Does Marriott honor mistake prices?
 

OK, this is a BIG mistake. I was looking for a mattress run to hit my 20 nights for the megabonus. I just finished booking 13 nights in Jan for $1.88/night. After taxes, it comes to $26.64. I don't need to stay in the room; it's a local hotel. Will they honor it?

It appears from the Residence Inn Times Square debacle that Marriott will not honor mistake rates, even mistakes on its own website.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...uare+Residence

Can you share some more details?

I searched for the lowest govt. rate (I'm military) in the DC area for January so that I could hit 20 nights for the 35K megabonus. Since I live in the DC area, it's just a mattress run for me. Out popped a $1.88/night rate; most likely was supposed to be $188/night.
I really don't care if they give me the broom closet, just as long as I'm able to get the night stay credit. I guess that I'll have to wait and see what happens on this one. I'll make backup mattress run plans, just in case. The next closest is $61.

I found a rate for earlier this summer for $1.04 at a FI in Richmond Virginia. Being the kind person that I was I e-mailed Marriott about it, they reponded indicating that it was a rate error and that the correct rate was $104. They changed the rate on my reservation. Needless to say, I cancelled my reservation and decided to stick with the $89 rate I already had reserved at a FS Marriott.

Jer

I hope they don't. Not that I have anything against the OP, but when hotels lose money on ridiculous and obviously erroneous rates, they have to recoup the loss somewhere. That just means higher rates or reduced services for everyone else.

No worries; I don't disagree with you. :cool:
I don't really want a room, I just want stay credit for cheap prices. I suppose that if I look for weekend rates in Jan, I can beat $61/night.
As far as the hotel losing money on the deal, as far as I'm concerned, they can give me an unusable room that would go vacant due to renovations/damage/remodeling/whatever. Like I said, I just want the stay credit. So while the price is rediculously low, the hotel wouldn't lose by giving me an unusable room. Of course, I'm thinking of this in my best interest ... to get the 20 nights for 35K points on the cheap. When my reservation is declined (I fully expect it to be), the question that I face will be if I'm willing to shell out $350 for 35K points and 5 nights' credit toward 2007 platinum status.

Blood and turnips come to mind ;)

Based on my experience with a small number of Marriott rate issues over the last two years, the answer is an unequivocal "no".

Conversely, I have been charged for "award stays" :td:

Pat

Hopefully the award stays have been easy to fix.
I think that I've found my solution ... a full service Marriott that offers $79 on weekends and gives $100 in bonus bucks. The net cost of doing this a few weekends will be $29 plus tax per night.

Why do you feel its worth $61 a night x 20 just to get 35k in pts? Especially if you hav eno plans to stay there and dont need to. I can understand it if You would be say 1 or 2 nights short but much more then that , it just might be cheaper to purchase that so called free night you'll get with the 35k in pts.

That $29 is more like $35+ with the taxes and x 20 = appx $700, add alittle more unless You already have a BB to use for the 1st weekend. I dont know of too many rooms that will be $700 anight.

Then again if you really want to getaway and will be staying there to relax etc, I understand Doing It.

As for myself I have a 14 night stay upcoming in Oct and that will leave me 3 nights short of requalifying for Plat. So Its worth it to me to do the other 3 stays to be Plat, Yet that will put me 3 short for the 35k , so Ill do the other 3 nights after 1/1/07 so that will count Both for the 35k and towrads my requalification for plat for '08. I wouldnt have gane after the 35k unless I was going to do most of the stays due to Need rather than Mattress Running

I expect to come up ~5 nights short. I'd need to do 6 nights to use the bonus bucks. That'd be $35x6 = $210.
It's also about qualifying for Plat status. I'm at 60 right now; I expect to just barely make it at the end of the year. If I miss, I'll do a mattress run in Jan (my first stay in 2006 was in Feb). Having the nights count for both the 12 month lookback and for 2007 is a big bennie.

Why not just get the Premier Visa...that will give you 15 nights credit toward your status, not to mention the 15,000 bonus points, free Cat 4 1 night cert, and 2-for-1 golf cert. Well worth the $65 fee IMO.

I've already got it.

You can get it again & should be able to get the benefits, points, and certs again too, FYI...

????? Are you saying that I could achieve platinum status by merely opening and closing a credit card account five times in a year? (15 x 5 = 75) If so, that's an interesting loophole.

