Kacee

Perhaps it would be worth reaching out to these properties in advance of your stay? One of the advantages of the smaller LC properties should be a level of advance personal attention you won't get at that airport Marriott.

flying_geek

William, this comment is no way, shape or form aimed against you. You always were (and I am sure as much as you still can - are) there for us.

But no, for many of us we are not finding out "soon enough". There is very little "soon enough" but an awful lot of "too late" when it comes to this merger and Marriott's actions.

Starwood Lurker

I appreciate that you did not make this personal. But, if this is a hotel-related failure and not a merger-related failure, then I'm not sure we can lay the blame on it. I understand completely that everyone is frustrated with many aspects of that at the moment and work is being done every day to try and alleviate member concerns. From my vantage point, progress is being made on a daily basis and I hope everything will be cleared up sooner than later.

Regarding this particular subject, it is the #1 desire for the loyalty team that when you check into a hotel you are recognized for your loyalty. It is precisely where the rubber meets the road. It is also why every hotel is contacted on a personal level to go over their loyalty performance and among the things discussed is the importance of refreshing their PMS before elite members arrive to ensure they have the most up to date data.

Sometimes hotels fail on this point. When this happens, the first step I would take would be ask them to refresh their system and see if your status shows correctly. If it does not, then there is a problem that needs to be fixed. If it does, then they will proceed to provide you the appropriate recognition.

Either way, when we are made aware of this happening, we contact the hotel performance team to let them know that they need to follow up with the property and have this corrected. But, there is no way for us to know and do so unless it gets reported.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Social Media Specialist
Marriott International

[email protected]

Kacee

It does seem though that multiple members are reporting a consistent post-integration fail across multiple properties. That suggests a systemic problem, rather than the occasional property neglecting to refresh.

Starwood Lurker

As I said, we are going to find out soon enough, but I don't think the handful of reports that I've read here suggests anything but a occasional hotel failure. Otherwise, we would be seeing many more posts and it would show up in other contact points. And, what are we to make of the posts where members have said they arrived without encountering this issue?

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Social Media Specialist
Marriott International

[email protected]

Kacee

You're right, we don't know. While I've had my issues, my status (though incorrect in the system) is at least showing on my reservations.

flying_geek

Before the merger, guests were properly recognized and got the benefits they deserved. Now at least some of us are not. From a guest perspective I do not really differentiate between corporate and a franchisee. Fact is - there was a merger and stuff went to hell after it. I don't really care if corporate got the policy gone, if a hotel franchisee did something wrong or if the mail person forgot to mail them the instruction. I book a Marriott stay and I expect to get the promised benefits.

I do not care if for example my free night certificate disappeared because there is a bug in the code, someone pressed a wrong button, accidentally deposited to a different account etc. Whether the blame lies with a Marriott employee, an IT contractor or let's say an evil hacker. Fact is there is no customer service response beyond "yes wait, we'll fix stuff soon" - which takes 2 weeks to get and of course is useless. Odds are, my certificate will be expired before anyone in the dysfunctional service organization will even try to find it.

Starwood was far from perfect - I have over 1000 SPG nights - I have seen many issues - stuff goes wrong, in hotels, with IT, anywhere - but virtually everyone usually made some effort to make it better, fix an issue - and cared or at least pretended to care. When I couldn't link my Uber account it took a while before it worked, you actually helped back then.

Now, there is arrogant, rude, unhelpful customer service that seems to randomly respond with some form letter that has a very loose correlation to the issue at hand. Marriott does not take their customers seriously, does not make a visible effort to address any customer service, does not really apologize for things going wrong. It is less caring and welcoming than a 1980s communist country.

I understand there are some individuals who still try, work hard - you amongst them - but the corporate culture has so visibly turned against the customers.

I really disliked Hilton for the worthless points and huge differences in hotel quality within the same brand. I would never have seriously considered them had I not literally been pushed away by Marriott. And to my great surprise, Hilton actually impressed me. Available customer service, even by chat. Quick and easy escalation of an issue to other people, been recognized as Diamond only a few days after the Aspire card... Maybe I should not be pleased by HHonors but be grateful the local hotel pressed the refresh button...

1P

I think asking the hotel to refresh their system is pretty much guaranteed to antagonize them. Apart from the fact that not all front desk staff would necessarily know how to do that, but wouldn't want to admit it, it implies that the fault is with them so they cannot lay the blame on corporate failings. And I can see a scenario where a lot of people are waiting behind you to check in and refreshing the system is simply going to delay and annoy those people too.

yyznomad

When I frequent a specific property, the staff and management get to know me well. If they suddenly saw I went from PPE to GE within the same calendar year, someone would notice that or be shocked to see that when I check in. Didn't anyone at your ("main accommodation provider") property see this and question it? Or did everyone just pretend to not know you all of a sudden?

Eastbay1K

How about this easy solution, one that reading this thread is prompting me to do. My shiny, never presented, and never having left my desk since its receipt a couple of years ago or so, Thick Metal Lifetime SPG Platinum Card has just left my desk moments ago. I have put it with my travel stuff so that when I make my first entirely-post-program-merger stay in a couple of days, I will have it to present in the event of a "Dear Gold" or "You have no status" arrival at a hotel that has already welcomed me as a Platinum twice, earlier this year.

I will not be in the mood for spasms, a conniption fit, a DYKWIA moment, or any other check-in displeasure after about four hours of the most luxurious of first class flying and then a traffic jam getting to the hotel. I will simply want the best available room including select suites, and a key that opens the club lounge. I also rather like the hotel and its location, so that in the unlikely event that there's a burp in the system, I'll still want to stay there again.

While I trust I may not need this card, I will continue to carry it until such time as everyone on Flyertalk is singing Kumbaya regarding the finally-completely-smooth merger of systems, with status and benefits properly recognized.

And so it will be good.

Amen

yyznomad

Some people on FT mock me for keeping my status cards around with me, but these are the exact situations in which I present them and it usually solves many problems almost immediately.

jaycis

By the way, the issue is not that the hotel staff do not believe that you currently have higher status than their reservation shows. (Funnily enough, before the merger, in my experience this has happened at SPG properties more often than at Marriott properties...)
The check-in staff will be more than happy to refresh your elite status if you tell them that they have it wrong. It should not take them more than a few seconds. No card required, no argument required.
Also, if you do feel the need to pull out some sort of physical proof to show the staff, you can leave your card at home if you just use the app to prove your status.

The issue is that hotels process status upgrades well before you are able to present your shiny card at check-in. Obviously hotel staff are unable to reverse a suite upgrade they already gave to a Plat just because you showed up as a PP when they thought you were only Gold. No amount of proving your superior status at check-in is going to fix that, and I don't think that we should just give up and accept the status quo as the norm.
Of course, I am not suggesting anyone to make complaints at check-in or during the stay itself. Enjoyment of our time off is more important than room quality. However, I do think that this issue deserves addressing once we have the time for it back at home. It is important that Marriott realizes that this is not just a one-off phenomenon.

It's a bit ridiculous that some hotels seem to be blaming the guest for these mistakes, whether it's the hotel's fault for not refreshing their reservations or Marriott's fault due to some technical failure.

cfischer

I have had a single instance so far which was a hotel failure so it appeared. Is there something Marriott can do to push updated status post merger for all future hotel reservations?

Starwood Lurker

That's already been done, but the hotels need to refresh the data in their property management systems to see it.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Social Media Specialist
Marriott International

[email protected]

EuropeanPete