I can understand the hotel using the second card to ensure it gets paid. I cannot understand not bringing it to the guest's attention, nor thinking to bring it to the guest's attention when the guest presents a different card at check-in. Your post, though, has made me think: I've removed the second card from my profile.

My assumption was she checked to be sure the card I handed her was the same as the card used for the room and/or she just scanned the card handed. I also assumed many others would think the same thing and thought a warning would save them the time, energy, and frustration of trying to correct an error that could be prevented.

Using someone else's card for my stay, though, cannot be chalked up to a simple error. How can there be a system in place were that could happen? How careless must a clerk be to let this happen?

Actually, this _has_ happened to me a couple of years ago.

I my case, I was staying at a SHS in Texas and someone had a name similar to mine (think "Keaton" and "keeton"). They checked the other person in under my reservation :eek:. When I arrived at the hotel, they caught the error and judging by the look of sheer terror on the FD clerk's face, knew they had FU'd royally. They claimed they would "straighten it out." It turned out that both the other person's and my stays were charged to my card. I called the hotel's accounting department (who originally said they would "straighten it out") who did not act in a timely manner. I ended up successfully disputing the other person's charge with my credit card company - reversing the charges _and_ costing the hotel another $100 in dispute fees.

Very ;)

But seriously, my suspicion is that hotels have no problems charging one card, even though the guest isn't staying in the room. Its fairly common for groups to travel where one person pays the bill for everyone.

My profile only holds my personal card but when on business I change the card its billed to when I check in (easier that way for me as I do a mix of personal and business travel).


*Recently I've been charging everything to my Marriott card for the points.

The folio put under your door includes the card network (V, MA, AX) and last 4 digits.

And that right there is the problem. I will NOT stay at Crabtree again after a terrible experience 5 years ago. Nothing, apparently, has changed.

BTW, a couple more unreturned phone calls to the manager of this hotel and the room night still has not been credited to my Rewards account. Anyone have any idea how to handle this so that it actually gets done? The room night needs to be credited, the points posted, and I would hope someone with Marriott can actually make sure the person wrongly charged for my stay is credit back. I seriously doubt that happened.

Clay the manager said he would be on top of this. Days ago. He said if I needed anything else to call. My mistake. I thought that meant he would take care of it and return my calls. Silly me. He obviously meant just that I should call and call and call, not that he would actually see to it that this was done.

It seem obvious now that someone else's MR# was used for this stay, and his/her credit card was charged. It appears that the points are not being credited because the information was not corrected in the room record. When something this wrong is carelessly done, the hotel manager should immediately do everything possible to clean up the mess. Sadly, this time the manager couldn't even be bothered to do minimal cleanup.

It is a mystery how this could happen. The reservation was made through Marriott's Web site with my MR#. It showed on my reservation list and they had my name right when I showed up that night. It's a bigger mystery why it has taken so much effort to get it corrected. Mistakes happen. Getting a mistake corrected should be such an effort for the customer, though.

You should be able to call Marriott Rewards and have them directly credit your account if the stay was in the United States within the past 60 days.

variation on the theme. I gave my credit card at the front desk when checking in for a conference, but when checking out, I was told the charge was zero as the host of the conference was picking up the room charges. sweet, it thought. Two months later I had a charge on my credit card from a city I didn't recognize at a time that I was in another state across the country. I called the credit card company and challenged the charge, (and put up with the hassle of having the card cancelled and replaced). A few days later the credit card company called me with a name of the hotel and a phone number to call. I called, found out that there was a misunderstanding with the host and that all participants were to pay for their own room (the hotel was actually in a suburb whose name I didn't recognize). No problem, I said, just send me an invoice for the charge and give me my MR points, and I will remove my objection to the charge. Or, alternately, send me a properly dated invoice with a new charge. Two weeks later I called back and talked to the accounting department asking the status of my new invoice. They said they weren't going to bother with it, and they felt that it was the end of the story.
I can't complain about a free night. But I did spend a couple of hours on the phone because they didn't have the sense to notify me when the billing had changed, or to notify me when they decided that they weren't going to charge after all. My rewards profile gives them phone, email, and address to use. Surely one of those would have been convenient for them.

Accounting is notorious for not contacting guest when they apply new charges to the credit cards. Given the ubiquitousness of e-mail, I don't think that's justifiable.

What does "MI" stand for?

Marriott International Inc.

Came about during the split of Marriott Corporation, HM was Host Marriott formerly also known as Marriott Corporation and now known as Host Hotels & Resorts)

Before you rag on the Accounting folks at a hotel, know that if it's a Banquet function the event manager "usually" will have done a final bill review and will then tell Accounting that it's OK to charge whatever card is on file.
It's also the Event Manager's job to secure the proper MOP.

In regards to a room stay, all of that is done by the FD when you C/O or by Housekeeping if they see that the room is unoccupied.

Accounting only gets involved to fix problems that usually have been done by other departments.
My point being that is incumbent for the department manager that is initiating the reversal/correction to contact the cardholder.

Spent another hour on this today, speaking with three different Marriott corporate areas. The plot thickens...

• Clay, who held himself out to be the hotel manager, isn't. Brian, who also claimed to be a manager, isn't. These are people who work at the front desk. Someone named Ed is the manager. Now why didn't anyone tell me that when I called the hotel all these times?
• The hotel has charged my credit card, but the invoice is strange. We all know what a Marriott invoice looks like. This doesn't look like that.
• The reason the Marriott points are not posting is because they have recorded this as a no-show, which means points are not assigned. This is odd, as I was at the hotel. This confirms that they have charged my card for a different stay and not corrected the original billing. There is still someone else being charged for this. Isn't that double-dipping? This needs to be corrected, for another reason, too: My company audits my expense reports. It would look suspicious if they checked this receipt and were told I was a no-show.
• Nobody is sure who got the Marriott points, but it is likely that is whose card was charged. Nobody can figure out how that could have happened, but it is very curious how hard the front desk people at this hotel appear to be trying to cover this up rather than make what should be an easy correction.

Three additional people have now said they would try to straighten this out. They are supposedly working together. Each of them agrees this stinks. Let's see if they actually get to the bottom of this.

That may be true, but the two biggest erroneous charges to my credit card were both initiated by accounting and it was with accounting that I battled and it was the accounting manager that apologized and issued my refunds. No other department was involved.