Honoring a RIDICULOUSLY low rate
 

I recently made a reservation for a room in a very popular location at its most popular time for a rate that, let's say, is well under 10% of the going rate for ANY room ANY where at that time of the year. With most companies, I might actually call to attempt to rectify or negotiate something, but Marriott Rewards is so stingy, I almost feel this is the reward of my lifetime. Should I expect a call fropm them in advance of my stay? Should I expect a confrontation upon arrival? Will they just let me cancel and walk away without a cancellation fee? I have a very acceptable rate booked at an alternative property just in case.

FYI, I have done searches on FT already. Regrettably, Flyertalk searches don't allow for complex (con/disjunctive) expressions which would have been more efficient.

Thanks.

This has happened to me several times with Marriott, most notably in Orlando. I found $134 rooms going for $13.40, and once, a $112 room going for $1.12.

Don't expect to get any notification, phone call, etc. but DO check your reservation often, as, in my case, at some point after I made the reservation the price on my confirmation was changed from the low rate to the correct rate.

On several occasions I was told "of course, Marriott will honor the rate".....on others I was told "no way can we give you a room at this rate".

I have never actually used one of the error rate rooms.....Marriott has been very good to me, and I just didn't feel like it was right in my case. Also, the reservations I made were simply because I found the error.....if I actually had to be in the city at the time the error was valid....who knows?

You might want to call the hotel directly, mention the rate, and see what their reaction is. They may honor it, in which case I'd get the persons name and consider myself lucky.

In what way do you find MR "stingy" - on the granting or redeeming side? I've never had a problem with either.

Regarding your question, if it is a legitimately published rate that you are legitimately eligible for, they should honor it IMHO. Even if it was a "typo" and somebody left the final digit off of a $189 rate.

I think it'd be helpful if you gave a little more detail as to how you were able to book this rate so its a little more clear as to whether it is a rate that you are legitimately eligible for.

Interestingly, does the same thing apply to retail stores? I once found a nice winter coat at a store (I think it was JC Penny) that was clearly a $100+ coat. But the tag on it was something ridiculous like under $20. The tag appeared to be legit as the description & all matched the coat. Long story short, the store refused to sell it to me for the (apparently incorrect) price.

Hotel reservations are a little bit different because (if you don't make a backup reservation), the hotel could really end up screwing you - either by leaving you without a room, or charging full rack rates upon arrival. With the coat, its not like I was really put out or anything.

Main issue first. The situation is much like that posted by FLYERWIFE just prior to your posting. Clearly a typo, and as low or lower rate than the lowest she quotes in her REPLY. It had no special stipulations, was shown in the RANGE of rates displayed on MARRIOTT.COM, but not actually available when you tried to book, but was SOLD on TRAVELOCITY.COM and confirmed. This rate is no longer viewable on either site, btw.

Secondary issue. I can only compare MARRIOTT REWARDS to HILTON HONORS, and I feel so much more rewarded for what I consider a peer hotel group by Hilton. I am: upgraded more often, even as Silver at the moment, offered drink/meal coupons, receive many more points (double dipping is FANTASTIC), and there are attainable reward levels, too. I do like Marriott, but I just can't stay with them when Hilton seems to offer so much more in my case. I am in the 30-40 night stay per annum.

Glad you find Marriott meets your needs. You cannot beat their Sunday breakfast buffets!

Happy travels.

That happened to me last year at the Ritz-Carlton Aspen. I contacted the Manager after booking who thanked me for bringing the matter to his attention so that it sould be corrected and honored the rate.

Comparing a retail store to a hotel reservation is not a good analogy. At a store, you haven't put up a deposit or relied on that price beyond bringing the item to the checkstand. Whereas with a hotel reservation, there has been an offer and acceptance along with a deposit (or credit card guarantee), so the customer has put up good faith and a contract has been created. If I don't show for a reservation, I lose my deposit, so a hotel that has taken a deposit should similarly be expected to perform.

Agreed: the only comparable retail example would be if the store was happy to sell you the coat at the point of sale, but later called you at home and said "We didn't really mean to sell you that coat for $20. You owe us $80 more."

Slightly off-topic, I am very skeptical that these are truly "errors". If they were errors, somebody in the IT department would be tasked with a critical-priority project to develop a utility to either proactively prohibit certain rates from being loaded into the system or force the user to double-confirm what it determines an "unusual" rate. (e.g., a pop-up saying "The rate you are about to load is unusually low for X property. Are you sure you wish to load it?") It's child's play...something a good developer could build and test in about a week. Since this obviously doesn't happen, and the "errors" keep happening, it makes me think something else is going on.

(Granted, I'm mainly thinking about the airlines here. I've never encountered an error rate on Marriott.com, and it's quite possible that they do have a good error-checking system in place.)

Situations like this would be a good reason to create a low-price archive on FT consisting of similar stories: the recent $61 Iceland tickets, the $36 SFO-CDG United flights a year or so ago, etc. That way it would be easy to say, "Here's 5 other cases of seemingly ridiculously low prices, but which nevertheless were honored." I'd actually have two sections, one with intentional low prices, the other where the low prices were (supposedly) a mistake, but honored nevertheless.

Also, as previously pointed out, the big 'gotcha' on incorrect prices is whether a transaction has been completed. With stores, almost all the price corrections are made at time of purchase. Athought there was an intent to purchase (at the lower price), as long as the store didn't actually perform a transaction (sale), they are free to stop it, adjust it, etc. With travel services, on the other hand, the reservation or purchase is typically made at the low price. It's only after the fact that the seller realizes the error, and then tries to change it.

Jeff

It's possible to get those kinds of net rates this summer with the OTP Bonus Bucks promotions. Twice I have stayed single weekend nights at a rate of under $100 and received the $100 Bonus Bucks cert for future Marriott stays for a net cost of nothing (or less). More reservations in the hopper.

Except that a Marriott Bonus Bucks coupon is not truely worth $100 when you can purchase one on ebay for $30 or so.

Well, the ones I earn count for $100 off of a later hotel bill, so to me they're worth $100 in cost avoidance of an actual cost I would have incurred without them.

(I suppose if you intend to sell them on e-bay, which I don't, they're worth what you can get for them, though.)

Same here, Counsellor.

I'm currently in a string of weekends where I stay at the same Marriott each weekend and all of my reservations are under the Bonus Bucks promotional rate. Each Friday evening I present the previous weekend's Bonus Bucks cert and get a new one to use the following week. It surely works for me and is worth every bit of that $100 to me.

How to get the $100 Bonus Bucks???
 

OK, sorry if this is mentioned elsewhere, but how do you get bonus bucks. I've seen the one about getting the two for breakfast rate and using Visa, but I can get a rate that's half that. Is there another way of getting those $100 bonus bucks? (other than buying them on eBay).

Welcome to FT
 

Welcome to Flyer Talk !!!!

A search in the upper right hand of your screen using "OTP" or Bonus Bucks will return more threads than you'll want to read. A primer is located here...
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...&highlight=otp

Again welcome.

No, the way you mentioned (booking the OTP rate and paying with a Visa) is the way you get them. If you can get a much better rate and don't value the breakfast+BB at greater than the difference between the two rates you are doing the right thing.

And welcome to FT !