Reader Email: Why Should I Trust Marriott Official Customer Care?

A LoyaltyLobby reader sent us an annoying experience with Marriott Bonvoy customer care that was eventually resolved.

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Email from the Reader:

I just had some bad experience about Marriott Official Care to share. Here’s the story.

When Marriott promoted the campaign”Make every night count…Twice”, I tried to register on Marriott Bonvoy website but could not finish it as the website always showed error message. So I went to the Customer Care to ask for their help.

Email 1: 12 Feb 2022

I’ve asked Customer Care about registration problem and wanted them to help registering for me. Customer care replied and confirmed that I’ve already registered to this campaign.

This should be the end of the story. Then I completed 10+ nights during the campaign period and noticed that no extra nights were credited to my account. Here came the second email.

Email 2: 24 April 2022

I’ve asked Customer Care that I didn’t receive extra credit nights from my recent stay. Customer Care asked me to send the registration confirmation email I received previously. I sent them the 12 Feb 2022 email (the above one).

Email 3: 26 April 2022

Customer Care informed that they forward the case to related department and asked to wait for 10 business days.

Email 4: 4 May 2022!

Customer Care replied that I didn’t register for this campaign. That’s it. No elaboration. No explanation about what I was informed from Customer Care previously.

It’s my foolishness to trust that Customer Care confirmation is absolute. It gives me the lesson that as long as there’s no promotion appearing on the account, do not trust anyone, especially the Customer Care.

The reader forwarded us the emails with headers.

Marriott has had this same promo registration issues for years, well before the merger with Starwood. Marriott claims that having the earning preference set to miles is the culprit, but readers who have contacted us regarding this issue disagree.

Marriott can manually sign up members for the global offers, but it is both saddening and maddening that it takes ten rounds of emails to have a simple issue like this sorted out.

Conclusion

You would think that it would be cost-effective for Marriott to get its IT in order rather than having thousands of associates replying to “tickets” and taking phone calls with no end in sight?

And why have these associates not been empowered to fix issues on the spot? Again, I would not blame the front-line employees but the management.

These promo and other issues with Marriott Bonvoy always get sorted at the end, but it should take this level of follow-up from the program member.