Another Marriott hotel can surfaced ignoring elite member breakfast benefits. Frequent Miler writes about the Dearborn Inn and rightly calls them out.
He explains that he was offered “750 points or a $10 food & beverage credit as a welcome gift” at check-in as a Marriott Titanium, but the front desk agent “said no to free breakfast” and that “the 750 points was in lieu of breakfast.”
Before asking to speak with a manager, I dug into the Marriott Bonvoy Terms & Conditions to make sure that I was right about breakfast. Maybe things had changed since I last looked. I found that I was right, but I also was reminded how easily people could be confused about the rules…
Credit: Dearnborn Inn
Not only was the hotel conflating two different benefits, the points being offered under the other one should have been 1,000 points not 750. This is a clear case where the hotel should be on the hook for elite benefit guarantee cash compensation.
Speaking to a manager, Frequent Miler showed the program terms and got his breakfast comped – but the manager could do nothing about actually honoring benefits for all eligible guests. Denying breakfast, it seems, is an owner decision.
Without telling him who I was, I talked to the manager about the benefit and showed him the relevant terms and conditions. Ultimately, I think he believed me but said that it was up to his bosses to decide what to do. He promised to raise this issue up to them. I really hope he does.
This property is owned by Ford. It is actually managed by Marriott as I understand it. And they won’t cover both the ‘breakfast in lieu of club lounge’ benefit and the ‘elite welcome gift’ benefit required of Autograph Collection properties.
- Marriott requires Autograph Collection hotels to offer 750 points or breakfast as a choice when there’s no lounge.
- Marriott separately requires a Welcome Gift of “1,000 points per stay or $10 USD Food & Beverage (“F&B”) credit per stay” but this hotel does not do this. They treat the 750 points or breakfast as the welcome choice.
Hotels frequently ignore one or the other. I wrote about The Alexandrian which gives the breakfast benefit but not the points or F&B credit Elite Welcome Gift. (Their breakfast benefit was a $15 credit when I stayed there a few months back, which doesn’t cover the cost of a continental breakfast, either.)
One guest complained on TripAdvisor about the Dearborn Inn’s ignoring Marriott elite benefit terms, and a manager responded, defending the hotel and claiming they’re in compliance with program terms. It’s unclear whether he’s confused or gaslighting.
Please be assured that our property remains in full compliance with Marriott’s established policies. Some properties in the United States do not provide free continental breakfast in their hotel restaurant, instead they offer Marriott Bonvoy points per night of the stay in lieu of breakfast, as noted in the full benefit program. In addition, at the Dearborn inn Autograph Collection we extend to our qualified Elite guest the option to select breakfast sandwiches, coffee & snacks in our Market place. We are sorry if this wasn’t offered correctly upon your arrival and during your visit, but we have now trained the staff completely on this benefit for our members.
(Emphasis mine.)
Credit: Dearnborn Inn
Bizarrely, this manager implies they’re making a generous extra accommodation in offering a food and beverage credit to Platinum members and above that covers items from their market when that is also required in the terms and conditions of the program.
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, and that’s almost always going to be enough for front line customer service (and even managers) and it takes real corporate escalation to get anything beyond that fixed.
I believe, it’s now not an advantage to belong to the Marriott program, seems, more and more like a scam. Locations are less clean and don’t care about their customers
Correct, Boltz, the ‘play’ now is to book Marriott through AA Hotels, especially if you’re an AA credit card holder with AAdvantage Gold or higher, because you’ll reap the ‘benefits’ Marriott still offers, namely a clean room, without expectation of any ‘extras’ like breakfast or points. In lieu of Marriott points, you earn status-qualifying AA Loyalty Points, up to 15,000 per stay.
I always book marriott hotels. even if they don’t honor elite member breakfast, I’d still stay the hotel. but I’ll remember the hotel and won’t book that hotel again. I’ve made the list.
Sigh. I miss Starwood.
The Dearborn Inn has been closed since 2023. While the press releases say it reopened on March 19, 2025, it still looked closed to me when I drove by earlier this month.
Starwood at times would push the issue of guests’ elite status benefit delivery complaints to the hotel and go with what the hotel would say. Saw this happen with the 4pm late night check-out benefit at times, but that was about it.
Señor Leff, is Professor/Writer Laurel Leff a relative?
As always, thank you, Gary, for continuing to ‘name and shame’ these specific locations and bad practices. It’s still the ‘wild west’ with these programs, and better enforcement is sorely needed. Either that, or some ‘frontier justice….’ Yee-haw!
Woah, there is an imposter, the first ‘@1990’ is not the original. Seems like a nice fellow, though. Helpful advice above, actually. You know what, the more the merrier. Repping the year with honor!