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Problem I had with hotel reservation, thoughts please

Quilter

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This is a long story. I'm going to try to make it short.

In July I booked our rooms for Italy using 5-night travel packages. I purposely used a certificate from my account for one of the rooms and a certificate from my husband's account for the other reservation. It took several times to get the dates synced with DD's schedule. The final time I changed date on one of the reservations was August. The rep cancelled the reservation from husband's account, made new reservation in my name and took 2 certificates from my account. When she came back and told me what she did I told her that was a problem because I wanted one from mine, and one from his. She said I could get the front desk to correct it when we checked in. In the past I've had reservations changed from one rewards no. to another at the front desk so I let it go.

In Sept. we arrived a day late because of a Lufthansa strike. Then there was the first driving experience in Italy. So glad to arrive at the hotel and see our daughter I forgot to mention the change at checkin. The next morning when it was a difficulty with the breakfasts allotted to the rooms I told the front desk the problem and they were going to work on the change while we ate breakfast. After breakfast they said they couldn't change the rewards nos. on an existing reservation. Another day they connected me with Marriott Rewards in Cork, Ireland (home offices in Europe) and the rep I spoke with said I could get it fixed when back in the States. The front desk seemed fine with this. But on the day we checked out I was told they only had one certificate and nothing for the 2nd room. I assured them there were others in both mine and husband's accounts and offered to log in to show them but they let it go with the understanding that it would be fixed when we got back to the States and could talk with MR. All of this took quite a bit of time while we were at the hotel.

A couple days after checking out we got a voicemail on husband's phone from hotel that they wanted us to call back. I called and asked to speak with GM. Explained what happened and he said he was fine to get back to the States and work on this. I asked him for an email verifying his acceptance of this agreement. He said he would. Once again it was a long conversation, more time on my part to fix something the front desk can do by canceling the one reservation and opening a new one in the other person's name.

6 days later when we were home I still didn't have the promised email from the GM. I called MR and was told it couldn't be changed but was assured the hotel received 2 certificates. Finally I emailed the GM, recounted the entire situation, told him MR said the hotel had 2 certificates, said the incidental charges were on my MR Visa. Asked him to email back letting me know the hotel was satisfied they were compensated for our stay. Instead of an email I received a call from him apologizing that he forgot to email me before and confirmed the hotel was fully satisfied with the compensation. All of this time involved had accumulated into hours on my part. I decided to move on.

Now in November it came time to check MR for the incidental charges to show up in my MR account. When they didn't I again called MR and the rep wanted me to fax the folio to her attention. I did. And then I waited. Weeks later I checked again. Nothing. And I looked at my charge bill. The charges from the hotel did not reflect as a Marriott purchase and therefore no extra 5 points. I called MR again. They would check on the folio but said I needed to talk to Visa about the charge card bill. I asked to speak with Customer Service. They connected me to CS for the hotels.

That rep asked what could he do to make this right. I said make me an offer I can't refuse. He put me on hold. Came back and said it was not their issue. I needed to speak with Owner Services since the certificates came from MVC. I called OS. A rep there took the information. The call was an hour long but by now I was getting accustomed to them. I received another call from another rep and pretty much had to start from scratch because she either didn't read the notes or there weren't any. She said she could see a 25K goodwill adjustment in my account. I told her it was for an entirely different matter and was put there by a MR rep for cleaning "up the mess" from another mistake. She said she would look into it and call back.

I received a voicemail from this latest rep saying she was able to get the points posted to my account (they are) and fix the Visa bill. She said she was willing to double this amount for all the trouble. This will be 5600 points.

Hours on my part. The ball has been dropped repeatedly by different people in the Marriott system. 5600 points. What do you think?
 
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m61376

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Did they ever fix the certificate issue, and use one from each acct.? If so, I'd be happy that you got that resolved. It could have been a lot worse- you could have had a huge cc charge for the stay. Frustrating- of course, but at least you got a reasonable outcome finally. I guess I'm getting cynical these days; unfortunately, spending hours on the phone for what should have been done right in the first place has become commonplace everywhere. I'm starting to feel surprised when things are done right. Sad, but true.id let it go and move one.
 

