A Marriott employee recently warned on social media that Bonvoy has been pushing hotels to report guests who try to share loyalty accounts. If your spouse is staying under your account to use your benefits, and let you earn the points, this could get you audited.
However, he adds not to be a jerk to the front desk – the reservation might not be honored, but they probably won’t waste their time reporting you.
One of the big things Marriott is pushing re: Marriott Bonvoy is no account sharing. So- if you try to have someone check in under your account, they get turned away, don’t then call and berate multiple front desk staff. We WILL report your account for terms and conditions violations.
Marriott’s loyalty program is designed as an individual account system. Many members have long treated their accounts as a “family” or “shared” asset. The elite or primary member makes the booking, and adds a family member or friend as a second name on the reservation. They’re the only one that stays.
Benefits, points and elite status credits are awarded to the account holder only. If you’re not present—or if you let someone check in under your name without the proper process—you risk running afoul of the program’s terms and conditions. And the report is that they’re ramping up enforcement.
Still, most of the time you can probably just notify the hotel ahead of time that a guest like a spouse will be arriving first. I’ve met my wife and daughter somewhere many times – they’d be traveling from home, I’d be coming from wherever I had to go for work. Flight and work schedules would dictate who got there first. Now, if you’re on-property with Marriott and have more than one room you can still earn points and stay credit for them (up to 3 rooms per night at the same hotel).
If I’m not going to be there, and I’m trying to use points for their stay without me (they’ve also done staycations while I’ve traveled for work) is to redeem my points for their stay (in my wife’s name). Frustratingly, Marriott requires you to call for this and agents still often get it wrong. Many times they’d still book the room in my name, adding my wife as the second guest, even when I tell them not to! (I’ve found the competence and helpfulness of Marriott customer service to be lacking for many years.)
Accounts could be shut down – even when it’s their own agent’s fault – because Marriott’s dial is often tuned more towards fraud detection than customer service. This has been heightened ever since 2018 news of a breach of 500 million bookings, including some payment and passport data. Marriott is very wary of free nights being sold or accounts being hacked as well.
Hyatt is much more accommodating here, by the way, with their Guest of Honor program. I can book a room for someone – paid or on points, it does not matter – and assign one of my Guest of Honor certificates which extends Globalist stay for the stay, entitling them to an upgrade, late check-out and breakfast.
Ultimately, though, based on this employee’s post Marriott appears to be cracking down on a practice that is very common and without giving warning to members.
Just a couple of days ago, a reader contacted me with frustration that they weren’t earning points when their family stayed one place under their account, and they were traveling for work staying somewhere else. It was news to them that Marriott didn’t allow it, since they’ve done it regularly!
Marriott (and Hyatt!) won’t allow even the same member to earn at two properties for the same night.
- There are perfectly legitimate reasons why you’d be checked into two different hotels on the same night. I’ve had a multi-night stay at one property where one night in the middle I’ve gone somewhere else and come back. I’ve paid for very late checkout in one place, and very early check-in at the next.
- On the other hand, you’re not supposed to be able to use your benefits for someone else’s stay, even a family member (Hyatt has ‘guest of honor’ to accommodate this). And you’re not supposed to be able to earn status from someone else staying. So this is the blunt rule.
It seems to me that a member ought to receive a polite note, not an account audit or threats, because these sorts of things are common. Most people don’t read through program terms and conditions. And programs update and change their terms (Marriott seems to do it monthly) without even telling members.
There’s malicious fraud and there’s behavior that seems on face reasonable or at least isn’t obviously unreasonable, and the latter ought to be approached with care. And it probably shouldn’t begin with dishonoring a reservation when a guest arrives, either.
Thanks for the heads up. I had a different though somewhat parallel case a few years ago where we checked into a Marriott then left very late in the evening when plans changed. We paid for the night but they wouldn’t count it as another “stay” since the check-out wasn’t in the morning. I asked what counted as a “night” and nobody had a good answer. I then asked if I had left a sock on the bed and come back at 6 AM whether that would have counted. The desk people got confused, then stubborn. When I tried customer service they had the same reaction and since that time I’ve never expected much from them.
Another reason Marriott is my 4th choice hotel chain.
@drrichard – That’s why you don’t check out. Let them figure out you’re gone in the morning. Half they time they check you out overnight in the system anyway. But, it avoids this issue in any case.
@Kirk – Curious what your ranking is. For me, it’s Hyatt, then Hilton, then Marriott (for now). After those three, I don’t really care so much (and yes, I avoid IHG).
If you have already paid then don’t check out early. Just do app or online checkout the next day so you get points/nights. Especially when you want the nights for a Marriott timeshare stay.
Another thing you can do is just give your family member (or trusted person) your app login. Then they can just use the app for digital room key. I’m not sure they have a way to catch that.
