Marriott refuses to honor rate error
 

April 25, 2006
THE MIDDLE SEAT
By SCOTT MCCARTNEY
The Wall Street Journal

When a Fare Is Too Good to Be True

Whether Booking Errors
Will Be Honored Depends
On the Firm and Fine Print
April 25, 2006 Page D5

Earlier this month Alitalia sold business-class seats across the Atlantic for $66 round-trip, an incredible bargain compared with the regular fare of more than $5,000. Just last week, Marriott was offering a Times Square hotel for $24.90 a night, one decimal place off what was supposed to be a $249-a-night rate.

Alitalia honored 509 reservations to Cypress at the mistaken price via travel agents and online services; Marriott (which sold the rooms off its own site and elsewhere) reneged, upping the price even though it offers a "best rate guarantee" on "all guestroom reservations."

[snip]

Marriott International Inc. says its mistake of posting a $24.90 rate in reservation systems, including its own Web site, for the Residence Inn at Times Square was an obvious error, so the company corrected it.

[snip]

Once mistakes do happen, the track record of hotels is mixed. Last year, an Amerisuites hotel in Charlotte, N.C., offered rooms at a penny per night. A computer mistake allowed customers to book the hotel's internal "complimentary rate." Amerisuites, a unit of Hyatt Corp., honored the rate, including the free breakfast.

Expedia found itself mistakenly offering rooms at two Hilton hotels in Japan for $3 a night last November instead of $300 a night. Expedia said Hilton honored reservations made for stays in November but not in later months.

Earlier this month, Travelocity offered executive rooms at the Hilton Osaka in Japan for about $3 a night. The error resulted from incorrect currency conversion at Travelocity's Web site, a spokesman said. Customers pounced, some posting on FlyerTalk that they booked rooms for the rest of the year since the rate was far cheaper than rent in Osaka.

Travelocity did honor $51 airline tickets to Fiji last year and says in its guarantee that "in those rare cases that we make a mistake you can count on us to take responsibility for it." But Dan Toporek, a Travelocity spokesman, says its guarantee didn't apply in the Osaka case because that fare was displayed correctly to buyers twice and incorrectly once. "The policy really is on a case-by-case basis," said Mr. Toporek. "The spirit of the guarantee really has more to do with making sure people have a great travel experience."

Write to Scott McCartney at [email protected]

URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114591737970234543.html

I understood posting whole articles against FT TOS? :confused:

There is another discussion underway on said article on MR forum.

As it relates to the brief mention of Marriott, please note that the term OP used in thread title not mentioned in the article itself as far as I could see after several read throughs.

Actually, the discussion is underway in the hotel deals subforum http://www.flyertalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=545937
SPECIFICALLY about Marriott and this property. It does relate to Marriott and not mentioned in the article, Travelocity is honoring the rate at the Residence Inn Times Square.

Take the title as tongue and cheek as the word honorable is in quotes.

This is why travel agencies and travel travel related companies purchase E&O insurance to cover errors and omissions. This does not sound characteristic of the Marriott I know, and it is really a mistake for the RI not to honor rates posted on their web site. Someone, and I would guess it is at the actual property level, is more worried about his/her E&O insurance premiums going up than honoring reservations made on their web site. A bad will move IMO.

any other complaints :rolleyes:

Yeah, newbies. ;)

There's an interplay of Interstate Hotel and Marriott's customer service policies and philosophies brought to light by this rate issue which may be of interest to Marriott customers. I know it got my interest, not by the decisions which were made, but how they were promulgated to the customers. It bears scrutiny, IMO.

Pat

"Honorable"
 

I find these errors to be fascinating. The internet now makes typographical errors into very serious problems. And, while the companies have been less than adept at dealing with these issues, what about the lack of ethics among those who book these rates, knowing they are errors, and then whine and complain about how they are treated?

[HINT: When do you "know" it is an errror? When you book it and don't feel good about calling the hotel/airline at that instant to say "Hey, I just found an amazing rate. Would you please check for me to find out if that is a mistake or a real promotional rate?"]

