So, after a year of hard/arduous work, I have become Platinum today. I am planning a large catered affair in celebration. In all seriousness, I am more excited than I should be. I should probably get a life of some sort

I've read about the perks, and the one I am most excited about is the guaranteed reservation (with 48 hours notice). I am a pretty good planner aheader and usually adept at securing sought after rooms for some of the nonsense I attend - cheerleading competitions, college football games. But still - the notion I can get a room with only 48 hours notice is pretty exciting.

I am just not clear on how that works? I looked quick online and it still will show a hotel as having no availability. Do I have to call the Plat line?

Thanks!

How many rooms are you trying to get? The 48-hr guarantee only provides 1 room for the Plat elite.

This benefit is only available when the property wishes to offer it (MR's definition of guarantee). Generally, if available, Marriott.com will offer the room when logged into your account as Plat. You might be able to get a room by calling MR (but many CSRs will just say no if the says no, which you already know). SOMETIMES, a call to the property will get you a room. Also, keep in mind, the benefit does not say you get the room at a cheap rate.

I don't view this benefit as anything more than marketing hype, we'll do it when we want/can but will deny it when better for us.

Just one, but I see I have tested my theory at a hotel where I already have a reservation.

So if I am booking one room at a hotel that is fully booked, I should be able to do that online, yes?

Several months ago, I had a situation where I had gotten an email from a hotel manager where I had a reservation (was a gold member) The hotel (a Fairfield) had been over booked by 45 rooms because Plat members used their guaranteed reservation privilege. She was reaching out to non Plat's who had reservation to try and see if people would change their reservations to a hotel a 1/2 hour away with some extra points thrown in. This was a parents weekend at my daughter's college.

This is what made me think that the guarantee was pretty iron clad, because what hotel would want to place themselves in that kind of overbooking situation?

See http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marri...-override.html for more experiences.

Clearly an optional guarantee.

One thing to note is that you might not even realize sometimes you're getting a Platinum override when you are actually getting one. That's one thing I think Marriott should do (but obviously it's wayyyyyy down on the IT list) - have a pop-up showing the Platinum override was applied.

One way of finding out (or some don't realize) is because if they're logged in it will show availability to book (not necessarily at a cheap rate) but if not logged in it shows no availability.

Cheers.

This is NOT true. Actually, this is one area that I like the way Marriott has implemented the benefit.

The hotel has NO direct control over this benefit. When you check for a room online, if you are a Plat, the only time a hotel won't show availability is if they go to Marriott Corp and ask for a waiver. And to get that waiver, they have to show that their hotel is pretty much booked up by a particular group or event. Only then will Marriott grant it and then Marriott corp will turn off the Plat override.

As I mentioned earlier, you only get one room per night with this benefit. So if you already have a room at that hotel (using a Plat override) you won't get a 2nd one. And as some others have mentioned, Marriott's system will tell you when you are using the Plat override, but it's very easy to miss that notice when you are making the reservations. So quite often you may get one and not even realize you used that benefit.

I also want to mention that you will get that room at the "Rack Rate", meaning that it will be more expensive than typical rates. I've even seen a few hotels offer the maximum rate allowed by law when using the platinum override.

IME, not necessarily. Stayed in St Louis a number of years ago during the World Series, using the Platinum guarantee. Rate was well below rack.

I've gotten a room as Platinum at a sold out hotel before. The hotel told me that this benefit is only available If I paid rack rate, which was higher than any normally advertised prices (and much higher than my corporate rate).

And I've gotten it at rates that were so reasonable I didn't know it was an override until other people couldn't book.

I do believe that socrates a few years back stated that the rate for a Plat Guaranteed Room depended on whether it was a FS or non-FS hotel. FS hotels would use their "general" corp rate (which could be higher than a particular company's corp rate). I'll have to see if I can find that post.

IIRC the one that surprised me the most was Okinawa. I booked it for the husband in high season at ~275 night, which was the same rate as all the surrounding hotels. Then all the folks he was traveling with reported they couldn't book and we couldn't figure out what was going on for awhile.

Me too, a pleasant surprise once. Got the Oakland FS at $199 once during a busy weekend with a home football game. It was high for my tastes but reasonable compared to others since most everything was sold out and I needed it. Just don't count on it!