The ITDA

I have booked 7 nights at Fairfield Inn Long Island City/Manhattan View using the 7 nights Cat 5 certificate (one of the two Cat 5 hotels in NYC). Got an email from the Area Director of Sales and Marketing on 5/15 saying "starting on 05/15/2018, the hotel will cease operations and close."

I was offered two relocation options:
Fairfield Inn New York LaGuardia Airport/Flushing – CATEGORY 7, 35,000 POINTS PER NIGHT
Springhill Suites New York LaGuardia Airport – CATEGORY 5, 25,000 POINTS PER NIGHT

I emailed back and ask the original hotel was 3 miles from grand central station and the two options provided was over 10 miles. The rep said she could only relocate me to these two hotels.

Then I emailed back and say I'd take the Cat 7, the rep ask if I'm willing to pay for the extra points (I was like... what exactly does "relocation" meant to you, might as well calling Marriott to rebook, it would've saved me so much more time).

Well, I didn't really push on that and say I'd take the Cat 5 hotel. She booked that for me and ask me to call Marriott Rewards and attach my 7 night e-certificate (what can I say... at least this part is set and I won't be homeless)

In the original response email, I also asked for the Ultimate Reservation Guarantee, she forwarded the question over to the Sales Manager of the hotel, which took 2 weeks of follow up to get the following response:

Any suggestions on what I should do?

Horace

Take a look at the last sentence (which I've highlighted in bold) of this paragraph from the Terms & Conditions at https://www.marriott.com/rewards/terms/elite.mi

Jon Maiman

While this is very unfortunate for the OP and has a major impact on them, I agree with Horace they don't owe you anything. That said, you could have approached the rep. (or their manager if unsuccessful with the rep.) and asked as a courtesy if they could relocate you to a property that also had similar good access to public transportation with your existing certificate from the travel package. E.g. you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

Furthermore, I would have made the request via the phone. Specifically I would have tried to talk directly with the Area Sales Director who sent the email notice to you. Email is so impersonal and easy for folks to say no. Phone (and face to face) conversations are much harder for someone to just say no. Don't get me wrong, I would have been very upset if this happened to me. Never the less, remaining extra calm and politely asking for a one time courtesy upgrade to a property of similar caliber that provides similar transportation options and/or convenient location would be the best way to go. Finally, before making the request, I would have done some homework and figured out which Starriott properties would meet those requirements. When making a complaint it is always good to have a reasonable resolution in mind to suggest. Off SoapBox....

--Jon

P.S. It may not be too late (if your stay hasn't already occurred. Try to get the phone number of the Area Sales Director and calmly explain why you're not satisfied and what you propose instead as a better resolution).

writerguyfl

I used to work in hotels. The cost of any "relocation" that happens prior to the day of arrival is covered by the guest. That's pretty much the industry standard and likely why the Marriott agent assumed that picking the higher category hotel meant you'd spend more.

Note: I'm not saying I agree with this practice. I just saying that's the accepted practice in the industry.

hockeyinsider

Why would anyone stay 7 nights at a Fairfield Inn on Long Island?

C17PSGR

It's Long Island City ... not Long Island. It's an interesting neighborhood of NYC with things to do and on the subway. It may be the cheapest Marriott property in NYC.

joshua362

Definitely sad to see it go, stayed there a few times, super clean, friendly and often more cost effective to pay $109 instead of burning points. Maybe that was the problem...

hockeyinsider

Was it recently renovated? Maybe Marriott was requiring renovations and the owner wouldn't do them. That's not unheard of with limited-service properties.

NDDomer86

According to this website, this hotel was set to be used to house homeless families since the beginning of March.

Perhaps the mixed use of paying Marriott guests and transitional homeless families put a larger burden on the commercial staff of this property than expected to the extent that they decided to turn the entire property over to transitional government housing, or perhaps this was the plan all along.

However, what is not acceptable is that this plan was known at least as early as February and the management of this property felt no need to notify pending reservations. The OP received an email about an upcoming reservation on the effective date of Marriott's alleged cancellation of operation with this property, despite talks of turning it into transitional government housing had buzzed since at least two months prior (negotiations to do so must presumably predate that by at least several months).

What is interesting is that while attempts to book a room at this property are unsuccessful, the landing page for this property still exists and makes absolutely no mention of the fact that this property no longer exists/is part of the Marriott portfolio.

joshua362

Bingo, thanks for the link. If the comments are believable they can make more guaranteed money from the wasteful City and I don't doubt it. Definitely poor handling by the property, I image once the families started moving in, the tide turned quickly. Too bad, it was the only affordable option near NYC with free parking too!

The ITDA

It's for the labor day long weekend and a few of my favorite SPG hotels (sheraton/westin) either sold out or asked for $300+ a night (I booked it long before the August change announcement, so I was mostly looking at the SPG options), then I figured I might as well used the 7 nights certificates as I still had a few of them. As @joshua362 suggested, parking was much easier as well. There were cheaper options on the island but I figured I might as well use the cert for it as I was not interested in upgrading to cat 6 or 7 for a fairfield on the island. The two relocation offers were going for $300+ a night (either last few rooms or rack rate?).

Thanks for everyone's help on this issue, now that I know I have to bear the cost of relocation, Springhill Suites New York LaGuardia Airport is the only remaining Cat 5 property in NYC unless one decided go to NJ. I doubt there will be any more new-Cat 1-4 properties in NYC for Stariott (if the base Travel package becomes new-cat 1-4), I guess we'll find out in a few weeks.

C17PSGR

If you don't mind a 45 minute train ride, consider the Stamford Marriott. It's not my favorite property but it has a shuttle to the train station and there are frequent trains. I realize it doesn't have the NYC vibe but the vibe of the Laguardia Springhill suites isn't a lot to write home about!

The ITDA

Thanks for the link. I wonder if they notified the guests with reservations in the coming days/weeks the same time I did. The original email I received was a mess email, as expected.

Interesting fact: the Sales Manager of the Fairfield is now working as a Sales Manager for a SPG hotel.

MSPeconomist

Please name that SPG hotel.

The ITDA

I don't think it's nice to call people out like that, especially I don't think the person did anything wrong?

It's a fairly new limited service hotel (opened ~2 years ago) in Manhattan, so I doubt that person got a promotion due to hotel closure.