From my reading of the thread, I can see both sides of the dispute as to the incorrect and very low room rate for the RI Times Square posted on marriott.com and other travel sites such as Travelocity. What is somewhat surprising and seemingly outside the Marriott culture is the response of some Marriott individuals to queries reported in the thread, assuming of course, that the reports are accurate. The cited rudeness and ridicule seems way beyond the pale, especially for a company most of us admire. Regardless of what the outcome of the dispute is, I hope and believe Marriott will take a close look at the way the affair was handled.

I have three re-confirmations from Travelocity at the IC Yokohama for 2.72/nt, including one from a CSR supervisor. I even specifically pointed out issues with both the rate and cancellation policy. Yet, they allowed this error to go on for three more months, including compensating a FT'er for traveling on it.

Marriott Shanghai had a similar rate issue a while back and most reservations ended up being cancelled, but not *until* after prompt and profuse apologies from both Marriott and the property, in marked contrast to how this situation is being handled. A company's mettle is tested when things don't go smoothly, and I'm seeing surprises here. I still think, based on my past experiences at Interstate owned/operated hotels across the brands, that they have something to do with it.

Pat

I've traveled on lots of amazing rates in the past, and I've never once thought about calling the airline or hotel. (Besides, if you don't have access to an elite-status line, what are the odds that you can even get an agent on the line without a long hold?)

The only one I think is unethical to pursue is the one about the internal rate. At least with Marriott, you can log in and few lots of zero-rated rooms. The rate rules always specify what the rate is for - usually some sort of certificate stay. It's clear that the guest isn't to book it and expect a free room.

But for a Travelocity hotel booking or any type of airline booking, if I see a rate there, I'm going to assume that it is there on purpose. After all, if the "mistake" happens once, they I might believe it's a mistake. Bad software testing or whatever. If it happens twice, then it's no longer a mistake. If I ever get lucky enough to find one of those Ryanair zero fares, why should the burden be on me to call them and double-check that their software is functioning correctly? (And if I do, will they even answer the phone?)

I believe that tcook052 referencing TOS is a valid comment.

Take it as a heads up observation :)

This is a sales manager at the hotel trying to save their job IMO. Plain and simple... they messed up and don't want to get fired. It's Times Square, sadly, the hotel will be able to resell the rooms we booked at a higher rate with little difficulty.

If I were the GM, I'd can that sales manager over the WSJ article and offer apologies to those whose reservations were cancelled and agree to honor them (if it doesn't create a gross overbooking).

No way to tell the errors apart. You have companies giving 99 cent promotions. So who knows which are promotions and which are errors. If they post it on their sites they should live up to it. If anything, take it out of the salary of the person responsible for making the updates. Things like a decimal point being off is due to carelessness. Someone has to pay the piper. After the first time they mess up and get there salary docked, I doubt you will ever seem them make another mistake in the future.

No way, Tfong007! People are human & should not be expected to forfeit years of salary.

I agree partly with Sbrower that it is unethical to exploit an obvious error & try to hold the company bound. However, if it is an error, the company has a duty to cancel fairly quickly, not months later, & to reimburse the customer for any expenses caused, such as airline penalties.
A few years ago I booked a rate of C$0 a night at the Delta of Whistler, BC, in April for July. I even got a confo e-mail! In June I checked my res & found that they had changed my rate to $179 a night without notifying me! So I called CS to let them know & to cancel, for I ended up not needing to go.

I reduced the amount of direct quotation.

Bruce
Moderator

My $0.02

If the rate is an obvious error, then I think it is unethical to book it. I have no problem with the hotel correcting it. If it just looks like a good deal, i.e. the rate is reasonable in light of the circumstances, then the hotel should honor it.

It is NOT reasonable to expect to get a major chain hotel in times square for a couple of dollars. That falls under obvious error as it is so far outside of common experience of expectation.

If the rate is $100.00 then you can reasonably believe that is just a low occupancy day and they are having a fire sale.

So, what if the rate is $99? How about $94? Do I hear $67? Are you aware that Marriott associate rates can be as low as $29?

I am appalled that Marriott is reacting the way they are to this episode. It is as if zombies have invaded Bethesda and Bill Marriott is being held hostage somewhere. The "Marriott Way" is to honor this rate and then spend a few months negotiating and bickering with Interstate Hotels on their franchise fees to determine who's responsible for the revenue loss.

