This week’s Compensation Clinic case comes from my stay at the Toronto Marriott Bloor Yorkville Hotel that somehow managed to violate two of the Marriott’s Elite Guarantees.
I have written about these guarantees here and you can access Marriott’s web page for guarantees here.
You can Toronto Marriott Bloor Yorkville’s web page here.
1. Guaranteed Platinum Arrival Gift
Front desk acknowledged my Marriott Rewards elite status but did not offer Platinum Arrival Gift.
2. Guaranteed Room Type
Well, I had reserved a King bed (photo below) and ended up with a two beds as shown on the photo at the top.
Housekeeping Issue
I had a 3PM check out and the Do Not Disturb sign was hanging outside. Housekeeping was knocking at the door by 1PM. I opened the door and asked if she understood the meaning of the DND. It was obvious that she did not. Called the operator to let the Manager on Duty know. Call went to the voicemail and no call back by the 3PM check out.
Compensation
So, I requested to speak with the Manager on Duty when checking out of the hotel. Turned out that this was the same person whom I had left the voice mail message earlier about the housekeeping issue.
I pointed out the issue with the Platinum Arrival Gift and the Guaranteed Room Type. His offer was two free nights that would be in form of 80,000 Marriott Rewards points that I accepted. I had thought the fair compensation to be around 40K to 50K points, so the hotel definitely exceeded my expectations.
Conclusion
This is the second time I have been able to claim under the guaranteed room type and maybe fifth under the Platinum arrival gift issue of my around 600 Marriott nights (paid and awards) during the past 10 years. All these claims are from the past two years, so maybe employee training is getting lower priority than previously? Seems that the hotels rather offer you plenty of points in lieu of cash compensation (must be accounting issue) that I happily oblige with.
