This just in from the Bad Customer Experiences Dept. (Yes, it's next door to the Bad User Experience Dept.)
After waiting on hold with Marriott Rewards for 30 minutes, I learned that they didn't credit any points for my June 5-9 stay at the JW Marriott Ihilani in Hawaii. In fact, as far as their records are concerned, I didn't even stay there at all: I simply parked in their parking garage a few nights and ate a few meals. In their words, it was an "incidental stay" only. Funny, I remember booking an actual room and sleeping in it 4 nights... and paying about $1600 for the privilege.
I fell victim to the lure of convenience and booked a flight+hotel package through Alaska Airlines Vacations. (The actual booking was $2,946.88, of which about $350 was rental car and $1,000 was airfare for two.)
Fool me once: Marriott decided this stay is not eligible for points. I suppose their reasoning is that since I "only" paid about $400/night instead of the usual $450, their points budget should justifiably drop from 10 x 450 x 4 = 18000 points all the way down to 0 x 400 x 4 = 0 points. This is exemplary MBA math that equates to terrible customer experience.
Unfortunately, they never notified me of this, and I didn't scrutinize my rewards account activity closely enough to notice something was amiss. So that set me up for the next big disappointment.
Fool me twice: I booked a weekend trip to Victoria a couple weekends ago. I logged into my Marriott Rewards account at that time and noticed the Unexpected Bonus promotion showed 1 stay; at 2 stays I would receive a free night certificate. So my wife and I turned down a second night in the fabulous Delta Victoria Ocean Pointe to stop in at the Marriott and score our "unexpected" bonus.
Unfortunately, since the Hawaii stay was never actually credited as a stay, my unexpected bonus turned into an Unexpected Non-Bonus.
The joke's on me for assuming the customer comes first at Marriott.