It is absolutely against the grain for Marriott to come out, in this one instance only, and tell their guests "we goofed BUT you guests should read our minds and know better; your res is cancelled and we're not talking."

Boo on Marriott. Utter shame.

Totally agree. I reject the "mind reader argument" any notion that any reasonable person would view the mistakenly posted rate as anything other than an error.

But I also agree Marriott handled this badly (and totally out of character for them). Why not just apologize, explain the mistake, and offer a voucher good for a free night or free weekend for a future date at this or another Marriott-branded property on a subject to availability basis?

Why is it so obvious? There have been lots of $0 fares (or GBP 0.01 fares or whatever) out there that are real and intentional. Why is the onus on the passenger or guest to figure out which ones are real and which are an error?

It's the airline or hotel that owns the system, they are the ones that develop the QA test plans when the systems are developed, and they control who has access to the database and what edits each user can make on the database. Why am I expected to attempt to interpret their intentions?

What about $20? $50? $5? Where do you draw the line? I've booked one-way airfares with a base fare of $10 before. I've booked hotel rooms that, with Bonus Bucks awarded on that stay, ended up being about zero dollars. When Hertz first rolled out the #9xxxxx coupons, they had a $20 one that had no minimum rental. I had a couple of days in Hertz cars where I thought to myself "I hope their testers thought of this, because my net bill is going to be a credit." (They had; my bill was simply zero plus any fixed-fee taxes.)

My take is that those who own the systems also own the responsibility that the software has been tested and that their users load the correct rates.

Really. Have you every booked a $10 room at a major US chain in Times Square.?

Because you want to be a fair minded ethical person in your business interactions. If you saw a new BMW or Benz advertised for $600.00 would you arrive at the dealership with 6 crisp $100 bills and expect to drive off with a new BMW?



[QUOTE=pinniped]What about $20? $50? $5? Where do you draw the line? [QUOTE=pinniped]
The line is drawn based upon reasonableness, common sense, and good judgment. Based upon the totality of the circumstances.


Basically they're not allowed to make mistakes because 100 percent perfection and accuracy are commonly attainable goals.

I agree that its difficult to tell if it's a mistake. I once received free accomodation from Holiday Inn during the opening in Bangkok. Yes, $0. I was not even a priority club member, then. The offer was not link to any other membership. No other stay requirements. Its just unconditional 1 night free. Am I suppose to assume its a mistake and not take the opportunity?

[QUOTE=clarkef]Really. Have you every booked a $10 room at a major US chain in Times Square.?



Because you want to be a fair minded ethical person in your business interactions. If you saw a new BMW or Benz advertised for $600.00 would you arrive at the dealership with 6 crisp $100 bills and expect to drive off with a new BMW?



[QUOTE=pinniped]What about $20? $50? $5? Where do you draw the line? Basically, we'll continue to hold their feet to the fire until the sword of "ethics" of mistakes cuts both ways. Since corporations don't care about people, only money, this fire will be a long-burning one, I trust.

The sad thing is the duality of personality it takes to succeed in such an environment. The same person at the other end of the phone making the case that their mistakes are proper and tolerable and mine are not has to go home to their family every night. Socialized schizophrenia might be an accurate descriptor at one end and sociopathy at another.

Regardless, it wil be a battle which will go on until humans manage to evolve beyond their basic instincts of self-involvement and greed. Get used to it. :)

Pat

Sarcasm aside, there is an argument on both sides, although a courteous, thoughtful response from Marriott is the least one should expect.

On the subject of mistakes, try telling an airline a couple of weeks after you've made the non-refundable ticket reservation, that you made an honest mistake as to the date you needed to travel, or the hotel with a 24 hour cancellation policy that you honestly and mistakenly thought the cancellation policy was 6 pm day of arrival.

Although I haven't really discussed this publicly, this was the real white elephant in the room on the Travelocity Asia deal which no one touched on. Throughout the reservation process, the pages displayed the cancellation policy, showing the reservation could be cancelled up to 6pm local hotel time day of. In reality, on many of the reservations I made, the actual hotel cancellation policies varied from 24 hours to a one night charge in the case of any cancellation at all. Let's just say I fueled that fire pretty well, as my instincts told me Travelocity wouldn't be "guaranteeing" anything, as they continued not to do with the YYZ-LCA fare and Marriott rate issues.

