Marriott has number of guarantees for its Silver, Gold and Platinum members. One is Guaranteed Platinum Arrival Gift that is 500 points or usually $10 F&B voucher (read more here).
Friend of mine was staying at the Renaissance Amsterdam hotel on Sunday last week and he mentioned to me that the front desk had not asked about his Platinum arrival gift preference. I told him that lucky you as he can now claim the $100 guarantee.
He was somewhat hesitant as he had never claimed the guarantee previously and thought that it could be an uphill battle. I got him convinced that he should ask for it at the time of checking out.
You can access Renaissance Amsterdam’s website here.
As a matter of fact, he ended up being surprised how easy it had been. The only drawback was that the hotel had used a terrible cash exchange rate from USD to EUR. I told him that he should have asked the clerk/manager to have a look at the current rate on MARSHA (Marriott’s reservation system) and use that for the conversion.
Conclusion
Why wouldn’t you collect a cash guarantee that Marriott advertises on their website? I have lived two years of my life at Marriott hotels and have been able to exercise this guarantee so far total of two times.
I got same problem with holiday in express,i have to ask as platinum for my welcome points,they promissed to post it,never did it,i e msil them,still no points and no reply,contacted IHG guest service,again nothing,IHG gave me finslly the points but the hotel never replied.
Stayed there on tuesday and wednesday and I must say that the navigator/lounge and cleaning staff are friendly and helpfull. The reception staff however are probably the most arrogant people that I have met. Many of them don’t even know enough of the program so it will probably happen again
I’ve had this happen 3 times recently, each with different results:
1: JW Marriott Cairo – claimed after check out, received $100 USD credited to my credit card.
2: Marriott Petra – claimed after check out, received 16k points as compensation.
3: Marriott Riyadh – spoke to hotel manager on the day who offered $100 USD or 5k points. Asked for the $100 and he said he would need me to meet him at reception in the morning for him to give this to me. Returned the next morning, where he approached the employee in question and made the employee open his wallet to take enough SAR out for them to convert in to USD.
I would never ask a manager to uphold this guarantee if I knew the funds were coming out of an employees pocket and robbing them of their wages and hastily agreed to the $5k points to stop this kid having to foot this from his own pocket. Surely the funds for this come from corporate because I’ll likely never claim again if employees are expected to cover this.
Really disgusted with Marriott about this.