Another Marriott hotel has 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?
I’d like to believe this was an error but, it happens too much to be an error. SCAMarriott Bonvoy program is a mess.
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!
At this point, I just come here for stories about how much Marriott sucks. My move nowadays is to simply expect nothing, and be satisfied when I get it.
They’re more concerned about profit and keeping the hotel owners happy as was evidenced by comments from CEO.
We do a great job inspite of the guest is their motto.
As long as you keep staying at Marriotts, they will keep doing this. Vote with your feet or accept it and stop complaining, there’s no point in telling us 1000 times what we already know.
Marriott just sounds like a nightmare. This is an example of what happens when a giant hotel chain buys another giant hotel chain. I prefer IHG. They have a wide range of well-run properties. They may not have many lounges, but at least they don’t overpromise. Hyatt is also good, though their prices can be outrageous.
Marriott’s policy of pushing all complaints back to the hotel (and in most cases to the very personnel that caused the problem) is my biggest frustration. It’s so stupid, and gaslights customers. They don’t even do a “yes, we screwed up here’s 10k points, go away…” they just straight up tell you they think they did nothing wrong and you just have to suck it up. I wish we could take the same approach when it came to settling our bill…
@GUWonde – not that I am aware of
When is someone going to file a class-action lawsuit?
I’ve been a Marriott loyalist for years. Lifetime Platinum status BUT the downgrades to the Bonvoy program and multiple very frustrating experiences like this have me trying other brands. Very sad.
Platinums and higher should make reservations here. If they refuse your benefits, demand the $100 compensation. If they refuse to provide it, file a complaint with Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel.
Why bother with Marriott in the USA? After ca 1350 lifetime nights I switched to Hyatt.
Just stayed at The Warwick Hotel Philadelphia, a Tribute Portfolio.
The hotel refused to honor the breakfast benefit for Platinum Elites. Tribute Portfolio Hotels are supposed to offer 1,000 points OR breakfast for 2 at the restaurant.
This hotel clearly is skirting Marriott rules which are posted on their website.
I have an upcoming 2 night stay in Poland and for the first time in 10 years – even though I’m Titanium with Marriott, I will be staying with Hyatt. The removal of best room upon arrival and the inconsistent breakfast benefit – I don’t want to start off my stay battling with the front desk. The Hyatt hotel is next door to a AC Hotel by Marriott but nearly half the cost and breakfast is included.
The bigger insult is the thought that 500 or 750 or 1,000 points actually means something given the redemption rates today. That’s a lot of skipped breakfasts to get one night at an Interstate Fairfield.
Same with a $10 onsite food credit. Basically worthless.
I’m finding more and more hotels that are ripping away Elite benefits. The Per LA hotel in Los Angeles is another that went away from “breakfast” (merely a pastry and drip coffee) for 750 points. They also got rid of any free water bottles for the small sum of over $7/bottle in room.
Lately, some Choice properties have shown to be better quality than Marriott! As others have mentioned, Marriott has taken a distinct and undeniable nosedive in quality over the past 25-years. Despite complaints at some properties of things like flagrant fire code violations and health issues like mold and mildew from leaking ceilings, even the pattern of using old and torn linens, Marriott corporate does nothing to give those hotel owners operators a warning to fix up, nor have they taken away the owners right to carry the Marriott flag. Despite the plethora of poor ratings and low reviews from guests. Complaints to hotel surveys give template responses from the managers with no offer of compensation. These low quality Marriott hotels continue to operate as Marriott brands. Sadly, the industry is plagued with owners from a particular origin of common culture where people are inherently cheap, often try to steal from customers by hiding their shortcomings, all while they themselves live in mansions — clearly spending money on their own lifestyle instead of re-investing in their business. Now, i would bet people from that culture have slowly infiltrated the higher ranks at Marriott and they bring their cheap mindset to corporate, allowing this steady decline. Not being racist, because I am of that culture, I know the culture and despise this quality of cheapness. This being said, many industries have followed the same pattern of a decline in customer service, the world has indeed changed.
Not a comment on Marriott but I recently had issues at Radisson where I received fast fewer points than expected when I booked 3 rooms in their hotel in Candolim in Goa for 9 nights.
Complained to Radisson member services and got a handful of points thrown at me and was told my booking rate was exempt from getting points! Emailed member services as I’m a premium member and didn’t even get a reply. Tried emailing their CEO but couldn’t find the correct email address. Have given up now and have boycotted the chain.
I’m with Alex on this one. A few years ago I switched from Marriott to IHG and have not looked back. In the US market IHG (Holiday Inn Express) has almost always had a room upgrade, early check-in and/or late checkout availability on top of a free, yet humble, breakfast. Rooms are clean, service is polite and many have free airport shuttle service. Consistently gets my business.
Radisson outside the USA is owned by a communist Chinese state-owned company.
This is why I no longer look at Marriott properties unless I have to and gave up pursuing higher status with them. The benefits are so inconsistent. It takes research and charts to figure out what you’re entitled to and even then, the properties can/will deny what you’re entitled to. It’s a mess.
Your many examples on Hotel Brands being only clearing houses has pushed me to stay at AirBnb’s this summer.
Marriott (and others) are effectively Google. They tell you what hotels exist, what the price is; but don’t promise quality.
If I, the customer, is required to research quality; I’m staying with someone where I can see how the owner/operator acts, and easily avoid ‘undesirable’ ones.