If they would just own up to their mistakes (without qualification) and, more importantly, take care of the customer when the customer makes one, then issues and methodologies such as mine would cease to be an issue. At least for me ;) :)

When I make a mistake in business, I tell the customer personally that "I screwed up; what can I do to make this right?" Customers are a pretty amazing breed. Out of all the mistakes I've made, only once did I stand my ground and not pay a customer's salesman's commission on a job I had to warrantee. The warrantee itself went without question, even though the job was in service over six months, long after any competitor would've waranteed such a job. The service manager thought he'd look good by extracting a few more bucks out of a vendor and unfortunately ran into a concrete wall :)

After having been in on nearly all the recent hotel rate issues, I must say that, even though they caught a lot of flack for it, Expedia did the best job. They offered something reasonable for their mistake and made it easy to use.

Pat

No. What does that have to do with anything? I haven't personally been been able to take advantage of any of those Fare Alerts I see on the MR board, nor have I been in the right place at the right time for a free Ryanair flight. But my lack of luck (if you want to call it that) isn't really relevant.

Odd analogy. If BMW wants to sell me a $600 car, I'd probably bite. But I don't trust car dealers...I'd wonder what the catch is. If they actually advertised a $600 price, I'd be very suspicious. But I've seen enough car ads to know they wouldn't do that and them claim "Oh, that was a mistake."

Well, the travel companies have already established that $0 fares are a valid tool to use for a variety of purposes. So I'm still not sure why it's unreasonable for me to jump on them if I find them.

The whole thing, at least to me, revolves around airlines & hotels wanting to have their cake and eat it too; they want to cut their overhead by selling directly to the public online, yet don't want to be held responsible when their own technology is at fault. It's a convenient double standard.

Perfect example just posted (not Marriott, but another chain involved in a recent rate issue):

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=555634

The poster is also a high level IHG elite...

It's why I do what I do :td:

Pat

I should point out to expand on my previous post that this larger issue isn't limited to simple mistakes on air ticket or hotel rates and goes much farther.

Take for example my home province sports book operation that goofed in the over/under predictions a while back and, thanks to the spped of the internet, word quickly spread that the numbers seemed so low on NBA games that everybody who wagered and played would likely win. Sure enough, that's exactly what happened on two consecutive nights. Seeing as there are many provincial laws governing this area, the lottery folks had to swallow and pay out a few million dollars to all ticketholders. But a valuable lesson was learned.

Many companies seem to view the internet as the goose that lays golden eggs, but don't want to admit or accept that occasionally that goose will on rare occasions also produce goose droppings. I wish more would step up and clearly take responsibility for the odd mistake and write it off as a cost of doing business on the web.

At the end of the day, Marriott has to take responsibilty for all content located on their website. That includes Rates. If they don't then anything on marriott.com is open to be dismissed as an error and handled in the same manner.

Having said that...

They have handled this situation rather poorly. In the very least they should have contacted each person and offerred a voucher for a FREE night or for Marriott Reward members the option of Points equal to the FREE night.

Shame on Marriott :td:

FWIW I had a negative experience in the Shanghai rate-error that I initially discovered and I decided that I will do as much as "damage" to Marriott as I can in return for their ignorant reactions and the way that corporate Marriott did not step in and mediated a solution between the hotel and myself allthough being clearly involved.

Apart from spreading the bad word I am going to continue to make reservations for all my travel-needs when a Marriott branded hotel seems appropiate and then look for alternatives. If I find those I will book those and cancel my Marriott reservation at the last possible moment in the hope they are not able to resell the room and have it sit empty for at least one night. After my stay at the competitor, I am going to fax a form-letter to the hotel and the persons involved at Marriott's corporate showing my orginal Marriott reservation with cancellation-number and my folio from their competitor.

I know this is cheap revenge and in some way hits parties not involved in the original situation, but it seems currently to be the only way to get my share of satisfaction from Marriott.

Greetings - Dirk

"Revenge is a dish best served cold" ;)

Those rolling reservations are especially bothersome :D

Pat

I've leave it to people who understand the details of the reservations systems to expand upon this, but I'm going to guess that this strategy has not actually caused the impact you desire.

