booked room with roll-in shower, none available
 

Friend and I are attending a bridge tournament (i.e. the card game) being held at the Marriott Wardman Park in DC. The activity is relevant because the bridge demographic skews heavily geriatric...

My friend uses a wheelchair and requires a roll-in shower. He booked the room as soon as the group block became available through the tournament's housing organizer requesting the roll-in shower, and subsequently followed up twice directly with the Marriott ADA department/desk/etc. to confirm.

Of course, when we showed up on Sunday, they had no rooms available with a roll-in shower (they said there were only about 5 total on the property); all they had was rooms with tubs and grab bars. He *can* make this work in very limited circumstances with specific layouts/space etc. but they let us look at the only available room type and it was not suitable.

(If I had to guess, either (1) people checking in earlier who requested accessible/mobility-impaired rooms, may have been assigned a roll-in shower regardless of whether they specifically asked for one, or (2) they oversold the roll-in shower -- would seem unwise for a bridge tournament -- but that is all by the way.)

We achieved I think what is probably the best possible outcome from this point -- the front desk agent called the Omni Shoreham across the street (which was in any case the overflow hotel for the event) and they happened to have a room with roll-in shower available, and were willing to honor the group rate. We were a bit concerned about navigating the large hill up to the entrance to the Marriott with a non-powered wheelchair every day but it turns out there's a back way through the garage that lets us avoid that. The Marriott even gave us a fake room key to swipe into and out of the self-parking lot if we want.

So again, in context, we are pretty satisfied, especially with the helpfulness of the Marriott front desk agent in recovering from the situation.

However my friend of course plans to followup with feedback to Marriott after the stay and e.g. see if they will reimburse incidental expenses like wifi that would have been free. Would asking for any other compensation be appropriate? (I'm not much of a hotel guy; he's Marriott Gold but not on FT so I'm asking :)) Or does this all still fall under "room type not guaranteed until checkin" or somesuch.

I think asking for them to reimburse reasonable expenses is fine. Seeking other compensation would (rightly) be seen as a cash grab. This *can* be a learning experience for the Marriott if they listen to the facts. But going in looking for compensation will cause them to immediately tune out, throw some points at the "squeaky wheel", and move on as if nothing happened.

That sounds pretty reasonable; although, what about the MR points he would have earned? Is there a provision for anything similar to ORC when an airline rebooks you during IRROPs?

If you join the Omni rewards scheme and even as a basic member you get free perks like free wifi, a free daily newspaper and a free beverage of your choice in the morning (tea/coffee/hot chocolate/fruit juice or a soft drink).

I have a wet [bath]room booked for a hotel stay this weekend and have been in email communication with the Marriott hotel manager to make sure that I do have it as there is only 1 in this hotel.

I disagree on this one. I think that having to pay a penalty is what makes a business take an issue seriously. This guest should have had the room he reserved and the hotel was aware of the disability. Yes, everyone was lucky that the Omni had a suitable room, but the guest was inconvenienced and the hotel should compensate the guest for that inconvenience and aggravation. That goes beyond just covering additional costs (like the cost of wifi that would have been free at the Marriott).

Ultimately, I think the guest should at the very least receive walk compensation because the room he booked was sold out and he was walked to another hotel.

The devil is in the details. Did anyone tell you (particularly in writing) that you were guaranteed the required room type?

The answer to that question is important to know where to place blame. In one hotel in which I worked, groups were offered a slightly cheaper rate for "run of the house" rooms compared to guaranteeing room/bed types. If the group contract didn't allow for the ability to specific room types, I think the blame falls mostly on the group organized, not the hotel. After all, they would also know that the group "skews heavily geriatric" far more than the hotel.

You may have already moved forward with addressing this issue with Marriott. If you haven't, I'd talk to the person who set up the group contract and ask for details before talking to Marriott.

+1,000 - this is a serious violation. If there is no cost to them it will keep happening to others - I've always looked at things like this is as less of a fight for me and more of a fight to be right for the future.

