Marriott Cancellation Terms - what does this mean?
 

Booking an advance purchase rate online, one is confronted with this text:
Advance Purchase rate, prepay in full, non-refundable if cancelled more than 1 day after booking, no changes, see Rate Rules

The rate details also include this (for a booking made on 8/21)
Please note that you may cancel your reservation for no charge until August 22, 2015.

So if the booking is made at 9AM on 8/21, until when does the free cancellation period extend? Is it until 8.59 AM on 8/22 (i.e. a 24-hour free cancellation window) or is it until 11.59PM on 8/22 (i.e. a calendar day) or some other time?

I called the Marriott 800# but got different answers and had the distinct impression that the phone agent was not very sure of her response.

I would assume 1 day meaning at 12am. It does not say 24hrs after booking

I would assume the other way. "1 day" to me means "24 hours" unless stated otherwise.

English wise, I would say you have the following day (8/22) to cancel. Nothing is said about 24 hours. I do seem to remember there was a previous thread on this and I'm don't think a definite answer was reached.

24-hour grace period?
 

Does Marriott ALWAYS allow a 24-hour grace period for canceling / changing an Advance Purchase rate? Even if it is not specifically mentioned in the booking screen?

I ask, because most hotels seem to have this text on the booking page:
Changes to your reservation are not permitted. Please note that you may cancel your reservation for no charge until September 5, 2015. (1 day after booking)


Other hotels have this text
About this rate Please note that changes to your reservation are not permitted.


So is this omission of the 24-hour grace period done on purpose in the latter case or was it simply sloppy data entry by someone at the property?

Needed help on this too. Before, most hotels let me cancel for free until 4 pm or so the day of. Now I get that 24 hour message.

I actually called Marriott CS about the 24 cancellation message. They said 24 hours.

Marriott writers do not write well. They will eventually be sued because the policies written are not what they meant to write or are intentionally misleading. For example, on a regular rate, the cancelation policy states the following for a reservation beginning on September 18, 2015

As written, this means that you CANNOT cancel on September 17. This is NOT how Marriott actually enforces the policy though. Instead, Marriott means that you may not cancel AFTER September 17, 2015 or that you mean cancel anytime through September 17, 2015.

They're not going to get sued for being more lenient than their poorly-written policy implies.

By enforcing something other than what is written, they may be creating a standard of what is said, not written. When they stop and go to what is written, things go bad.

I believe they are EXCELLENT writers (for the corporation's benefit) for this exact purpose.

How hard would it be to write "you may cancel up until 11:59 PM hotel time the day before check-in" ? This is way we understand it here after great debate and verification.

So 95% of the populace see the vague terms and figure "I better make a extraordinary effort" to get there and use it or blame themselves if the penalty is imposed...

Marriott Niagara Falls Fallsview has for a number of years noted its cancellation policy as "you may cancel until [Thursday], three days before arrival." This meant in years past that you must cancel by Wednesday or get hit by the penalty. This year, when the same language again appeared, I called the hotel and asked what the language meant. The FDC replied that you had until Thursday to cancel. I asked what happened to the old policy. She said that while they still used the same language as before, they changed the interpretation because of many complaints. Same hotel, same wording, new interpretation.