Yes,

I have done that on several occassions. I make mistakes and have no problem admitted that. I made a booking on AA once where I mistakenly put LAX instead of LAS. My status was Gold with AA. They permitted me to correct the mistake the day before the flight with no penalities, additional charges etc. I have double booked on AA and gotten a refund for the second ticket. I have missed cancellation deadlines and gotten them waived from numerous hotels.

Being honest and ethical and admitted that I screwed up has served me well.

The point exactly. Based upon your common and everyday experiences, you are very suspicous about the price, most likely realizing that the decimal point was simply misplaced. Yet, this discernment ceases with regards to travel rates.

Moreover, if the dealer made an honest mistake, a typo if you will, you wouldn't really expect him to honor the price.

correct (Actually it's not MARSHA but One Yield which will prevent the impact)

No, I'd think they had something else up their sleeve. I would have expected that they proofed the copy before running it. I'm not really sure what to expect, honestly.

That's because the travel providers themselves have done two things:

(1) They themselves have established the precedent that extremely cheap fares are intentional. This includes both zero fares and fares that leave a customer who participates in the loyalty program with a net gain! Sometimes they are promoted heavily (Ryanair likes to do this); sometimes done quietly to match a competitor (e.g. a legacy carrier matching an absurdly low WN fare).

Heck, it wouldn't surprise me if it was occasionally done to trigger some viral buzz that leads to media coverage. If you can get the WSJ to write about your zero fare, it's better than a full-page ad! (Honestly, I'm surprised hotels & airlines don't sprinkle in a few more zero fares, but I guess at some point it'd stop being viral and newsworthy.)

(2) The travel providers have also set the precedent that if you make a mistake, it is either completely uncorrectable or very, very hard to get a resolution.

Simple example: a few weeks ago, I bought a UA ticket in a particular Q fare that was completely refundable/changeable. About 2 days after buying the ticket, UA informed me that my fare had gone down, and I was offered the opportunity to refare. Well, that's a no-brainer...it's a refundable ticket, price dropped $40, I assume it stays refundable, because it would be illogical for them to offer me a refare to some other type of ticket, right? (After all, I've already consciously made the decision to buy a higher fare for that reason.) Wrong...there are other Q fares that are nonrefundable, and I was refared to one of those, and there was no opportunity to view the new fare codes before refaring. UA made a mistake: they should not have offered that refare. But...I was the one stuck with it - no recourse except to spend a lot of time on the phone. (As it turns out, I flew the segments as booked, so it wasn't an issue.)

OK...let's say this really did happen and I really did believe it was an honest mstake. (Forget the fact that I'm using the term "honest" in a discussion about car dealers for a moment.) It happens once, the news media is all over him, he apologizes, everybody moves on. But...if he starts doing it over and over again, with different cars and in different media outlets, we can at that point conclude that something else is going on.

I'm not sure what you mean with that...I am using different users/names (wife, son, myself) for the reservations and will not cancel each and every reservation I made. Only IF I find a suitable alternative at a competitor I will book and use this and only then cancel my reservation with Marriott at the last minute.

However if I cannot find anything suitable, I will continue to stay at a Marriott-branded property if they suit my travel-pattern. So just assuming that I will cancel my reservation anyhow will not do the trick for Marriott, and there will be no rhyme or rhythm behind my behaviour for sure...

I agree that this won't be the end of the world for Marriott as I am not really staying at Marriott-properties that often but at least I am making a point with the statement that Marriott has become my provider of last choice because of their treatment of customers in cases when they were the ones making an error.

Greetings - Dirk

I would hope they proofed it, but mistakes do happen.
I haven't had the experience at all. Of course, with hotels, I NEVER book non-refundable rates, unless I am literally at their doorstep.
I agree. My sympathies are only for an honest mistake. If the provider is engaging in funny business then to hell with him.

In the state of Maryland, if they put the cost out there, in advertising or website, and they are located in Maryland, then yes, they are legally obligated to have at least one of the product being advertised at that rate. My parents got one of their cars at a great price due to my dad being home on sick leave and looking through the paper while having a late breakfast, and managing to be the first one to that dealer and nabbed that car.