poor Treatment from Mexico City Marriott Reforma
 

How would you guys handle this one? I'm Marriott Platinum currently staying at Mexico City Reforma Marriott. Last night I returned to the hotel with my wife after dinner. At the elevator the security guard rudely told me that I needed to go to the front desk to register my "accompanante"

I politely responded that my wife was properly registered. He then moved in front me blocking my access to the elevator and insisted I go to the reception. I called over one of the other security guards who recognized me and my wife and he cleared us to go up to our room.

My wife was and still is very upset and I'm pretty insulted. I spoke to someone at reception today and she said the manger would contact me later today, but as of yet this has not happened.

I speak fluent Spanish. My wife was not inappropriately dressed or anything like that. While I understand, the need to register all guests, there are definitely more subtle ways the security guard could have approached us without insulting my wife.

Should I just drop this? Or is this something I should pursue further with the hotel or Marriott? Thoughts?

If I was still at the hotel, I would insist on speaking to a manager.

In common usage, what does "accompanante" mean in Spanish?

Sounds like he thought the OP's wife was a hooker/prostitute.

To the OP, if you're still at the property definitely bring it up w/ the GM & not just the FDC (although on a weekend the GM might not be available). Don't drop this. The security guard was out of line. If the GM doesn't respond, then escalate it to Marriott HQ.

Good luck!

Cheers.

Agreed. Complain loudly on this one - the guy accused your wife of being a hooker.

Not defending hotel security in ANY way, but to put this in context for people who haven't traveled to Latin America:

Prostitution is legal in many of these countries. Most of the hotels, especially the high end ones, charge a "hooker tax" for someone else occupying your room with you. It forces them to register at the desk.

Hope this gets resolved.

The issue is not whether the property charges a "hooker tax" but whether the wife was properly registered. If so, she should simply have produced her room card (key) and be done with it.

Under the circumstances, this should be dealt with on property. 99% of issues are best dealt with in person.

Chances are that unless OP and his wife are the only couple staying at the property, this issue has arisen before and the more it is brought to management's attention, the more management is likely to fix it.

I'm single, but always request TWO room keys, I keep one in my wallet and the other in my side pants pocket--it's easy to leave your room key on a table in your room (say), walk out and be locked out, but the 2nd key "saves the day".
So in OPs case even if she were a hooker, couldn't he separately give her his extra key and if she were challenged by security in the elevator she would produce a valid room key.

If I was out to dinner w/ (hypothetical in my case) hubby & he had the room key, I'm not sure I'd remember to bring mine w/.

And again, the key (pardon the pun) is how the security guard approached it - which was rude. As the OP says: "While I understand the need to register all guests, there are definitely more subtle ways the security guard could have approached us without insulting my wife."

Cheers.

We live in Colombia, so I'm very familiar with the cultural norms in Latin America. Normally, security asks what room you are registered in, checks a list, verifiy the registration and that's that. My issue is with the way security approached us, the assumption being she was a prostitute.

i am still at the hotel, so I will escalate and report back what happens. Thanks for the comments.

My wife never carries her key if we're out together. And as stated above, having a key is no indication that you're a registered guest.

Agreed.

There is a right way to do this and a wrong, and what you encountered was definitely wrong.

What do you guys think the security officer should have done differently? His job is to make sure that hotel guests are not bringing unregistered "friends" up to the rooms. This is not usually a gambit to generate revenue; it's to protect the security and safety of all guests. Unregistered visitors to the hotel are more likely to cause problems, drug hotel guests, steal from those guests or from other rooms, etc. It's perfectly reasonable for the hotel to want to identify any visitors entering the hotel late at night.

The security officer didn't say "Hey, she's a hooker!" He simply saw someone entering the hotel late at night who he believed, based on his observations and experience, was not a registered guest. Why he believed that, I don't know. If the OP is an older white male and the wife is a younger Hispanic female, well, that might be part of the reason. At some hotels in some parts of the world, when a white guy returns to the hotel late at night with a young local woman, then she is usually an unregistered "new friend." Or maybe he had seen, or thought the had seen, the OP in the hotel alone before and now was surprised to see him a companion. He got it wrong, but I don't think it's fair to expect them to be 100% accurate when seeing someone who they think is unregistered.

If we agree that hotels can and should restrict guests from bringing unregistered "friends" up to the rooms at night, then how else can they do that except by having security officers stop people who appear to be unregistered when they are going up to the rooms? If the security officers never stopped anyone, for fear of offending the occasional couple, then they'd end up letting a bunch of unregistered hookers, I mean "visitors" up to the rooms.

Simply put, stopping unregistered hookers from going up to the rooms is an important respect of hotel security in Latin America and the only way to do that is to stop couples entering the hotel late at night and verify that they are both registered.

You might want to read the OP and subsequent comments more carefully.

Anyone who travels frequently in latin america knows this can be (and usually is) handled without physical intimidation and/or a ridiculous insistence that the guest go to reception to register his wife when she is already a registered guest.

The way I read the OP, that's exactly what he said.