Marriott Rebooking Some Award Stays At Higher Rates – Deducting Points Automatically – Check Your Account

Marriott introduced peak and off peak pricing in September 2019. Stays booked before that date were supposed to keep the same pricing they were booked under, unfortunately there are now many data points of users having their stays automatically cancelled and rebooked with the more expensive pricing taking effect.

For example Flyertalk rylan had a booked for a couple of nights in February for 100,000 points, they received an e-mail in early January with a booking confirmation with 120,000 points being charged. After checking their account they see the stay for 100,000 points was cancelled and then rebooked for 120,000. This is despite them making no changes at all to their booking. It looks like Marriott is fixing this issue when you call them, but I wonder how many people won’t notice until it’s too late (or won’t notice at all).

I suspect what is happening is some sort of IT issue rather than something purposefully malicious but that really doesn’t excuse this type of mistake in the first place especially when Marriott has been made aware of the issue and has neither fixed the issue or proactively checked accounts to ensure this error is fixed without a response needed from individual loyalty members. I also haven’t seen any data points of people having this happen when the pricing decreases.

I’d recommend everybody check their Marriott accounts to see if this issue has affected any of your existing bookings (you can also see if your stays have decreased in price and rebook those). If this happened to me I’d be pushing Marriott for additional compensation as well as it’s simply unacceptable to charge a higher price for no reason.

Hat tip to TPG

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21 Comments
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The Man
The Man (@guest_872333)
January 11, 2020 12:15

Exactly the reason why I don’t fuck with Marriott.
Hyatt for the win!

sdsearch
sdsearch (@guest_872388)
January 11, 2020 13:12

Except that Marriott has TONS of locations in places where this in no Hyatt. And there are SOME places where Marriott is only program where you can redeem points.

So if your travels are far and wide, and you want to save money on stays that are expensive with cash but cheap with points (which Marriott still has), it doesn’t make sense to me to dump programs just over something like this.

Massive
Massive (@guest_874875)
January 13, 2020 16:09

Feed the beast!

Frank
Frank (@guest_871785)
January 10, 2020 21:40

This seems like the 10th Marriott issue story where Will qualifies it as “I don’t think this was malicious but ….”. No single one of their actions is “malicious” but together the reckless attitude they take with making “mistakes” is. Period.

P
P (@guest_871722)
January 10, 2020 20:21

So this means every time you book a date that’s not off peak then suddenly becomes peak it will happen again. The off peak / peak dates are not fixed I’m assuming and they can change when these are.

Matthew
Matthew (@guest_871721)
January 10, 2020 20:20

Noise around the edges!

P
P (@guest_871718)
January 10, 2020 20:14

I hope their IT issue gives my ZERO account balance 10 zeroes and 1 to the left.

chris
chris (@guest_871644)
January 10, 2020 18:36

Marriott should be sued. Its ugly as ugly gets.

CT
CT (@guest_871600)
January 10, 2020 17:51

It is intentional IT issue directed by Marriott’s upper management. Otherwise, how come it only happens on bookings with increasing price ? Marriott is trying to make its balance sheet better for next earning release.

Francisco
Francisco (@guest_871641)
January 10, 2020 18:30
  CT

What CT said. Has anyone said that they were rebooked to the lower off peak price automatically? I haven’t seen that.

Aahz
Aahz (@guest_872300)
January 11, 2020 11:27

“Has anyone said that they were rebooked to the lower off peak price automatically?”

Yes, they have. Just read the linked TPG post that predates this one.

Brutus
Brutus (@guest_871596)
January 10, 2020 17:46

I simply can’t believe this could happen at the TPG award winner for Best Hotel Loyalty Program!

H
H (@guest_871835)
January 10, 2020 22:35

TPG is a joke

Chucks
Chucks (@guest_871900)
January 11, 2020 00:17
  H

That is the joke

Theory
Theory (@guest_872220)
January 11, 2020 09:31
  H

Whooosh

Jenny
Jenny (@guest_871595)
January 10, 2020 17:45

That’s bad but complaining against a brand does nothing if one won’t follow through on one’s threats of boycotting it; it only emboldens Marriott to maintain the status-quo.

G
G (@guest_871566)
January 10, 2020 17:22

Maybe IT issue at first, but now without proper fixing, we can call it purposefully

Bill
Bill (@guest_871592)
January 10, 2020 17:44
  G

Yes, if they just leave it the way it is without an attempt to correct it themselves then it becomes intentional. If they for some reason can’t do their own audit to fix this (which sounds strange) then the least they can do is send out an email to customers of the issue so that the customers can check and notify marriott their account was impacted.