Phony Marriott Rate Guarantee
 

Marriott's Look No Further Best Rate Guarantee
is a total fraud.

I was about to book a room for the PVG
Courtyard online, but my laptop was acting up. I called the
hotel directly and ask about the rate I saw on the MC website.
The hotel inhouse res agent told me I could do much better
online at other websites than she or MC could offer. I looked
around and found a MUCH BETTER deal on hotels.com for the
same room for the same nights. I was aware of, and depending
on the "Best Rate Guarantee" MC offers....so I sent an email to
customer care....who informed me the rate guarantee only applies
to Marriott websites. Priceline, hotels.com, Orbitz, etc....are
outside the MC guarantee. Thus, the "Best Rate Guarantee" is
totally worthless. Misleading. Unethical. A fraud.

After over 20 years in the MC program....I will now only stay
there as a last resort.

THIS thread says otherwise.

Yet another one post ranter that never comes back! Tchau!

I have email from MC internet.customer.care (James White) advising me that
"Hotels.com is not a qualifying website." for the Best Rate Guarantee.
I have since called two MC customer care 800 numbers.....at the
second the agent, very politely, offered to cancel my MC
rewards number if I found that Marriott policies were unethical
or deceptive.

I can't believe I was stupid enough to rely on that "guarantee" in the
past. Could have saved some $$$.

So your laptop was "acting up" when you called the hotel in-house reservations dept but was working properly when you visited hotels.com and when you sent an email to customer care?

Oh and is working good enough for you to register and post on FT?

hmmmmmm.

I'm back.
What's your point?

Nope, did all the subsequent internet work at the hotel business center.
(Astor House Hotel, Mezzanine Level, near the massage parlor.)

James White, MC Customer Care emailed me that "Hotels.com would not be a qualifying website" for the rate match.
Subsequent calls to MC have established that no internet site (Priceline, Hotwire, Hotels, etc) qualifies for the rate match. In other words, the MC website will be happy to match other MC websites rates. Outside the MC system and there is no rate match.

I have successfully used both expedia.com and hotels.com as sites that have I used to envoke the best rate guarantee from Marriott. Also, I am pretty sure others on this board have as well

something seems odd here...it's rare that those websites should be lower (not that it doesn't happen at times)...I'm not sure why a reservation agent would risk their position by directing a guest to another channel...Mr. Marriott firmly believes all channels should offer the same rate for the same type of product (hense the guarantee)

What is MC?

My guess is Marriott Corporate, but that is just a guess.

One word. LAZY. Reservation agents are not at the top of the pay scale and are not always as devoted to the barely above min wage job as you make them out to be. Many are very good and dedicated, but the pay scale does not always bring in the reservationist career seekers.

LNF works great, I can assure you there are no massive problems, I use it all the time.
Q to the OP: there are specific rules and it can very well be that hotels.com will not qualify for this specific claim. Only claims within the US and Canada are easy to get through; other countries have more stringent rules attached.

I presume you have not been lurking long as this subject comes up every few months.

Flyer Talk is very helpful but not known to be kind. I'm probably supposed to make some remark about doing a search and you would find a prior thread, but search hasn't been working well lately and I've been kicked once today myself. Let me bring you up to speed.

The guarantee only applies to published rates, and its a similar deal with most if not all major chains. It does not apply to "third-party" channels, who pre-buy rooms in bulk and resell them. Your complaint does not just apply to Marriott. It changed about five years ago across the board.

Hotels.com, Priceline (at least the bidding channel), and Hotwire are all examples of resellers who buy in bulk and then turn the room for what they can get. No points and no price match. Travelocity and Orbitz used to be the second model, but I'm not at all sure they still are based on my last near-booking experience with the former, when something seemed like I was about to prepay and I bailed for the direct website.

You can usually tell by whether you pay the seller directly at the time of purchase, including taxes, or if they just make you a reservation like a storefront travel agent and you pay the hotel on arrival, just as if you had booked directly with the hotel.

With the economy sucking there seem to be a lot more good third-party deals, as opposed to just dropping listed price. But they are off the record discounts and your reward is to pay less, not to get Marriott to price match,