A Marriott Bonvoy Titanium elite says he is out more than $5,000 after booking a prepaid “Sonder by Marriott” stay on Marriott.com—Sonder took the money, went bankrupt, and Marriott’s answer was 40,000 points.
Worse, his bank’s portal auto-rejected a dispute as “too old” because the charge is over 120 days old, even though the trip hasn’t happened yet.
A Marriott Bonvoy Titanium elite has cancelled $20,000 worth of future stays and won’t touch Marriott again in the future after being stuck with a prepaid Sonder stay. Sonder went bankrupt, and Marriott won’t help customers get their money back.
- Marriott knew Sonder was in trouble, and didn’t tell guests, continuing to book rooms.
- Sonder charged prepaid stays, went bankrupt, and guests are now unsecured creditors. They don’t have their stay, they’re out the cash.
- And Marriott throws up their hands – sure you booked on our website, you booked a ‘Sonder by Marriott’ with our name on it, and thought you were buying a stay with us, from us but we aren’t responsible.
As I wrote to expect, this guest was offered 40,000 Marriott Bonvoy points for their trouble – losing ‘$5,000+’ on a prepaid booking for a Sonder stay.
⚠️ WARNING to all @MarriottBonvoy Elites: I lost +$5k on a "fully refundable" booking made directly on Marriott․com for Sonder.
The "Partnership" trap: Marriott let me book, took the reservation, but now claims "Sonder is the merchant of record" and refuses to refund me.
1/5…
— Semih Decan (@SemihDecan) December 20, 2025
I am a Titanium Elite / Lifetime Platinum member. I’ve spent years loyal to this brand.
Today, the @Marriott CEO’s office called me. They admitted the issue but refused the refund. Their offer? 40,000 points(worth ~$300) as "compensation" for a $4,700 theft.
It was insulting. I…
— Semih Decan (@SemihDecan) December 20, 2025
My question, naturally, was – sure, Marriott’s reputation is the one on the line and Marriott failed to protect guests – but shouldn’t they be pursuing a credit card chargeback? Here they’re just getting bad customer service from their bank.
My bank is blocking the dispute because of a '120-day limit' on transactions. Since I booked in June for a 2026 stay, their system auto-rejects it as 'too old.'
It’s a perfect trap: Marriott says 'call the bank,' and the bank says 'too late.'" Furthermore, someone from @Marriott…
— Semih Decan (@SemihDecan) December 20, 2025
For future-dated travel bookings, the relevant “clock” on disputes is generally tied to the expected service date, rather than the original charge date. A bank portal that blocks disputes after 120 days from the transaction is incorrect for this situation.
Visa’s rules for Dispute Condition 13.1 (Merchandise/Services Not Received) say the dispute must be processed no later than either:
- 120 calendar days from the Transaction Processing Date, or
- 120 calendar days from the last date the cardholder expected to receive the merchandise or services.
In cases of insolvency, Visa says it’s 120 days from the expected services, with a 540-day limit from the transaction processing date.
Mastercard’s Chargeback Guide says:
- For travel service non-delivery, the time frame is tied to the latest expected service date, and says “the issuer does not have to wait for the latest expected service date,” a chargeback may be processed immediately upon learning the travel services won’t be provided.
- For “Goods or Services Not Provided,” Mastercard also says if the issuer learns the merchant won’t provide the goods or services (e.g. merchant is no longer in business), they don’t need to wait the normal waiting period for filing.
In this case I wouldn’t submit the chargeback online. I’d call, and make clear “This is services not provided for future-dated travel.” Provide the stay dates, evidence of Sonder shutting down, and ask them to manually open a chargeback using the expected service date as the basis for timeliness. Then if the card issuer still won’t accept the chargeback, submit it in writing to their billing disputes address.
I’d say something like,
I need to open a chargeback for services not provided. This is a future trip with expected service dates [DATE–DATE]. Sonder has ceased operations and will not honor the stay.
