thought it would be more realistic for an individual property to maintain a list, particularly for an event where they have blocked the rooms.

It won't be efficient for them to have my secretary call them every hour for the next 3 months. Or for other attendees who want rooms to keep calling.