Mr. Vker

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The problem is that you can't change MR numbers on rewards stays because points/certificates are being used by that account to pay for the room. They simply cannot change them at the hotel level. The reservation agent was wrong telling you the hotel could fix it. If you are not comfortable with final resolution, I would call MR in the US and ask for customer service. They have been very helpful to me in the past. I have gotten 5k points for much less. I would want 25k points for your trouble.
 
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Quilter

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Did they ever fix the certificate issue, and use one from each acct.? If so, I'd be happy that you got that resolved. It could have been a lot worse- you could have had a huge cc charge for the stay. Frustrating- of course, but at least you got a reasonable outcome finally. I guess I'm getting cynical these days; unfortunately, spending hours on the phone for what should have been done right in the first place has become commonplace everywhere. I'm starting to feel surprised when things are done right. Sad, but true.id let it go and move one.


No. Both certificates came from my account.

When we arrived there was no question that they had reservations for a points stay with both rooms. If they had tried to hit me with a credit card bill at check out I would have pushed that they look to see the certificates in my account. As it was there was never a cross word with the hotel staff.
 

dioxide45

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This goes back to the very beginning where the MR phone rep either didn't know how to do their job or was too lazy to do it right. It is easy to see now how this got messed up. This is an ongoing issue I have with customer service at many companies, people either don't know how to do their job or are to lazy to do what is right. How else can you explain so many different answers to the same question when you speak with different agents.

As Mr Vker said, I don't know how the property would be able to fix this at checkin. Hopefully they get it straighted out for you.
 

Quilter

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The problem is that you can't change MR numbers on rewards stays because points/certificates are being used by that account to pay for the room. They simply cannot change them at the hotel level. The reservation agent was wrong telling you the hotel could fix it. If you are not comfortable with final resolution, I would call MR in the US and ask for customer service. They have been very helpful to me in the past. I have gotten 5k points for much less. I would want 25k points for your trouble.

You are right that MR and Marriott can be very helpful and make things right after things go awry. The recent 25K deposit to my account was done by the MR rep before I even knew about it. Along the way I had told one of the reps I'm still a satisfied Marriott customer because they always make it right when things go awry.

That is why it's such beastly nonsense that this has gone on and on stage to stage. That is what made me reach out for compensation for my time and trouble.

After our stay in Italy we had another 5 night point reservation booked the first week of October in Bay Harbor, MI. Another Renaissance, The Inn at Bay Harbor. Another Cat. 6. It was in my name. Since the certificate had been taken from my account for Italy we needed to use the one from husband's account. Another call to MR. The rep I got was splendid.

There were no more reservations for points available online. Yet a GM can open rooms for points reservations. Over the years I've had this done for me at several hotels. So the MR rep called the hotel for me to cancel the reservation in my name and get the GM to convert the opened nights to a points reservation in my husband's name and rewards no. Then he could attach the certificate from my husband's account. Ta da. That's all they had to do in Italy.

While we were at the Inn I asked at the front desk the possibility of them handling a situation similar to the one in Italy. The desk clerk said it takes some doing with the office upstairs but is quite possible.
 

Quilter

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This goes back to the very beginning where the MR phone rep either didn't know how to do their job or was too lazy to do it right. It is easy to see now how this got messed up. This is an ongoing issue I have with customer service at many companies, people either don't know how to do their job or are to lazy to do what is right. How else can you explain so many different answers to the same question when you speak with different agents.

As Mr Vker said, I don't know how the property would be able to fix this at checkin. Hopefully they get it straighted out for you.

You're right. Sometimes the phone rep is great and sometimes you can just tell they are going only so far to be helpful.

Truthfully, and I've told the reps this, I don't know who I called to change the reservation in August. It really depends on the time of day or who I have to call anyway. You can work on reservations with Owner Services, Marriott reservations and MR. I think it was MR and have even asked if they can check phone records. I haven't gotten anywhere with that.

The recent Goodwill adjustment of 25K was after a MR rep cancelled a travel package certificate when I changed reservation dates. He/she should have "detached" it, not cancelled it. Same thing happened in my husband's account. The MR rep who fixed "the mess" added the 25K while I was waiting on hold.
 
