An Autograph Collection hotel in Detroit – the Hotel David Whitney – is playing an interesting game with denying elite breakfast benefits to guests, and it underscores just how confusing and messy the Marriott Bonvoy program has become.
- Autograph Hotels in the U.S. have to offer a Welcome Gift of points or breakfast if they’re a resort.
- If they’re not a resort, they can offer points or a $10 food and beverage amenity.
This hotel is not a resort. They offer points or a $10 food and beverage amenity for use at their market.
U.S. Autograph Hotels generally have club lounges where Platinum members and above can have breakfast. If they do not or the lounge is closed – and they’re not resort – then they have to offer points or restaurant breakfast.
When a Participating Property’s Lounge is closed, or property does not have a Lounge or approved alternative, the property will offer a daily continental breakfast in the restaurant for the Member plus one (1) guest, or Member can choose 750 Points per night of Stay.
These are two separate benefits. At this U.S. hotel, which is not a resort, guests either get club lounge access or a choice of points or breakfast, and they get a welcome gift of points or a food and beverage credit.
The hotel doesn’t have a club lounge. So they have to offer restaurant breakfast if the guest wants it. Except they don’t. And Marriott’s rules say the hotel should compensate guests $100 for this.
Pursuant to section 4.1.c., if Lounge Access (or alternatives or exceptions as outlined above) is not available, Platinum Elite Members will be compensated $100 U.S. dollars for the inconvenience.
The property is a rebranded Aloft (the former Aloft Detroit at The David Whitney). Based on correspondence I’ve reviewed, their position seems to be:
- They don’t offer a lounge, so they offer points or a food and beverage credit valid at their market.
- They do not allow restaurant breakfast because the restaurant is operated by a third party.
- “The guest choice of where breakfast is offered is not included in the guarantee and many of our guests are very satisfied with the market’s breakfast offerings.” (Emphasis mine.)
The hotel conflates the two benefits. This hotel is required to provide points or a food and beverage credit as a welcome gift choice, and because they have no club lounge they must provide restaurant breakfast.
- The welcome benefit doesn’t satisfy the ‘in lieu of club lounge’ benefit.
- It’s not the ‘guest’s choice’ where breakfast is offered, it’s spelled out in the Marriott Bonvoy terms and conditions.
The St. Regis Chicago tried this same excuse and it didn’t fly. The terms and conditions contain no exception for situations where “the restaurant at the hotel is operated by a third party.” Also, ownership of a restaurant is beside the point to the guest. Any restaurant that accepts room charges is a hotel restaurant for this purpose.
Presley’s Kitchen + Bar is the hotel’s restaurant. It is advertised on the hotel’s Marriott.com page. If a hotel is supposed to be exempt from honoring the benefit, that should be in the program terms and conditions. In fact there are a handful of exempt properties, each listed individually in the terms (with the exemption lasting only through June 30, 2024). The David Whitney is not in that list.
The David Whitney, by the way, also refused to upgrade this Ambassador member at check-in. Only after the originally-assigned room was found dirty were they willing to assign a junior suite, also in contravention of Marriott’s terms.
Back in the Starwood days, the Starwood Preferred Guest program could actually enforce its brand standards. They’d compensate a guest for the hotel’s failures, and bill the hotel for the cost plus an administrative fee. Even with Ambassador customer service, Marriott pushes the issue to the hotel.
The Marriott Bonvoy program is too complicated, with too many asterisks, and hotels don’t always understand it. Marriott customer service associates don’t understand it, and they’re trained to follow the lead of the hotel. The hotel explains they’re in compliance, that seems to be enough for front line customer service (and even managers) and it takes real corporate escalation to get anything beyond that fixed.
The hotel company is not trying to piss people off. It’s not personal either. Calm down…
Thank you so much for this article. I have been an Elite Bonvoy member for years have had many different experiences at hotels and resorts. It’s very confusing and misleading. Where should I direct my complaints/concerns for the best outcome?
When will you learn ?! That claim is simply not true, for the very simple reason that hotels have full and sole DISCRETION to decide “if [an upgrade] is available for the duration of the stay”, and no amount of cyber-ink spilling will change that.
It is simply nonsensical to keep claiming or making up benefits that are clearly not yours to claim!
Hotels are Bonvoys customer.
Hotel guests are Bonvoys product.
Bonvoys model is to satisfy the customer while cheapening the product.
I am a lifetime Gold member and one year away from lifetime Platinum. Just got off the with their customer service in regards to rooms I bought and paid for but they won’t give me credit for all three rooms even though I stayed in one room and my family stayed in the other. Very disappointed with their customer service.
