jpdx

I'm not doing it out of spite, but I have cancelled a number of Starriott stays and am booking other chains whenever possible.

7 weeks after merging accounts, I can't log in to the Marriott website or Marriott app. When I try to book hotels on the SPG website, I often get no availability. Sometimes those hotels will then show up on the SPG app. I haven't received a single email for legacy Marriott hotels -- confirmations, cancellations, or post-stay receipts. None of my legacy Marriott stays have posted, and for SPG ones, BRG points take weeks to show up (not to mention the fact that BRGs were approved with 2k SPG, but now only receive 5k Marriott). I'm still missing several hundred thousand points from award cancellations.

This is compounded by the fact that customer service ranges from non-existent to terrible. It takes hours --literally hours-- on the phone to get through, and then in all likelihood you'll get an agent who sounds like they're working for an entirely different company. No clue how to fix things, not empowered to do anything, and oh, we're legacy SPG, you'll have to call legacy Marriott for that. Or you can reach out by email or missing stay form, for which there's a 99% chance you won't get a response that has anything to do with your problem, and if you do get one it's written by someone who was fired by the DMV for failing to meet their customer service standards.

I'm really scratching my head why anyone would put up with this. Let's say you'd shopped at a grocery store for 20 years, and you were so happy there, they have the freshest fruit and their staff are so friendly. And then some day they're taken over by another chain, and now there are days when you show up and they don't have any fruit available at all. The super friendly staff are nowhere to be found, so you wander the aisles, and when you finally find someone, they tell you you must be wrong, the store never used to sell fruit. They summon a supervisor who tells you that 99% of their customers have no issue with their new selection, and then kicks you out of the store. Would you give your business to that store?

Now, I understand it's harder to walk away if you're focusing on one program and need to make it to 50/75/whatev nights. But for those of us who have Starriot LT status, are already sitting at 50/75/whatev nights, hold top tier with Hyatt/IHG/Hilton/etc, WHY in the world would we stick with Starriott through this current shitshow?

margarita girl

I feel like I'm stuck in a rut. I have nowhere to go. Since we're using a grocery analogy, I put my eggs in 2 baskets, Fairmont and Starwood and both have now splattered onto the pavement!

I've encountered terrible customer service personnel. Several weeks ago, I had major problems with my Travel Package and a SUPERVISOR told me that I had to fork out an extra 45K points to convert my old cat 5 cert into a new cat 4 cert. A few days ago, I had another SUPERVISOR tell me that my 75K Marriott point transfer to SQ would be 75K SQ miles. How people that clueless get promoted is beyond me. Hopefully those 2 can be retrained and all will be well.

My biggest beef however is with the vastly inferior "stabilized" IT system that Marriott is dropping in our laps. I expect we will be stuck with this for a long time.

• Fax numbers instead of email addresses in spite of claiming to cater to the millennials.
• No breakdown of points earning in the activity summary by using Extra as the catch all for anything that isn't Base points or Elite bonus.
• No identification of which property has been booked in the activity summary when award reservations are made or cancelled.
• No confirmation of the number of points withdrawn on the confirmation email for award reservation.
• No breakdown of base price and taxes in confirmation email for revenue reservations.
• No way to see multiple prices at the same time in a grid when booking revenue reservations.
• No way to sort by price except by modifying the URL.
• The default for the activity list is 5 items. Seriously?
• Items are not always listed chronologically in the activity list.
• LNF is calculated on each individual night instead of the average rate for a multi-night booking.
• LNF team refuses to subtract the taxes on websites that quote tax included prices if the price breakdown isn't shown, yet this is something Marriott can't seem to do!
• Points to miles transfers have gone from 2-10 days depending on the airline to 6-8 weeks! (My 5000 bonus miles got lost on the way to SQ on my last transfer.)
• A mega bonus promo that seems designed to infuriate members rather than welcome them to the new merged program and soothe them after a total CF of a merge which isn't complete almost 2 months later. I don't think we've ever had a single promo that NO ONE is happy with.
• A sweepstake with a countdown that completely missed its take off mark.
• A system that assigns members new numbers that start with a 0 but then won't let them make reservations with that number for another 2 months.
• The most confusing breakfast program that no one can understand, including the properties that are supposed to offer them (eg Courtyard that wants the $10 credit used before midnight of check-in day).
• Vanishing points, reservations, stay/night credits and status levels. And of course, there are many people who are now holding higher status levels than they are entitled to.

Houston, we have a problem! I'm unhappy and holding on tight, but what I'm holding on to is pretty slimy.

Even this is bigger than what our Lurkers are capable of handling.