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Quilter

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2 new calls today. I sounds like I'm close to having this resolved.

First call to OS to speak with rep who left me the voicemail about the 15K pts. She wasn't there and I was connected to another person in a supervisory level. He was great. Retired Army Ranger. He agreed the hotel could have changed the reservation. He also said he would like to do more but it really was an issue between hotel and MR. I asked if he was then confirming when the MR rep connected me to hotel CS she had sent me to the right place.

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. I was ready for at least one last try with MR. Got a great rep. She agreed it was a MR/hotel matter. She actually went through the history of my travel certificates back to 2013 since Marriott held a couple and extended them after losing our son. That way she was able to tell me what we started with Jan. '15 in both accounts and the activity of all certificates this year. She called the hotel and got the email address for accounting. She then composed an email to the hotel and read it to me to verify the info was correct. I should hear back by the end of the week and if not I should call again. I have her name and extension.

I'll write again when I hear something.
 

Quilter

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2 new calls today. I sounds like I'm close to having this resolved.

First call to OS to speak with rep who left me the voicemail about the 15K pts. She wasn't there and I was connected to another person in a supervisory level. He was great. Retired Army Ranger. He agreed the hotel could have changed the reservation. He also said he would like to do more but it really was an issue between hotel and MR. I asked if he was then confirming when the MR rep connected me to hotel CS she had sent me to the right place.

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. I was ready for at least one last try with MR. Got a great rep. She agreed it was a MR/hotel matter. She actually went through the history of my travel certificates back to 2013 since Marriott held a couple and extended them after losing our son. That way she was able to tell me what we started with Jan. '15 in both accounts and the activity of all certificates this year. She called the hotel and got the email address for accounting. She then composed an email to the hotel and read it to me to verify the info was correct. I should hear back by the end of the week and if not I should call again. I have her name and extension.

I'll write again when I hear something.

It's been a week. I haven't heard anything from MR.

Edited to say: I had 2 conversations today with MR. The first rep offered 10K points. I said that didn't seem enough for all the time I've had to commit in 3 months. She said more would have to be approved by a supervisor so I asked to be transferred to the one I had spoken with before and who knew about last weeks call with Ashley (Susie). Instead I was transferred to a different one. This one was testy. She insisted I had already been compensated an extra 5 nights that was used to pay the hotel. She also said the hotel responded to last week's email that they had been compensated for the 2nd room but this didn't happen until 11/20. So when MR told me the hotel received the 2nd certificate in Sept. and this was confirmed by the phone conversation with the GM what was going on? By the end she apologized and said she was trying to understand something she was brought into the middle of. I asked if I could talk with Susie. I was told she would call back after a couple hours.

Susie was great and listened to the complete tale. She remembered when she helped me with a different issue on 11/18. As I went through the tale Susie followed along through the account history and notes. At the end she wanted to look at my husband's account and make sure the hotel hadn't inadvertently taken a certificate from there. Both accounts seemed fine. She then offered 50K MR points. I thanked her (profusely I feel) and felt giddy that it was over. We checked into the hotel on 9/9 and now on 12/9 I was finally going to be finished.

Less than 1/2 hr. after the conversation I got an email confirming the cancellation of an award. Then I logged into my MR account and saw these entries:

12/09/15 Bonus GOODWILL ADJUSTMENT 50,000 points

12/09/15 Reward 5 Night Travel Package Category 6 Hotels
12/09/15, Canceled 25,000 Reward
25,000 points Ordered

12/09/15 Bonus GOODWILL ADJUSTMENT 0 points

What do you make of the last 2?
 
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Quilter

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You think I would learn by now...

We are on the road to GrandeOcean. I called Marriott reservations for a hotel tonight. My phone number is connected to my MR account. When we were checking in I asked clerk to change reservation to husband's name and MR number. Suggested she cancel the one and make a new one. No need to do that she said and it was done.

Also, while we were driving I used the time to call owner services to make 9 reservations for 2017. I was so intent in getting my dates I never thought to suggest whose name they should be reserved under. Yep, they're all in my name and MR number.
 
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