If this is indeed coming from HQ,as it seems to be,I have two questions.1)Has anyone written a letter of complaint to Marriott?And 2)Why are you still giving them your money?A company ordering individual properties to underachieve reaching levels of guest satisfaction-what kind of business model is that?

come on big guy, you know the form letter response

let me write it for MR right now

thank you BGP for your interest in the marriott brand. We really do appreciate your loyalty and appreciate you as a customer. We are always striving to keep the customer such as yourself happy and as a returning customer. We are here to make your stay enjoyable.

Regarding your question as to why are our properties underachieving and why did corporate dictate to our properties and franchisees to reduce our customer service. As you are aware, the economy is taking a big toll on Marriott and its franchisee's. As any business must do to succeed in the future it must curtail certain expenses. You can be assured that we have reduced costs in areas that do not have any or much visibility to customers such as yourself. We have done everything that we can reasonbly do to cut costs. However the continuing down turn of business travel is greater than we expected and we are forced to reduce our expenses even further. One of these is to reduce our CL hours to the minimum standards set by the corporation which are Sun Eve through Friday a.m. (or whatever it is)

As you can see we started this at the Res Inn brand by cutting the evening happy hour from four to three days and have continued this unfortunate cost cutting to our full service brands.

We must say though that we are not underachieving at all. We are merely providing what we stated we would provide. We are continuing to provide a top level service to our best customers even in this economy. We do not condone any under achieving in any of our marriott brands.

thank you for your loyalty and continued patronage.

And one last thing Big Guy, Please pass this on to your fellow cheapskates on Flyertalk

I stayed at the Manchester Airport Marriott last weekend. We were on a Stay For Breakfast rate so had breakfast in the restaurant. Despite the hotel being fully booked, we had no problems like those mentioned above. The coffee machine in the CL was out of order but complimentary coffee was available from the lobby bar. The fridges were pretty well stocked with soft drinks, fruit was available and at one point when we went in (about 10.30 on the Sunday morning) there were plates of cookies out. We went out to eat on the Saturday night so I don't know what, if any, snack offerings were available at that time.

I was at my favorite Seattle area full service Marriott today. They, per corporate directive, have discontinued bacon/sausage from the morning lounge fare.

According to the assistant manager, this directive is expected to save Marriott International six million dollars a year.

At this same property, all of the managers and many other service personnel have been put on four day week schedules - due to this mandatory "furlough," their wages have been proportionately reduced.

As I remember, lounges didn't always include hot dishes. I recall they popped up a few years ago seemingly so a sign acknowledging "low carb" could be attached somewhere.

So these are bad economic times. Many of you want Marriott to make some other cuts but not to reduce any "bennies" to elites. Marriott seems to have "scrubbed" operations and - in light of the economic realities - are making any number of meaningful cuts to minimize losses. I have observed many room rates - this weekend's rate included - also go down.

I was at the Reaissance Chancery in London last weekend. I don't recall any hot dishes during breakfast in the lounge either - but no one seemed to mind. It was very nice.

Without perfect knowledge, please don't throw "Starwood" out as what Marriott should be doing. For all we know, to continue to cater to the "us's" over there, they've gone beyond "furloughs" and have actually "fired." If not, maybe they've made a short term decision which will lead to more extreme cuts to elites in the future.

I don't believe that Marriott has engaged in any recent decisions without careful attention to consequences. If any of you can come up with a way for Marriott to save six million dollars painlessly, maybe we'll get our bacon back. If not, I believe that Marriott has engaged in the kind of priority budgeting that we would want from business - not to mention government.

how can you throw this crap out there; first of all you don't know whether marriott has or has not fired anyone. Second as a guest, its up to the hotel along with the chain to make the stay as pleasant as possible if they want repeat customers. Marriott is not doing this so many are moving to places that they can have a better experience whether at a lower or similar cost

marriott seems to be screwing the customer AND employee

Quick questions - were you only there for the weekend, or was the lounge offering different for weekend vs weekday? Also, I have been reading trip advisor reports mentioning "tired" rooms and that the Chancery may be due for upgrades - your opinion?

Treat your high revenue repeat customers well and they will continue to give your property business.
Marriott does not pay for these breakfasts Items(for the most part)-the franchisee does.So some suit throwing a speculative number like"$6 million"is pure BS.
An easy way to save $6 million?Fire the whiz kids in suits who are ruining Marriot.
"I don't believe that Marriott has engaged in any recent decisions without careful attention to consequences."I believe you are very mistaken in this belief.I see the whiz kids in suits as chimps throwing their you know what at a pie chart on the wall-If it sticks that must be the answer.

So they are saving 6 million (which I doubt) by these cutbacks? They are also losing business. Look at this board. I will throw Starwood out (you can't tell me how to post) - I am spending more and more money at SPG and less and less at MR. I hope that 6 mil was well spent.

