TravellingMan

How about this?

You call the platinum line to make an awards reservation. They can find rooms if you pay 65 euros surcharge every night and none if you want a 5 nights for 4. When you ask them how that makes sense, the agent responds by literally hanging up on you.

littlevoices

I've never had a problem with the platinum desk - even if they didn't like the info they were telling me. They've always been very professional and knowledgeable.

Perhaps drop a complaint with the time/agent if appropriate to the conceirge.

TrojanHorse

I'm going to go with a gut feel here, not everything is disclosed in the op

alfahund

Threads would be closed after two replies if ops would always disclose everything right from the start

tfred

+1

although most people after 1,000 post knows the protocol here about a sufficient amt of info.

it is usually the "first post" ranters that offer the minimum real info

jan_az

Maybe your cell phone cut out?

TravellingMan

I called from Europe via Skype. The call was very clear and I asked her for booking for 5 nights in Amsterdam. She said there was no availability for the 5 nights in Amsterdam Marriott. I replied that I checked on your website and was able to make 2 separate reservations for 2 days and 3 days. Why cannot I not have the 5 nights for 4 when I can find 5 nights in separate reservations? She said I can get that if I pay 65 euros a night upgrade and said that is how it is, and hung up on me. I was left speechless.

All I could conclude was being a Platinum was useless and ofcourse the points were useless too if they want me to pay 65 euros/night for a room on top of the 30k points/night. Now if they want to hang up on me, maybe I should get the message.

People speculating about what was being said or not disclosed, I have been on FT enough to know not to yell or scream to get things done with agents. You are free to think whatever you feel like.

littlevoices

FYI, had something similar on a recent booking, it was a special event (Christmas day) and as I'd raised with Marriott concierge here already to get the 2 day part of the reservation available at all I just accepted the extra 30k points cost. I might bring it up with them in the future, but, for the moment just happy to have a reservation at the hotel I wanted. Thread here;
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marri...ial-event.html

annerj

I'd be pretty upset if they hung up on me.

TravellingMan

I was so surprised that I did not even bother with calling them back! Just setup the plan to burn the Marriott points asap. The problem is that I have spent close to 50 nights this year with them and need to replan the hotel loyalty collection.

The problem is all chains have watered down their programs.

HappyCheesehead

A Marriott rep hung up on me once, about 3 years ago. Apparently he was annoyed with me. I had asked, and he had answered, a question. I was doubting his answer, so rephrased it and asked again a slightly different way. He said "I just told you that!" (which he had of course) and hung up on me.

I work in a customer service department and I have used this as an example of how we do NOT want to do business a few times since then.

anwend

1) I just want to say that it was unfortunate that you spoke with an agent that reacted that way. If the agent truly hung up on you, it is possible grounds for immediate dismissal at a Marriott call center. However, unless that agent booked, cancelled, or changed a reservation for you, it is impossible for Customer Service to tell who the agent is, unless his manager happened to be monitoring the call.

2) As for the number of night restrictions, don't blame the reservation agent. He cannot view inventory restrictions the hotel puts on the inventory. All he does is put in the number of nights you request and clicks "sell" and the computer tells him whether rooms are available or not. The hotel can put complex inventory restrictions that the agent will never see. In this case, the hotel must have had a "minimum stay 5, maximum stay 2" restriction, which meant if you requested 1, 2, 5, 6 ,7, etc. nights, they were available. If you requested 3 or 4, they weren't. The reservation agents are not allowed to override these restrictions themselves because the hotel doesn't WANT 3 or 4 night stays in this case (for reasons only the inventory manager at the hotel knows). I know it's not a stellar explanation, but don't come down too hard on the res. agent for the number of nights issue.

TravellingMan

My expectations of the Marriott brand has hit rock bottom, hence it should be darn easy for them to meet my expectations going forward. At this point, all I am looking forward is my reservation to be in good shape at the hotel. Now that should not be too hard for them to meet.

No more going out of the way for a Marriott property, a decent property near the customer site should do the trick.

san2yul

Ever occured to you that technichal issues do happen! Also do you know why Skype is virtually free? It's becuase it offers no service quality assurances and depending on the connection your calls can and do drop.
It's interesting that you took the time to post here yet didn't bother calling Marriott back...

Your story does NOT make sense!!!

joshua362

Most certainally agree this is possible with Skype. Also, as a small business owner, I've seen my father just hang up on people where their demands exceed comman sense, i.g, I want a full refund AND you to pay $50 overnight fee to UPS to send a $30 product to me. There comes a point where no amount of conversation will do so "click" instead of escalating threats by both sides.

Not saying this is the case here but there are usually 3 sides to every story!!!