Well, I just saw 7 nights post to my MR account from our renter staying in our timeshare last week. ;) I even got MRP's for incidentals they bought :D

Pat

The Birmingham Courtyard Colonnade will not honor a rate that was in Marriott.com. I booked a rate went on down there and they asked me for my credit card. I looked at they guy since he seemed nervous and said well you did not confirm my rate. He then stated sir that rate you booked is not a valid rate. He said sir I don't know how you got that rate to come up or what you did to Marriott.com to make the rate come up, but we will not honor it. I told him that the rate was indeed publicaly available and I have no power to hack Marriott.com. I pointed out that I was an elite member and a repeat guest to that property.

The clerk went on and on about how only the GM could input the rate into the system and she did not. I told the guy to pull up Marriott.com and look at the rate. He saw the rate and said that his GM would not honor the rate. This guy was just going to take my credit card and charge me $139.99 more than the room was going for and not even say a word about it. I thought that was far worse than him accusing me of hacking Marriott.com. I contacted Marriott customer relations and they advised that they will not honor the rate. I then was transferred to the internet help desk and they advised that they will look into the situation further and let me know something back on Tuesday. That rate was showing up all the way until this afternoon. I did make other reseverations yesterday for later in the year and I know notice that they have changed the rate in my reservations for future stays. I did not know that they could do that. :mad:

That I don't know about - but I know that most CC's issued by the previous Bank One (such as the UA Visa) were able to be re-applied for & the benefits (such as the bonus miles/points & the UG certs & free night certs, etc) were able to be gotten more than once. As for the 15 nights towards elite status - I'm not sure how the room night accounting works...

I reserved a room on the Marriott website for a rate of $1.19 a night for 3 nights in Michigan in July. I immediately emailed Marriott and gave them my confirmation number and asked them if they intended on honoring it. They thanked me for bringing it to their attention, told me they caught it before anyone else booked it at that rate (which should have been $119.00) and honored it. I was pleased.

Well the property treated me like a hacker. The property would not honor the rate and they would not even offer me a discounted rate to boot. I have future stays booked at the rate and I went into the reservation and the prices have changed. I even showed the rate was still in this system when I arrived and it was there the next day, but still no dice.

I just spoke with the General Manager of the Birmingham Courtyard Colonnade and she treated me like a criminal. She said that she did not appreciate me running a scam on her. I told her the rate was available through Marriott.com and that I pulled up there and have no way of making a rate appear in the system. I was very displeased with that and I am going to file a complaint on the rate not honored through the Alabama Attorney General's Office.

Was the rate one of those strange "incentive award", "junk rate" or the like that come up with the LPR code? If so, I can understand why they won't honor it. Conversely, some properties will put bogus $999.99 prices in there so that anyone who happens to stumble on it won't be tempted to book the rate.

If that's not the case, would you mind sharing the code?

Even if Chase/Marriott didn't catch you, which they very well might, opening and closing credit card accounts that many times in a short period will put a big dent in your credit score. You may not qualify for the card on the fourth or fifth try.

This was not a junk rate, incentive code or the like. It was a property promo rate using LLR. The rate rules did not having any booking restricions at all. The GM said that I was a scammer that was playing around with the codes to come up with the rate. I told her I always look for the best available rates before booking at that I don't appreciate being called a scammer.

Good luck with the AGs office. I seriously doubt that you will get anywhere.

I did a quick search of the Birmingham area using LPR (Is that what you meant?, LLR was invalid) and a couple of properties with the "Property Promo Rate" came up. In the rate descriptipn it clearly stated "To be booked by the property only!".

In any event, if the GM actually called you a "scammer" then that is a separate issue and totally unacceptable, although I would like to have heard both sides of the conversation.

Back on topic to this thread: I have used LPR and found some oddball rates ("Thanksgiving Holiday" rates in January, for example). The hotel has questioned it when I checked in ("Oh gosh, sir, we should have pulled that one weeks ago") but ended up honoring it.

I don't doubt that I will get much there, however, they do have an online process and I will just go through the motions.

File a Consumer Complaint
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I didn't see any reference to the actual room rate you booked. Did it meet the common sense test?

Chase has only queried my credit report once in the last year for 6 cards. As long as they have a recent report on you they just run with that and your history with them.