I was just at the Chancery on the weekend. I had a club level room - they're on the third floor. It was perfectly fine. The evening offerings at the lounge seemed to square with what's been reported here. Several really fancy hot "canapes," several fancy cold canapes. The desserts were fantastic!! Lounge was open all day. I don't know whether you can score bacon (or bangers) on weekdays.

Gosh. Seems like Donut Guy and Dayone aren't keen on my comments. Hope the day never comes when economic necessity causes one or both of them to forego precious cooked meats in the morning for cereal.

I simply wonder what cut - and Marriott has already gone to furloughs (don't know about firings, but I hope not) would be imposed in order to bring back the bacon.

With painful cuts already implimented (and would these guys figure the bacon was more painful than furloughs) I can only surmise that for elites to get their bacon, it would have to adversely impact employees or non elites.

The Donut Guy says it all: "up in front or in the suite." I was castigated once upon a time for remarking "Let 'em eat cake." Donut Guy sure puts it better.

They might be saving 6 million but they are losing much much more with all the bad PR. It's going to take more than 6 million to "fix" it.

I'm in the same boat SPG has been getting more of my money.

BTW. The Renaissance Downtown Toronto is no longer providing breakfast vouchers on weekends.

For purely nonreligious reasons, I don't eat pork. However, my condolences on the loss of a favored breakfast item.

In many cases, I'm now paying less per night than last year so I can understand and handle a slight cut in amenities. YMMV.

Thank you, Day One. I much favor cereal myself. Like you, I find myself getting lower rates than, say, last year.

Until recently, I received a free breakfast on weekends at my favorite local full service Marriott. They were, like other properties, advised to stop this practice.

My rate today was probably $15 or so less than what it was last year at this time. By paying for my own breakfast, the sum total was probably close to the same. And, hey, more points with the increased platinum bonus. Not too bad.

Many Marriotts closed their lounges on weekends some years ago. The Marriott with an open weekend lounge was, truly, the exception. I doubt that Marriott is losing customers in droves because of the change. Perhaps they did miscalculate about the bacon. The assistant manager I spoke with indicated that she has had to field many complaints about the change.

Still, I don't buy much into conspiracies at this level. I don't believe that Marriott came up with this new change just to generate hate and discontent and somehow pulled the six million dollar figure out of the air. And, all other things being equal, if headquarters is overstaffed, cuts can and should be made. But if the staffing positions can be justified, I still put a valued employmee's job security ahead of a little extra choice at breakfast.

You guys are probably keen to get the waste, fraud, and abuse out of government. If the government can get rid of its "pork," why can't Marriott?

My problem with these cutbacks is that the good CL serves as a valuable resource for me that is not provided by the hotel restaurant. I like being able to slip in an out of the lounge on my own schedule and have some decent breakfast and evening snacks. I often don't want to have to go to a restaurant and take the time to be waited on, etc. And in the evening there is no place in most hotels for one person to have a variety of hors d'ouevres and maybe a glass of wine. Sure I could go down to the restaurant or bar and order a plate of one kind of hors d'ouevre and sit there and eat them, but that's not how I like to spend my evening. I like to be able to walk down the hall, stop in the lounge and have a choice of different items in the evening, maybe read a paper or watch TV and relax. Or in some cases I like to take a little bit of food back to my room and work and go back and forth to the lounge as I wish.
For those hotels that have good lounges I don't mind paying a larger daily room rate. But I see no reason to stick with Marriott when the lounge food has diminished so much in quality and the lounges are closed on weekends (and too often other times).
The JW Marriott in DC is a good example of a lounge in which the quality of food in the evening had badly deteriorated at my last stay in January. This month I switched to a different (and much cheaper) DC Marriott with a lounge that in some ways is now better than the JW. Next month I'm making my first stay at a Starwood hotel in years and I'm looking into a status comp with Starwood.
Add the CL deterioration along with cutbacks on newspapers, no mouthwash or other amenities, etc., I don't see much reason to stick with Marriott.

I have rarely(if ever)have seen bacon or sausage in a CL breakfast spread.And that is just fine by me.We really are not talking about that-we CAN use that as an example of Marriott justifying its cuts by pulling BS numbers out of the air to justify service cuts.
Trust me-the chimps in suits at MI are very good at BS and spin-they are much more adapt at spin and BS than at running a hospitalty business.

Speaking of spinWhy are you dropping the "save the American worker"and "boo to big guvment" mantra into this?That really is not what is being discussed here.If I were a suspicious sort(which I can be at times)I might suspect a "conspiracies at this level" as you put it(another time tested deflection-suggesting any dissenters to be fans of tin foil hats)in your above thread.