Your online form blocks disputes older than 120 days, but for this dispute type the time window is based on the expected service date. Please open this manually as services not received and record the expected service date.
This dispute should be a layup everywhere except the 10th Circuit where payment networks can reject disputes when card charges have already been paid off.
Even Delta scoffs at treating its “premium” customers as unsecured creditors, until Marriott went there…
Seems that Marriott is looking for ways to collect as many black eyes as it can. Strange business plan.
Does the credit card transaction say Marriott or Sonder?
You’re 100% right on this advice Gary re: calling the credit card company and also that they should indeed treat the relevant date here as the date of expected services provided.
But, and I’m not sure about this – what happens when the credit card says “ok, that’s fine, and we’ll deem the expected stay date as the relavent date and so you can file a chargeback. But – too bad, this merchant – which is now insolvent – now has no future credit card earnings coming to them so we don’t have anything to claw back from their future receipts, and so we can’t in practice let you file a chargeback”
That actually happened to me once.
I know you might think logically (like I did) – “what does this have to do with me the card holder and consumer?!”, but in actuality – the credit card company might send you to pound sand anyway and get in line as an unsecured creditor.
@Captain Freedom — Treating “customers as unsecured creditors” is another way of saying ‘it’s just business’ or ‘nothing personal’ and ‘let the free market decide,’ which is to say… we, consumers, need better protections, because losing $5,000 on a stay is not the same as buying stocks or other investments where risk of loss is adequately disclosed. Hope all affected get a better resolution soon.
@Dude26 – In the case of the merchant being insolvent, it’s the merchant’s acquiring bank that is on the hook for the chargeback. They payment networks only facilitate transactions between banks (your bank = “issuing bank” and merchant’s bank = “acquiring bank”). The rules apply to these banks.
Companies that take customer deposits far in advance should have to escrow that money with a bank that protects the customers deposits and possibly gives them a slight amount of interest on their deposits. The money should be freed up slightly before the actual service date to cover costs such as labor and necessary expendables such as fuel for airplanes.
My Sonder stay got refunded within 2 weeks. No issues whatsoever. Maybe the Marriott guest had some bad luck.
What bank is this? Isn’t that the only question that matters here?
@dude26/jns: Lots of people don’t understand how credit cards work.
You, the consumer, have credit with the bank that issues your card. Businesses that accept credit cards have a merchant account provider that process credit card transactions for thee business and deposits funds into the business’s bank account according to whatever agreement exists between the merchant account provider and the business.
When you make a charge, your bank sends that amount of money to the business’s merchant account provider.
If you do not get the product/service you ordered, your bank does a charge back, and the merchant account provider MUST pay your bank back.
Whether the business has future credit card income from which to get the funds or even exists anymore is the merchant account provider’s problem – if they can’t get the money from the business, the merchant account provider still has to refund the charge to your bank.
In effect, merchant account providers ARE the escrow account when a business charges for future services. And many merchant account providers have agreements where they withhold funds for transactions for 30-120 days after the charge for businesses that are making charges for future service.
(After Fire festival failed hard and their merchant account provider lost millions paying out charge backs, lots of merchant account provides started being a lot more diligent about withholding funds from charge now future service businesses.)
The system is set up this way (making the merchant account provides ultimately liable for chargebacks) to make sure merchant account provides are doing due diligence on who they allow to accept credit cards.
So: Sonder’s would-be guests are NOT creditors! Do the chargeback, Sonder’s merchant account pays your bank who pays you, and the merchant account provider is the creditor.
(And if anyone tells you you can’t have a charge back because the business doesn’t have any money, that is a lie.)
Nice job helping out, Gary.
It’s both weird and impressive how Marriott manages to find new and innovative ways to Bonvoy loyal guests. I miss Marriott being a quality company.
@ Gary — Renind me, again, why do people do business with Marriott? This company should be prosecuted for theft.
I’d love to see a lawsuit since it would open Marriott to significant discovery.