Anyone had any experience with a reservation where the second night rate is a LOT higher than the first night?

I was able to secure a reservation at the Renaissance Las Vegas for a weekend; Saturday night is $60 more than Friday night. The Platinum agent assured me that I would only have to pay for the first night, which is booked at the lower rate. Still, I'm a little nervous.. anyone have any experience in this area?

You should not have any problems, this occurs all the time. As long as the reservation agent indicated on your reservation that you will be using an EEO cert -- usually by indicating EEO on your reservation -- the second night will be free.

Of course, you may not receive the benefits that you are to get on the first night -- i.e., free breakfast -- as that varies by hotel and their general largesse to elite members, but you should have no problem and you will only incur the first night's rate upon check-out.

To be absolutely sure, I would just contact the hotel and confirm what you were told by the Platinum reservations agent. :)

FWIW, I've used my EEO with a AAA rate a couple of times. Granted - it was a case where the AAA rate was only saving me ten bucks or so, and I knew going in that I was in a grey area, so had the front-desk clerk said NO, I wouldn't have argued. But they never have...

IMHO, Marriott should clean up the wording on the certs - specifically to rule AAA, Senior, or Gov't rates IN or OUT. (Yeah, that means they'd rule 'em out, I know...) Many, many really great rates are "publicly listed" in that anyone can view them through a nonauthenticated browser session at Marriott.com. Keep plugging in enough three-letter combinations and you will see all sorts of things that you are not eligible to actually book. I've even hit a couple of publicly-listed rates that are only intended for ONE PERSON (e.g., "Negotiated rate for John Doe. Hotel use only.")

The reason AAA and Senior immediately come to mind is because of Marriott.com's user interface. You don't have to type "AAA" or "AARP" into the box - you just click the radio button. They aren't any more publicly listed than three-letter-code rates; just easier to get to.

I’m guessing that drtdk's point was that if a term of the EEO certificate is vague, he/she thinks Marriott gets the opportunity to clarify it. I'm sensing that NJUPINTHEAIR disagrees. Two legitimate opinions but neither is definitively right or wrong. NJUPINTHEAIR can continue to fight what he feels is the good fight and others of us who are older, wiser and/or more experienced may pick our battles a bit more selectively.

Maybe we all can agree that the certificate's language should be tightened up a bit. I also believe that pinniped has the most reasoned take on all this.

I’m compelled to correct one of the quoted errors. The AAA discount sometimes can be much more than 10%. Last month, I paid $189/night on F, S and S at the NYES using the AAA rate, which was at least $90 less than the "publicly listed" rate. That discount was closer to a third by my math.

Dayone, correct me if I am wrong, but your acronym is for the Embassy Suites, right? If so, you are correct and incorrect, as it is true that I sometimes have seen a steeper discount with hilton properties, but we are talking about Marriiott, and I rarely have seen a AAA discount of more than 10% -- its something, but not all that great compared to some other promotions! :D

Well, I did get an email from Marriott (which has the tracking number) stating clearly that the second night would be free and I would be charged the lower rate on the first night. I'm happy with that. If worse comes to worse and the hotel gives me guff, I will get Marriott corporate to adjust it afterwards.

I don't know other people's experience, but as top tier in five different hotel chains Marriott's email customer service is the quickest and the best. I'm glad they invested in that.

The problem is that your personal definition of the term above doesn't match Marriott's. Guest what Marriott usually operates under? It's own definition.

However, as we all know, these can be "gotten around" some of the time. If you can argue someone into giving you a better rate, go for it! Just don't act surprised (or even angry) if you don't get it.

(Marriott) New York East Side.

I believe that hotel has excluded itself from the promotion. Just like "The View" restaurant at the NYC Marriot Marquis doesn't accept MR 390 Dining Certificates. I'll be it wasn't easy for them to do, though.


It already is in plain language.

Public is anyone.

Special rates from private organization are private. Even if you aren't a member of a private organization, if you indicate you are, regardless of the level of security on the viewing of those rates, you are viewing rates that are private.

Period.

If you can convince someone with their finger on the "reserve" button to give you a better deal, more power to you.

And here I thought Dayone was talking about the NYC East Side Marriott (NYES, in Dayone's abbreviation).


EDIT--Shortly After Posting

And a couple of posts down, I find I was right.

The hotel has excluded itself from the promotion only after I pointed out to Marriott Rewards and the GM that the language on the back of the cert did not exclude that property from the 2 for 1 weekend night promotion. Yours truly pointed out that this property was not a Marriott resort, nor had it been listed on the back of the EEO cert as one of the excluded properties.

If you were pointing that out to the hotel, there were probably lots of others poining it out, as well. The hotel decided it didn't like that (the rate of use probably exceeded any promotional benefit received from showing off the hotel on the EEO offer), and it took steps.



Oh . . . I see what you were saying in this last paragraph. I'd though you'd indicated something else entirely.

We really don't know if one person caused this change or a hundred people, but I have seen many situations where one person's complaint caused a change in policy. I'm certainly willing to accept that as a very good possibility in this case.

People should not make the mistake of believing that they have no impact on large corporations. They do!

Bruce

IMHO, the only language that needs to be cleaned up is the word "listed". Marriott, for whatever reason, makes hundreds (if not thousands) of private-use rates publicly-listed.

We're flogging a dead horse here. We all agree that you aren't supposed to use a private-use rate if you aren't part of the organization, whether it's a company, AAA, or whatever. The question is: when you are eligible to use a private-use rate that is also publicly listed, should you also be able to use EEO?

The simple thing for Marriott to do: either make EEO's combinable with any points-qualifying rate (which still gives Marriott a bit of protection from people trying to use them with truly rock-bottom rates), or make them available with only full public-use rates.

Personally, I'm not complaining about anything here. EEO is the best perk I get as a Gold - I do about four weekends per year at Marriotts where I get full service at Priceline rates. That does not suck. If they take AAA off the board, so be it. Not the end of the world.

Again, Pinniped has hit the nail on the head.

I never have been arguing that individuals inelgible for these rates should be allowed to take advantage of them -- quite the contrary -- read my statement above that I wish that Marriott would start carding people who claim membership in such organiztions.

The question is not that the rate should be only open to those who are members of this or that organization, rather, that if such rate is prominently and "publicly listed" on its website, such rate is therefore a publicly listed rate, regardless that it may be open to members of a certain organization -- which by the way, has a legion of members. After all, we are not talking about the Royal Order of Moosehead Lodge or whatever the name of the group was in the Honeymooners, but the AAA and the CAA who have millions of members!

Kudos to you Pinniped. :)