This is why I stopped staying at hotels and just so Airbnb unless for a points redemption. I had good luck with international lounge access as IHG Spire Ambassador sometimes but it was so inconsistent and domestically it sucked. Had 300 nights/year for 3 years and was an average Joe to them. Hilton Diamond same thing…lackluster upgrades or none at all even when website showed available inventory, no more lounges in the USA, some breakfast benefits okay and others not…but it’s all so inconsistent.
It’s not a good game to play when I can pay the same amount roughly and get a whole house.
Agreed. Marriott and Bonvoy customer service have really taken a nose dive in the last decade. I had points forfeited even though I had proof of staying several times over the course of the prescription period. Their customer service just.have me the runaround for 2 months until I gave up. I feel that the benefits have actually become worse over time. Never booking with them ever again.
Yes it’s really confusing these so called Elite members benefits
Marriott should simply it
I avoid Marriott properties like the plague. Because they usually are overpriced in comparison to all the competing properties in a given market.
Some background is needed here. I was a travel agent for 30 years. At one point, I was an agent for Amex. Amex had a “do not book Marriott properties unless the client requests them” policy. Why? Marriott was notoriously slow to pay comissions. People forget that the only reason there are Marriott Amex Bonvoy CCs is because these used to be Starwood Preferred Guest Amex CCs. Covering a large part of that 30 years, I also worked for a large US airline that does not carry passengers. Internationally, the flight crews loved Starwood and Hilton. The company signed huge agreements to provide X nights because those 2 brands catered to the needs of an overnight freight carrier. I know for a fact there was only one Marriott property that the crews preferred, the Marriott SkyCity in HKG. The company had a contract with just that Marriott property. Fast forward to 2018, when many corporations had to update their contracts because of the Marriott/Starwood merger. Guess who became the preferred supplier for hotel nights for flight crews? Easy, Hyatt! Everyone knows why?
Marriott was always known in the travel agent community as a cheap ass company run by very greedy founders of a certain religion. Their history was well known to corporate frequent guests and travel agents. We all knew what would happen. Why is everyone surprised now? The writing was on the wall for the last 30 years.
P.S.-Another example is how MGM left the agreement with Hyatt to go with Marriott. That marriage was bound to end. Hyatt wasn’t happy with earning of elite nights for a piddling. While the agreement with Marriott offers essentially nothing for Bonvoy frequent guests. Wonder why?
yes. I booked and stayed at Moxy Amsterdam from Bonvoy. I have Titanium status. I didn’t have the breakfast. they said they aren’t not Marriott.
I worked in executive management at a Marriott hotel for 10 years. Truth be told….unless you are an Ambassador or the elusive Cobalt status Marriott does not care about your loyalty tier. There are many benefits promised to lower lever tiers but most of them have asterisks by them. Plus there is such a push for front desk associates to pull in extra money from “upswells” that they will lie about room inventory or use excuses to not give the promised benefits If you flash a gold or platinum status the desk will laugh at you when you walk away. You may have some less laughs if you are titanium. Marriott customer service is just people working from home who know less about the brand than the people who work the front desk, which isn’t saying much most of the time, so again…they will be no help unless you are ambassador or above. I lived and breathed Mathis for 10 years. Marriott will find a loop hole 95% of the time.
It seems it comes down to personal expectations. I enjoy Marriott and the experience of the different brands. I just spent the last month on the road in Europe and didn’t have a bad experience. Did I get upgraded, no….I booked the room I wanted. I received outstanding service from the staff. I am a lifetime Platinum who earned status before the credit card shenanigans made it easy for people to hit thresholds. The writer seems to have some level of entitlement…perhaps he should have been greeted with the royal guard♀️and trumpets. Maybe I’m different but have no expectations of freebies and upgrades. My trips are always pleasant.
Ambassador Elite member here, as well. A technical correction; per the Bonvoy Terms and Conditions, upgrades are guaranteed– but only to the extent that a room or room category has been designated by the hotel to be part of the complimentary upgrade pool. Of course, this restriction is maddening, and I suspect the criteria by which any given hotel decides whether any room is part of that pool are so mutable as to make it eminently possible to deny upgrades on a whim. That said, there are certain hotels where they’ll actually tell you when you ask which room categories are part of the upgrade pool and which aren’t. The Chatwal in NYC, for instance, when it was a Bonvoy property, was quite transparent about the fact that their upgrade pool did not include junior suites or higher category rooms (except for Ambassadors, at the General Manager’s discretion.) I found that policy sufficiently annoying that I chose not to stay there when there were other viable options.
Keep calling them out hotels that play games with elite benefits.