Just got off the complaint line with Marriott - is this an appropriate response?
 

I had a stay this weekend where a portion of the hotel experienced a power outage. This was clearly an internal issue as full-power was available throughout the area, and even in the other half of the hotel.

The issues in our room for over 8 hours, and during a time where we were trying to get ready for a formal event were:

- Air Conditioning out
- Cold water only
- TV/Wifi out
- One working power outlet for the room
- One working light in bathroom, one working light in the room
- Breakfast was dry goods only

CSR said they would forward the issue on to the hotel and offered me 1,000 points. I wasn't able to speak with the GM during my stay and received no pro-active response from them. Hotel was 100% full (small town, big event) so there was no prospect of moving us to another room.

Maybe I'm missing something, or have become pretentious, but when a room is lacking A/C, hot water, and power...it really isn't a hotel stay and I assume the remedy to be greater than 1,000 points?

What property?

Did you not talk to anyone while at the property? Always tougher to deal with these issues after the fact.

In my mind, 1000 points is not sufficient. But not knowing what you paid or the property level, I do not know what would be appropriate.

FI in Weriton, WV. Which I have stayed at before, good property and nice staff at check-in.

Woke up to the outage. Overheard someone at breakfast mention that the hotel hoped to have the power restored by the afternoon. Didn't have time before the event to speak with anyone, avoided the hotel until 9-10pm given the issues. Then left in the morning with a line 4-5 deep at checkout, wasn't waiting around. Assumed corporate could handle this one easily.

Points stay.

If your room had all these problems for 8 hours, my expectation would be to have the night comped.

I am missing something.

Was this going on the night before you went to bed? If not, then I am not sure how you know it was 8 hours since you "woke up to problem" and avoided the hotel until 9 PM. Just because "someone at breakfast" sad something that's not really a good "time estimate"

Now if you were in the room I would have been complaining THEN not waiting until check out etc... While the power was out was the time to ask them "you aren't expecting me to pay for this subpar room are you?"

If it was a hotel I had stayed at before and planned to stay again, my next call would be to the GM at the hotel to ask why you didn't get a refund of some or all of your points (assuming you do know how long the power was out)

Woke up at 8:30am Saturday. Was told the outage began around 7am. We had to be out the hotel by 11am for the event. The power was out in the building when we left. When the event was over at 2pm, we chose not to return to the hotel given the conditions when we left. Maid the next morning said it came back on around 3 or 4pm.

As I said earlier, I didn't have time to speak with anyone before leaving the hotel that morning as I went to get breakfast to-go from a nearby restaurant and we were trying to use one outlet for an iron, straightener, and blow dryer. Then at check-out the line was 3 or 4 groups deep and I honestly didn't feel like waiting in line to then ask for the Manager.

Well your decision to "avoid" the problem has limited your complaint options to those that tend to be less effective.

Personally I would just call the GM now and not deal with corporate.

In the moment, I would have expected the GM / Manager on duty to simply comp the room. Now, after the fact, you either accept what you're offered or not.

Calling is a bad idea. I would send the GM an email listing the items and specifically asking him to comp the room.

I guess I'll learn for the future.

It's a Fairfield Inn, so I don't think you're out much regardless. I don't understand the lack of hot water, unless the hotel uses electric for it's heaters. That, quite honestly, is the real complaint. The partial power outage was during the day, when you admittedly weren't going to be there much. It's spring, so I don't think the AC issue is a biggie.

As far as compensation, 5,000 points would be the minimum, or a comp of one night's stay. If it was winter or the middle of summer, and you were cranking the heat or AC at night and it you lost power, that's a big deal. Or, if you're there for work, and internet access is down for an extended period. As is, not having AC for a few hours in the morning in springtime, and missing out on a free waffle is not a massive loss. But, you have to complain while there.

I'd venture to guess the hotel was occupied 90%+ for the graduation. Everyone was getting ready between 7-10am and my assumption is that the hotel couldn't handle the power/water load.

After 4+ hours of no air circulation in a hotel room with showers (even room temp water), blow dryers, and straighteners...it gets bad.

Not to mention it was in the 70's that morning already. And the room was on a motion activated A/C unit so there's no telling the last time it went on before we woke up.

Agreed - I've never known an engineering firm, local authority or MI to allow a building's design to only handle a less than 100% occupancy level....I too think it was a circuit outage from the local utility (commercial buildings aren't like homes, often they are fed by multiple circuits)

Sounds like camping!:D:D:D

Definitely shocked at the lack of response of local Management, during the outage and afterwards. Not that it matters but for a college graduation in a small town, you can bet rates were sky high. Unexpected stuff happens, but how you react to it is what matters.

A simple apology, pizza party, complementary drinks, coupon, etc would have gone lightyears towards lessening the impact. Instead, it sounds like they counted on the nature of the infrequent travelers that tend to populate these events to "shrug it off" and not complain like the OP did. They did not want to share their windfall would be my guess.