Can't change room type at checkin?
 

This evening we visited a Fairfield to make sure it was still okay before staying next week on points. The front desk (actually the GM) told us that he is no longer allowed by Marriott to change the room type at checkin. Not just not upgrade to a suite for a fee, but also can't switch a King booking to a Double.

This sounds ridiculous, except when I looked on the Marriott site, it quoted 28K for 2 nights in Double and 56K for the same 2 nights in King!

Are they really doing this? And why!?

Thanks!
=aw

I cannot believe this. We change room types all the time

This restriction is somewhat common for awards if a property has higher demand for one type of room over another based on bedding. It sounds like the king rooms only have stay anytime availability while the doubles room have standard availability (based on the 100 % extra points required for the king room).

The GM is correct in that you will not be allowed to switch room types. If you are paying for your stay, the rates would usually be the same (or the king room might cost a little more if demand justifies a higher price). It would be possible to switch rooms if you were paying for them out of your own pocket.

The GM was "mistaken" - I can assure you no one has ever told him he can not change a room type however it sounds as though the demand for the hotels double bedded rooms his substantially higher than that of the king rooms and he's trying to manage the extra demand

Darn you guys are getting good...I guess I should have read the next few posts :)

I normally wouldn't have believed him, but (a) it was the GM, and (b) there was a different price in points for the two room types (28K vs 56K).

He told us he'd never heard of it, until earlier this week he tried to change someone from 1K to 2D (or v/v) on a points stay and was told not. So he was presenting it as a recent change.

It sounded strange to me, but we weren't checking in, we were just looking at the rooms for a potential stay next week. If we'd been checking in, it might have been the usual BS from any service provider.

I believe all the replies here, but has anyone actually done this in the last week at a Marriott property (booked 2D, switched to 1K at checkin, or v/v)?

Thanks!

=aw

I haven't done it within the last week, but I have asked for a different bed type than what the reservation was originally made out for (when using an awards cert.) This usually happens when I'm not paying attention and make an online award reservation. My profile has a King bed as my preference. But quite often, when I'm on an award stay, I'm with my family and want 2 beds. If I don't make the change during the reservation, then a king bed is what I get. But in those situations, I have been lucky enough that the check-in person had no problems giving me a room with 2 beds rather than a king.

I'm not sure if this would be considered a "change" in rules or not. Personally, I would think the GM could do whatever they so choose. I just don't see how Marriott cares that the reservation was for king bed, but the GM allowed a 2 double bed to be exchanged. The issue is probably one of inventory as previously stated. If there just isn't any existing inventory, then they won't have anything to hand out to you. The GM could give you free rooms if they so chose to do so. The issue isn't that Marriott won't let them, it is that they don't want to because of some other reason (i.e. inventory problems, etc.)

Now you could go ahead with your reservation, cross your fingers, and when you check in ask if they have any King beds available. If so, they may have no issues with letting you have one, but there is the risk that they won't have any King rooms available or that they wish to keep those to "sell" rather than give you one. If the reservation states, double beds, then that is the "minimum" they have to provide.

I'm retired but still active in the industry....let's just say yes I'd done it within the past week

Saw the same thing his weekend when scoping out an awards stay at a FI level 3 in the middle of nowhere. 28,000 pts (standard award) for a Double Bed 2 night stay but 56,000 (stay anytime) for a King.

Absolutely pathetic, IMO. Bad enough that its hard to score standard awards given the limited and undisclosed availability, now they are splitting hairs by dividing further what crumbs are left? An awards room is a room is a room, especially at a FI.

The chain promises but the franchisee doesn't want to deliver. How unusual.

I just got a set of postcards from the Hilton Honors program that I'm supposed to give to friends touting a 15,000 point sign-up bonus. "Enough for 2 free nights!" is the headline. The postcards have water view pictures of various Hilton resorts around the world.

The last time I looked into a Hilton award it was 30,000 points per night for a Hilton Garden Inn on the edge of the Albany, NY Airport in the middle of February - $99 was the purchase price.

When does this nonsense end?

Soc, I like your putting mistaken in quotes. Our ardent Marriott poster from out west would have used a different word.

I do disagree with the above statement, categories for hotels are decided by redemption demand - the higher the demand the more points needed to stay at a hotel, I can think of many situations where a hotel would have a substantially higher demand for rooms with 2 beds extra points would make sense (think leisure markets)....I'm personally not aware where MI has promised that all rooms in a hotel will have the same point value associated with them

Soc, (and everybody) please pardon the digression, but the phrase "...categories for hotels are decided by redemption demand - the higher the demand the more points needed to stay at a hotel..." piques my memory about something I probably should have inquired about a long time ago.

Simply put, how is the category determined for a property that's brand new, has no "redemption demand" history as either a Marriott (new construction) or non-Marriott (for a property reflagged as a Marriott brand)?

Each brand has a standard category - it would typically fall into the standard however there are exceptions - new resort hotels are coming to mind