This topic has been talked about numerous times before.
Over it!
@Kirk
What Marriott benefits are they referring to?
Will not stay at a Marriott. It’s turned into a 10th ranked hotel chain.
I second the “don’t chew out the front desk.” When I worked at the local cable company years ago, we’d get calls once in a while from someone who we’d find out were getting extra channels, or whatever (usually calling to complain because those channels were staticy — before things switched to digital — or breaking up occasionally after it was digital.) They were using signal traps back then to physically block off the channels one didn’t subscribe to, but sometimes these traps would let signal leak through.
Guess what? If someone was rude about it, we’d put in an immediate repair order, so they’d lose those channels by the end of the day and usually within an hour or two. If they weren’t rude, we’d let it slide.
Just saying, same thing here — I wouldn’t care for this policy, but the front desk doesn’t set it and chewing them out is only going to make them enforce it more strictly if anything. I would in their position.
Marriott has a “Shoot first and ask questions later” mentality regarding guests.
When using IHG rewards they recommend that you just list your spouse as an additional guest at the time of reservation. No problems after doing this for the last 10 years.
One time staying at a full-service Marriott several years ago (2019 if memory serves), I booked a couple rooms in my name: one for myself, one for some friends (I had added one of their names to the second reservation). They arrived before me, so the front desk allowed them to check in – but they told them that I would have to physically arrive before they’d give us the platinum benefits like lounge access/breakfast vouchers or late checkout. I suppose that was an early version of this – making sure that some platinum member hadn’t just booked rooms for some friends, with no intention of staying there himself, just so those friends could use his status. (To be fair, when I arrived, they honored the platinum benefits for both rooms, which they didn’t have to do, so kudos to them!)
Meanwhile, back in the day (before I started regularly traveling on my own), I’d occasionally stay at various Hilton properties under my dad’s account when he had Diamond status from traveling so often for work, and I never had a single issue. I’d just add my name as a second guest when making the reservation online. (Once I even got a proactive suite upgrade and free breakfast at a Doubletree on a $51 AAA rate!) Wonder if that would still fly today. In a way, it’s actually good for the business: it made me choose Hilton when I otherwise wouldn’t have. They might think of it as “having to give away benefits that cost us money,” but the reality is, they’re getting revenue that they otherwise wouldn’t, period.
I was checking in with my wife (gold) using her free night certificate and asked if we could get breakfast as I am lifetime platinum and current titanium. I was told at this Hawaiian property that this was “fraud” despite me being there lol.
Praise and thanks to ‘u/yellednanlaugh’ who is in essence blowing the whistle against big-bad Marriott for maliciously enforcing their silly rules than impractically harm loyal guests. The decent people still outnumber the a-holes, and we need to stick up, stand up, and speak out for better conditions. When we comply with bad orders, we are perpetuating systemic wrongs. Be bold. Speak truth to power. Be like that brave fellow.
*that (not than)
Gary, an ‘edit’ button would be nice; then again, the typos can be fun, sometimes. Oh well.
Just add them as a named guest
@Gary,
“Now, if you’re on-property with Marriott and have more than one room you can still earn points and stay credit for them (up to 3 rooms per night at the same hotel).”
One can earn points on up to 3 rooms per night at the same hotel but one cannot earn stay credit for up to 3 rooms per night at the same hotel. One can earn no more than 1 stay credit per night (absent promos).
1. Marriott’s customers are property owners, not guests.
2. Marriott attracts property owners by demonstrating the size and continued growth of its bonvoy membership.
3. People sharing bonvoy accounts means fewer accounts or lower account # growth.
4. Lower bonvoy membership growth means Marriott is slightly less attractive to property owners.
5. See #1 above.
Earlier today, when I was walking my dog, he stopped to drop a deuce and it made me think of Marriott customer support.
@Max – Tell me you didn’t read the article without telling me you didn’t read the article.
Gary explicitly calls out that putting another named guest on the reservation will not ameliorate this. What did you think the article was about?
So Marriott may suspend your account and bank you for violating terms and conditions, but when the hotels blatantly ignore the terms and conditions (breakfast, late checkout, concierge lounge, and on and on), it’s all good?
So done with that brand.
>They might think of it as “having to give away benefits that cost us money,” but the reality is, they’re getting revenue that they otherwise wouldn’t, period.
Exactly. This sort of enforcement loses revenue.
Marriott focuses on wrong thing, instead Marriott should make it consistent to provide elite with benefits, such as free breakfast etc. I don’t see this fundamentally wrong if my wife stays at a hotel using my name (even IRS allows file tax return by joint, why not Marriott). Marriott just becoming more and more like an inferior hotel chain now. I am not that excited about it anymore, while Starwood Preferred Guest is a much better program.