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.
wow, nice 80k points
I would take the 80000 points too especially if the inconvenience is so small! I wonder if the $ value of 80000 points is lower for the hotel than 200$US…
No, at least not in the US, and I can’t imagine its that much different in CA, 10K points is roughly $60 cost to the hotel to buy, I think its like $62.xx, John wrote about it a while back. So in USD 80K points is a cost to the hotel of just under $500.
But as John noted, they probably give out points fairly regularly, but straight cash is much different. So when they are giving out cash and managers get reviews, however often that is, it probably comes up on a report and they get heat, but when they do points it sort of all fades away, if you will, in a report.
That or its a pain to do the books when they are outlaying cash, or both. Its painful somehow to give out cash, even if the points value is greater. I would much prefer the higher points, as its better value in the end and if you use points wisely, sometimes you can come out even better off.
I just finished a week stay at a residence inn in Ohio thats only 10K reward points. But I had a few issues on the last visit and they gave me 35K points compensation. Nice property, but due to age and local reward point costs are low, Detroit is a prime example of this, all full service properties in Detroit MI (last I checked) are all somewhat or much lower then you would expect them to be, for reward points. No one goes on vacation there, its all business so business prices are up, reward points are down. I happen to have a lot of family in that area, so its great for me. Plus I stayed at a Detroit Marriot where the club lounge was open 24/7, kind of crazy, but Im up at 1am so its quite nice.
I just look at wherever I am going and pay cash or points depending on what is the best value, with some exception I suppose, but I travel enough for personal that its no issue. Id happily accept 80K points.