escape4

My ambassador used to be excellent, always quick responses. That was until August 18. After that, night & day. In September-October I thought I will be patient, things will get better so no need to be the squeaky wheel. Then November went by, no change. Now past mid December, still no change. I know it's not her fault since she was always great before - the workload is the issue. If I was ex-Marriott and got newly assigned to her, I would think she is no good. But having some history with her, I know it's not the case.

How much longer should I wait to see if it will get better? This is getting problematic. One month fine, two months ok... but I am not sure I want to go several more months like this - it devalues the Ambassador program. I have expressed my concerns to her in writing, but no response to that either

SeeTheLights

EuropeanPete

I'm not sure there's anything you can do. If you have known your Ambassador for a while and know them to be competent and able to meet your needs when allowed to do so, you're going to be unlikely to gain from swapping them out and neither you nor they have any ability to impact their workload. I try to keep my appreciation personal and request negative feedback about my experiences on the programme get sent to the Ambassador management team. Ultimately it's wait and see if things change and if not you have to re-evaluate how you want to engage with Marriott and their programme.

bhrubin

troyintn

How long did it take to get your welcome email? I made Ambassador almost two weeks ago and have not received anything. I moved some stays from Hilton to Marriott thinking with Ambassador I may be able to get some service and have an option with the poor service do to the integration challenges. Unfortunately ambassador service so far seems to be another benefit on paper without any real value.

Starwood Lurker III

Hi troyintn,

If you could provide your account details to us via the email below, we would like to help contact the Ambassador management team for you.

Best Regards,

Christina Zhou
Social Media Specialist
Marriott International

[email protected]

ZZYZXROAD

Made ambassador in late September, got email in early November.

hockeyinsider

When my ambassador didn't respond to 2–3 emails I called in, asked for a supervisor and within a couple hours a supervisor called me. I was then given a new ambassador within 24 hours. The new ambassador responds to most emails same day; sometimes the next morning. Her hours don't perfectly match mine as we are in different timezones.

I've been disappointed because none of the hotels have delivered or come close to meeting my expectations of ambassador status. This is the biggest problem. Even with a good ambassador there is nothing that can be done to get an incompetent, lazy or otherwise bad hotel to do something -- anything.

A good example is the Casa Monica, Autograph Collection, which told both of us to basically pound sand on getting an upgrade and the breakfast benefit I'm entitled to under Marriott's rules. I have told her two or three times in the last month that I'm disappointed and she's been apologetic. I understand she isn't in charge of delivery. That's the flaw in the system. Everything depends on a hotel and Marriott doesn't manage the vast majority of its hotels. That's a recipe for failure.

When I was first assigned to her I told her I do two or three "special" stays per year that I could use her help on and the rest are just generic business trips. My last "special" trip of 2018 is coming up. This is the ambassador service's last chance because so far the status, if the property even knows what ambassador status is, has been worthless. No upgrades beyond what I got as a platinum premier. No thank you notes from manager. No surprise in-room amenities. Nothing. Yes, she's helped me out with a couple issues relating to points not posting or whatever but I used to get that done with a telephone call to the platinum premier desk.

You should email Marriott:

Arne Sorenson, CEO <[email protected]>
David Flueck, senior vice president of loyalty <[email protected]>
Justin Biermann, director of loyalty product strategy <[email protected]>

escape4

Thanks for the advice. I think I don't have much to lose to send feedback one more time and ask for solutions more directly.

escape4

Sorry to hear about your subpar experience. Personally I feel like step 1 is getting more responsiveness from my ambassador. Unless that happens, then hotels don't even have the opportunity to deliver or not. If I have better responses from my ambassador, perhaps hotels would fail anyway, but at least I got to get over the first hurdle. In addition I suspect that how hotels handle special requests varies a lot by property, and that maybe generally speaking ex-Starwood hotels are more used to the ambassador concept whereas there is a learning curve required for some legacy Marriott hotels?

hockeyinsider

My special requests are extra feather pillows and extra towels. Neither one is complicated and any competent hotel, regardless of brand or star rating, should be able to deliver. If a hotel can't deliver extra pillows and extra towels then they should probably re-consider their business.

Look at this picture. It's the housekeeper's manifest for the floor of the hotel I stayed at recently. Besides incorrectly listing my status as platinum premier and not ambassador, you see there were several elite status guests all with special requests. None of my requests were fulfilled, even though they are printed on the manifest for the housekeeper to see. This is a failure on the part of the hotel. Obviously, there's no housekeeping supervisor checking the rooms to see if what's printed on the manifest was delivered.




At least in my case it sounds as if each property has designated a staff member as the ambassador liaison. At one property it was the front office manager. At another property it was the rooms controller. The ambassador calls or emails the liaison with any special requests, etc. This may be the flaw in the system. For one of my stays at a hotel that was seven hours ahead of my ambassador's timezone, it took her three phone calls and one email to finally speak with the liaison. So, if you have a special request it's probably best to make it known several weeks before your stay.

Hopefully, Marriott has an internal reporting system. It sounded as if they can file a report on hotels that don't comply, but who knows if this is tracked.

From what I could gather from reading between the lines in discussions with an ambassador manager and also a Marriott middle-level corporate executive there are difficulties between the loyalty division and the hotel development division. The hotel development division helps owners and hotel developers, who are Marriott's real customers (we're just the product Marriott sells them), maximize their money, including through questionable compliance with the loyalty program's requirements, such as the breakfast benefit.

Someone is telling properties they only have to provide continental breakfasts and that these breakfasts can consist of only toast and coffee. That someone isn't from the loyalty division. The same for upgrades. I stayed at the J.W. Marriott Grosvenor House, which is managed by Marriott and not a third-party management company, and their position is you don't receive any of the benefits or privileges that come with a suite when you get a "free" upgrade, even when the upgrade is through the suite night award certificate.

bhrubin

StephanP37

longtimereader firstimeposter

Have you tried contacting the generic Ambassador email? My ambassador is competent enough to handle most of my requests and usually responds the same day but for missing points or stays or other minimal stuff like applying Your24, I usually contact the generic Ambassador email address. They tend to respond quickly and resolve my problems on the first email.

Granted, I still have my issues with the Ambassador program. I wish hotels would observe it as it's own status and treat guests as such. I've never been "wowed" by the service but from the customer service perspective it's miles ahead of the regular Marriott platinum line. When the service wows me, upgrades on important stays (I've asked for it twice over the 4-5 years I've been amb and both times I got nothing), properties recognizing me as a VIP and unprompted contact from my Ambassador, then I would recommend the service.

bhrubin