To put it another way - baseball
Coaches never argue with the ump for the current call - they do it for the next one....

I'll give you an example for my experiences recently - last week I stayed at three FS Marriots in SF - all three offered me a choice of arrival gift - I chose the beverage credit at each one - and not one of them could deliver it - the first two - after running around for a manager for 10 minutes - came back and asked me to wait a bit longer - I just told me to give me the damn points. At the third place I had had it and asked for the manager - they finally show up and I ask them why hey offer me something they can't give me - told them I was sick of it and they better fix it.

I'm betting the next platinum members gets the beverage credit as offered.

He has an email confirming he requested the room, which I recognize as not being a guarantee. And I would ordinarily agree that, given how things went down, it feels like maybe a disconnect occurred between the group organizers and the hotel.

However in discussing this further in the context of the FT thread, he told me something I didn't previously know, which is that less than two days before our arrival, he contacted the property directly and was assured he had a room with a roll-in shower.

He also says that in the past, if he made an online reservation for a roll-in shower room at a Marriott that didn't have one, they have always contacted him shortly thereafter to inform him that room type was sold out and offering alternate accommodations at a nearby property. So it seems they do have some history of not deliberately overbooking these room types.

We agree the primary goal is to make sure it doesn't happen again to him or anyone else. He's not interested in a punitive cash grab, just incidentals and maybe points for the stay.

(If people want more followup details I may have him join FT himself so I don't have to relay :D)

Are there ADA regulations that would apply here? To me it seems bad that someone who needs particular disability accommodations is offered an appropriate room and then it's not available upon arrival. Obviously the person wanted to stay in the headquarters hotel and not someplace else.

Ummm...no. Betting it is not legal for Marriott to say that ADA rooms are not available as part of the group rate. They can be unavailable because they are sold out, but regardless of whether the block is for "run of house" or a specific room type, I would be shocked if the law did not require Marriott to offer ADA rooms w/in the block. If they did not have to do so, that would be tantamount to saying that disabled folks are not entitled to the same rates as others.

Additionally, "run of house" is something the Marriott sales office puts into the contract to increase its flexibility, not something the event planner requests. It's not the group that "didn't allow for" specific room types to be booked, it's the way the salesperson set up the contract. And even if the contract is "run of house," there still has to be a way specify an ADA room for a guest who needs it. That way may just be a human override (as it appears to have been in this case), but that way still needs to exist. And once the request is made and accepted by the hotel, they need to honor it.

I'm not going to get involved in a discussion on legal matters regarding ADA. I simply don't know enough to speak with authority and I'm not going to make assumptions about what is legal and what is not.

Sounds like your friend is a smart man and that he did everything correctly. Baring the possibility that the room(s) with the roll-in shower wasn't offline due to unexpected maintenance, there's no reason why he didn't get the room.

Sadly, not everyone is so diligent. If the group had multiple guests requiring roll-in showers, it's possible that someone who arrived earlier stated she or he needed that accommodation and was given his room. In that case, the hotel should have made that person switch hotels.

Not a lawyer, but here are a few quickly findable links.

http://www.hotelnewsnow.com/Articles...s-for-everyone

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr...-spot-20120415

http://www.gibsondunn.com/publicatio...gulations.aspx

http://www.globaltiesus.org/news/exc...-size-fits-all

Is there some reason that Marriott's Ultimate Reservation Guarantee wouldn't apply to this situation? If a Residence Inn is unable to deliver on a reservation, they must pay for the accommodations nearby and they owe the guest $100 cash.

http://www.marriott.com/marriott-rew...s/guarantee.mi

Is that more or less what lexdevil was alluding to above?

He may try that tack. I will update the thread with any response from Marriott (although I don't know when he will get around to contacting them so it could be a while)

Marriott Gold would get free breakfast, so ask them to pay for that, as well as the Marriott points and nights you (or he) would have received.