Elevator Out-How much compensation to request???
 

Today, I woke for a day of work and meetings. Showered, dressed, talked to my lovely wife, packed and left my room. THEN the trouble started.

Three doors away was the elevator-with a HUGE out of order sign. Keep in mind-I was on the SECOND floor of this three story behemoth. I had a 22" roller AND a laptop bag. NOW I had to take a flight of stairs??? WHERE WERE THEY? OH, I turned around and found them. Down the steps.... TWO BEADS of sweat formed on my brow. This was hot, humid NC!

Down to the lobby and my car. I LEFT MY PHONE IN THE ROOM! WHAT TO DO???

I walked back in. The reception clerk recognized me. I told her I forgot my phone back up the stairs. She offered to have someone get it so I didnt have to hike the stairs. NO WAY! I want every last drop of comp. I can get. UP THE STEPS. Trudge trudge. Grab my phone....back down the steps. Two more beads of sweat CHACHING!

FINALLY into my car and off!

Now, my question....how much comp? I just made LTP. I am thinking 270k points. A nice Cat 1-5 travel package with 120k FF miles. I don't want to be ridiculous and ask for anything higher. Am I aiming to low???

(BTW, everything above happened today-with some embellishment. The interest in comp. is pure satire... :D )

A two-week stay at a relaxing resort in Hawaii would be my first thought for compensation. I would also ask for a complimentary one-year gym/spa enrollment benefit at a first-class gym/spa close to your home. The four beads of sweat that were caused by the hotel's devastating elevator outage should definitely be justification for regular spa treatments. And spa treatments may help to head off any long term emotional damage caused by the incident. Maybe a car and driver to get back and forth from your home to the spa would be warranted too.

You need to be sure that there are no lingering effects from this horrible incident, thus the resort benefit and a year's worth of treatment is a minimum. More resort visits may be necessary if you find yourself still shaken up from the incident after your first resort stay ends.

One meeeeeeeelion dollars!

Consider yourself fortunate, MrVker; I'm a Silver and we're not allowed to use the elevators.

;)

I was forced to spend a night WITHOUT TV in a New Jersey CY a few days after Hurricane Sandy hit. I demanded a free night because they neglected to tell me at check-in that the cable was down across the State...:o JK-I did not.

You should be compensated just for having to stay in New Jersey. :)

Post of the week

I think asking for a Cat 7 or 8 is fair since the hotel forced you to forget your phone due to the failure of room design to remind you. Also, I think the hotel should be reprimanded for not showing forward thinking and call you approximately 10 seconds before departing the room to remind you to grab the phone. Or how about not having pack animals or a guy named Earl at the ready for the gargantuan hike down the stairs to aleve the stress of walking and carrying.

Also it is not a privilege, but rather a right to have elevator access with appropriate volumed music to make the travel on an elevator less anxious.

All in all, Marriott dropped the ball on this one and this property needs some serious retraining.

Consider yourself fortunate, too. If you had been staying at the same prop as the OP, he could have demanded one of his Plat benefits, namely that Silvers have to carry his bags. ;)

Did you check the hotel layout map? Are you sure there wasn't a second elevator somewhere else?

Most three-story hotels I've been at have two elevators, sometimes together but sometimes at opposite ends of the property.

In the past couple months, I stayed repeatedly at one Fairfield where one of the elevators is out for a prolonged period. (It was out for several weeks while I was there, and on my last checkout for curiosity I asked about it, and they said some major parts have to be replaced and they expect it to take at least another month.) At least I (a Marriott Plat) was always given either a first-floor room or a room near the working elevator (at the other end of the property). I don't know if they put guests on the second and third floor near the non-working elevator or not.

Having said that, i rarely use the elevator when I don't have a roller bag. So I can relate to your trip down, but the return trip for the phone, I would voluntarily take the stairs one flight up for something like that, rather than have to wait for a working elevator, if a phone was all I had to carry.


And, by the way, two-story properties often don't have elevators at all. (Though I don't know whether the Marriott program has any of those or not.)

Do you have to carry Platinum bags? I will look for a Silver at my next check in.

HAHAHAHA! I hadn't read your post before I posted above!

Just scan the crowd for a Rodney Dangerfield look alike.

Thankfully the earlier posts successfully addressed the absurdity of the OP request. If you were in the 15th floor that would be one thing but if you are dropping beads of sweat gong down one floor of a place with air conditioned corridors you have larger health problems to deal with.

Did you read the entire OP? The words embellishment and satire were there! And besides, maybe the air conditioning was out? :)