problems with extra pref and gov rate
 

It appears in the last month the 'extra preferences' from my profile is creating an error when I book on line for a regular marriott.

I've had a reservation at the gov't rate for virtually every week since these new preference were added.

Since I can book my reservations out for more than a month I have not booked a lot of reservations recently, but last week and today, instead of going from step 2 to step 4 (skipping the preferences and just pulling my profile) I get an error: invalid preference code.

Of course is doesn't tell me what is causing the error. The only way to compelte the reservation is to by pass preferences when they makes a reservation without bed/smoking preferences.

Attempting click through the screen only gets you "additional preferences not available for this rate".

Interestingly I booked a res at springhill suites an it took all the preferences.

Clearly a new glitch, since they are just preferences, if the property does not honor/offer one or more of them it should not result in an error that the only way I can book the reservation is with no preferences at all.

I've got the Plat Prem desk working on this but I was wondering if I'm the only one to have this problem.

Folks are seeing similar problem (not exactly the same) discussed here:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=566477

Nope, that's the same problem we're all having.

Just curious, though--how did you qualify for Platinum Premier staying at government rates? (I'm not finding fault; I'm mostly a government rate guy myself, and figured that even 365 nights wouldn't generate enough revenue to qualify for PP.)

Preferences (more)
 

I wrote about this problem a couple of weeks ago (preferences). The work around seems to be to go back into the reservation later and make changes.

Apparently no one knows how you qualify for this level. It's worse as most of my stays last year were at a Residence Inn. I've been Plat for 6 years with 4 years corporate and 2 govt.

That being said, other the the 'special' phone number not sure if I see much difference from Plat.

That special phone line did get me an answer to the issue, apparently the Marriott Hotel underlying reservation system can only handle 6 preferences, the catch is that the 'govt ID required' and one other item fills 2 of the preference codes. Apparently they just decided to put this information in the preferences recently.

So to solve the problem make sure you don't have more than 4 preferences selcected (i.e. drop the extra towels, extra feather pillows from your preferences).

I haven't tested this since I made the changes but the Plat Prem person walked up to the IT dept and talked to the manger in charge of Marriott.com.