SkiAdcock

Someone needs to send an email to Arne & Flueck a link to this thread. They can spin it all they want, but if they see how many people are booking other chains & it's impacting their revenue maybe they'd pay more attention to this debacle.

Cheers.

margarita girl

Fixed it for you.

But I agree. They must have their heads pretty deep in the sand to be oblivious to what's going on and tell people to hold tight.

username

I posted on the Promo thread that someone can probably do a Dilbert panel on this (i.e. gap between Management and IT and Marketing). It would be interesting to see how they spin this on the Q3 report.

username

For the last few years, since the EEO debacle, Marriott has ignored Flyertalk. I really wonder what their plans are with our SPG Lurkers. I also worry about our SPG Lurkers - imagine how you would feel if your company was taken over by a company that does not value what you have done well!

yosithezet

EEO?

margarita girl

Hah! Marriott will be lucky if the Lurkers don't head over to Hyatt, Hilton or IHG!

dayone

Elite Exclusive Offers.

BrightlyBob

Mister Nice

JBord

An honest response in a thread where people are overstating the severity of just about everything, I appreciate this. I fully agree with you that if you're unsatisfied, you should book away to somewhere that's better for you. But booking away simply to punish Marriott and hope they fix issues faster (as I thought you were suggesting), won't work and will likely only be bad for some of the customers who book away. For me, I need about 29 nights to LT PP, so no chance I'm booking away as long as I can continue to book the hotels I want, get good service while I'm there, and my points post (although sometimes later than pre-merger).

So basically you have to go the website to book the hotel you want? The horror! I'm not sure what you're emailing CS about, I've never had a reason to do that. But I do agree, the customer service stories I've read here in the last month would indicate that CS has not been properly prepared for the IT issues.

I don't know if this is a funny or sad story, but maybe it provides some perspective, given your issue with phone vs. website. After UA-CO merged, one of the thousands of customer-facing issues was that elites had difficulty using the free same day flight change functionality. For those who don't know, we can change the flight for free within 24 hours of the flight departure. Back then I had an iphone, and android, and a computer. Often, all three would offer me different options. One would show flights with no change fee but a fare difference. Another might show no fare difference but a change fee. The third might show different flight availability.

The sad/funny part of that story is it's now 7 (?) years later, I no longer have the android, but I still often have to check both mobile and web to get the correct free SDC benefit because they're not in sync and one is wrong. I guess I've just had a low bar set in terms of IT merger issues. Being patient a few months seems like nothing to me after so many years.

username

I have put up with bad stuff to make status or get deals so I understand. However, I was suggesting, for those who can, that we book away and let the numbers pressure Marriott Management into admitting they have a problem and get better with communications / support. I don't recall any official e-mail on the state of things and the 2 tickets I opened never got any response other than the initial automated e-mail.

This kind of stuff can't be rushed. Obviously a lot of mismanagement took us to this point. So, things get fixed when they get fixed. I just hope there is real accountability in the company for this mess - not find some low level scapegoat to blame.

C17PSGR

IMHO, the integration process was slow and communication was poor. I also agree the promotion seems pretty poor and could have been a chance to rebuild trust and loyalty. I have around 110 actual nights this year to date but very few of those involve a two night or more stay so this promotion is basically useless to me.

That being said, I've had (a) the proper status, (b) the correct amount of nights, (c) the correct amount of points, (d) all reservations showing, and (e) stays crediting properly for at least 3-4 weeks now. Some properties are executing the new program well, some have their head in the sand, and some (particularly legacy SPG properties) appear to be attempting to game the system by the "standard" word and reducing benefits. Those decisions, however, are made at the property and franchise level not by Marriott corporate. We should definitely avoid those properties.

As for the remaining problem, I agree the reservation system is a mess. The linkage of the SPG and MR databases to the reservation face on the app or the website is erratic and I find it difficult to see legacy Marriott properties in some cases, to get corporate rates across legacy Marriott or SPG properties, or to sort by price. I'm assuming they are losing reservations over this but they don't seem to be doing much to fix it. Also, I've had three stays at legacy SPG properties this month (in a Westin, a Sheraton, and a W) and they do not see Platinum Premier as a status in Lightspeed. As the FD at a W said a couple of days ago: "I know there is a Plat Premier status but it doesn't show in our system. You're not the first one who has asked about it."

Of course, the practical issue is that as I was told in a conversation with a FD agent at a large Marriott last week when they didn't have the king bed I reserved, "since the merger, almost everyone is a platinum premier. You're used to being a platinum premier when you'd be the only one in the hotel."

Kacee

That's a pretty typical fda excuse when they've bungled your reservation. At the individual property level, percentage of PPE should be lower than percentage of Plats prior to 8/18 (since not all Plats would be elevated).