Yes, this happened to me on 2 error rates I found for Marriotts in Orlando ($13.90 rate that should have been $139 and $1.34 rate that should have been $134). I was not notified that they made these changes; I just happened to see them on my reservation history.

That's a lesson to always print a copy of your reservation :)
BTW, I had no real intention of staying at those error rates.

Common sense test or not what amazes me is the way this is handled. Yes, I think most of us will agree that it doesn't make sense for a hotel to honor a $1.39 rate when it was suppose to be $139.99. But under the laws of merchantability (shades of business school days, for which I may get in trouble now) an offer made by someone who normally conducts business in this manner, and subsequently accepted is by all accounts a contract. Now, granted there are disclaimers throughout the Marriott web site, T&C, etc. But if nothing is addressed prior to one arriving at the property, then all bets are off on whether a judge will favor the merchant even taking the common sense test into account, because common sense would also imply that the hotel had weeks, if not months, to identifiy the issue and deal with it prior to arrival. But all that aside...

Throughout the travel industry, airlines, hotels, travel agents, travel web sites, etc. carry E&O (Errors and Omissions) insurance that covers this exact situation. The problem is that the inept front desk folks and the hotel managers aren't following procedures to file a claim. The onus also goes on Marriott corporate for not instructing the Hotels on proper procedure and/or the requirement that they carry E&O insurance to cover errors made during rate input at hotel's end. Not honoring mistake fares result in bad will at best and possibly a room that may well go unsold anyway.

Personally I would not book a $1.39/night room rate because of the uncertainty, but I have booked a $105/night room rate at a hotel where rooms normally go for $389/night. No special code, just happened to be offered on Marriott.com for about 3 weeks. The hotel cordially honored the rate and I frequent that property every year.

The biggest thing that irked me was the fact that the clerk did not say anything about changing the rate. He just asked for my credit/debit card. I asked him to confirm the rate then he called me a scammer for booking such a rate. A call the GM also had me accused as a scammer as well. I am a frequent quest of this location and I do have another stay coming up at this location as well. I did not like the fact that I was called a hacker and a scammer for using such codes.

I advised the GM that orginally obtained the code from an email from the Marriott.com sometime ago long before I found FT. I think I am going to forgo staying there and spend a few more nickels and stay at the FS.

FYI...Marriott like many like sized Fortune 500 companies is self insured....personally I have never heard of E&O insurance

Sure you have; it has a J.D. after its name ;) :D

Seriously, typically, it's (E&O) something an accountant, engineer or lawyer has, for example. My dad had such insurance as an independent CPA.

Much as I might sympathize with the OP, a frontal approach is likely to be unfruitful. There are other ways. :)

Pat

What was the rate? Was it at the outside range of possibilities, e.g., $105 a night for hotel that might have other rooms at $389, or was it something clearly in error, e.g., $1.34 a night instead of $134?

I'm happy to push the $105 a night but don't think you can reasonably expect to get the $1.34 a night.

On the other hand, .... I suppose I do watch the airline mistake fares and might someday take advantage of it with the expectation that I will fly. The difference in expectations is that I have completed the purchase when I buy the airline ticket whereas I have only made a reservation at the Marriott.

Perhaps the other part of the expectation is that I don't expect to ever discuss airline pricing mistakes with an airline employee since I'll use electronic check-in.

The rate was using LLR Property Promotion $0.01.

Off-topic

But no. The law is generally construed that advertisements, publications, etc. are an invitation by the merchant to the public to make an offer. Thus when you go to the store and want to buy something, you, the customer, are actually offering the merchant the published price, which the merchant generally accepts and the sale occurs.

In reality this should be nonsense, but its the law.

There are, of course, some acceptions regarding fraudulent acts such as bait and switch.

Ah yes, "consideration" is the term if I remember correctly. And in the case of the $105 rate I referenced in a prior post at a hotel that normally offers rooms at $389 and up. The rate rules also required a 2 night non-refundable deposit 7 days after booking, and full payment 30 days before arrival. FWIW, the reservaiton was made 11+ months in advance. LSightly different situation than most of the mistake fare situations discussed here on FT.

got mistaken prices twice, never honored but two letter for app.
 

got twice mistaken price, never honored, received two letter from the local hotel to say sorry, that is it

offered pay regular rate, upgrade to a suite
 

in one of the letter, ask me if would like to pay regular rate, upgrade to a suite. I turned down