Reader Compensated 25,000 Points When Hotel Refused Breakfast and More

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Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Recently matched to Hilton Diamond and stayed at the St. Petersburg Bay Front Hilton. Our room air conditioner was broken spoke to the front desk twice, all they offered was to have maintenance come look at it. Then on a third call pushed for an alternate room, agent said they were all booked but would award me 80,000 points for my troubles and put me on an ugrade list for the next night. We decided to live with it because we were gone all the next day anyways. No follow up from anyone, didn’t think the points would post but sure enough 80,000 points were in my account the next day.

  2. Bravo to Hyatt on the breakfast. I recently had an experience where I hosted a large family gathering and reserved them two 2-bedroom Residence Inn rooms. When my party of 8 showed up for breakfast more than a half hour before the buffet closed, there was no food and the staff was unable to prepare additional food because their supplies had run out. I had to go out and buy the group breakfast.

    Despite being a Marriott Gold, the hotel offered me no compensation when I complained. My complaints to corporate similarly yielded no compensation: they weren’t going to force the hotel manager to do anything, and they weren’t going to do anything. So I guess you never know.

  3. @iahphx Being gold in that situation seems irrelvant. You were a customer who didn’t receive what you purchased. 30 minutes before end of breakfast and no food is a fail.

  4. @iahphx @Jill,

    Agree with Jill because Residence Inn has free breakfast for every guest. There is no excuse on running out of foods 30 min before breakfast closing time. The hotel did not deliver what you had purchased as a guest. Being Gold is irrelevant in this situation. The product purchased was delivered with defect.

  5. I was at a Country Inn at Virginia Beach for a few nights on points / credit card certificate.. The microwave tripped the breaker 5 times when I was using it. They credited me for 44K points (one night stay). Not bad.

  6. So this band has the most important job opportunity of its career, and the members decide to take almost the absolutely latest possible flight across the Atlantic to start the tour. With an airline that flies once a day. They cannot go a day or two in advance?

    I do not have much sympathy for people who “think” like this.

  7. @Jill @FLL @Jason — Yeah, I was very surprised to get NOTHING for this pretty egregious mistake. What particularly amazed me if that it was SO predictable. It was a weekday with a summer leisure crowd and breakfast ended at 9 am. Passing through the lobby the evening before, I had observed them getting slammed for the free evening snack they were offering. So my hunch was they’d get slammed for breakfast right before the 9 am deadline. So we showed up at 8:30. Still too late! They pretty much had nothing left but toast and some cold cereal. The manager HAD to know about the situation. So when my complaint was rejected the first time, I asked again. Rejected the second time. I asked again. Rejected the third time, I gave up. What can I do? Never stay at a Marriott again? They’re usually more than fine, especially as a Gold.

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