Over the summer, we rented a villa in Greece through the Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy platform. I wanted to share my experience with that in this post. We actually had a great experience, and it turned out to be quite rewarding in terms of the number of points earned.
Continue reading: My Homes & Villas By Marriott Bonvoy Experience: Surprisingly Good
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Looks nice, but I don't think many of us are going to be able to drop 20k on a luxury villa like this.
It has eight bedrooms and six bathrooms. Lucky can afford it by himself - but you can easily imagine say four well to do couples, or six or eight individuals, splitting this. This is exactly the use case for VRBO, Airbnb, Homes and Villas, etc.
Though that does beg the question - if you rent a villa and split it four ways, do you also have to split the points one way? Only one individual is likely throwing down the card and putting down their Marriott account for the reservation…
the problem remains- inconsistency of experience. I would never have spent that money given how bad the reviews are for Marriott Homes but glad that you had a good experience!
Think of the points as your commission for making the arrangements and organising the money.
It's less than $100/night per bedroom -- way cheaper than a hotel, and way more private space.
It’s all Good when it goes well but when it doesn’t in another country and Marriott won’t help that’s a hard pass for me be it 200 euros or 20000
Hard pass for me
Glad you all enjoyed
Your primary school Maths teacher just called, they want you to return your certificate
More importantly, why is it even necessary? Cook on your own or go buy something from a restaurant.
I rented two places in the south of France last year through Homes and Villas by Marriott. Both charged a pre-paid $600 damage deposit, to be reimbursed after, if no damage was reported. One was credited within a week (and a couple of emails), but the other took 6 months and more emails and excuses than I could count. Mariott declined any help or responsibility.
No, it works out at €360 or so per bedroom per night. Not cheap, but pretty comparable to any decent hotel in Greece in summer, and you have the benefit of the private garden and pool.
Guess the promotion moved the needle a lot, and the affluence of dropping $20K for one stay……
Just saying, if you hit $23K spending requirement (especially if going beyond like hitting $40K or more) but 10s or 20s nights short of Ambassador, try contact Marriott customer service, there're a few data points reps give out Ambassador on a case by case point, ymmy obviously.
Excellent points haul, but do you think the guests you split the cost with paid some of the price for your win due to you not taking the cheaper cash outlay option which they would have benefited from?
Assuming a bedroom per unit, means a particular unit only needs to shell out $2,500 for the week. That's fairly affordable
@ Jarrett -- No, absolutely not, I factored that in. I wasn't profiting off this at the expense of others.
@ Eric -- The property management company was able to refer us to a company that provides chefs.
@ Shamala -- It's not "necessary," but preparing food for a lot of people is a full time job. Ultimately we all wanted to be able to relax and enjoy our time, rather than someone cooking full time. For that matter, we love Greek food, so it was great to be able to have amazing Greek meals every day. Porto Heli is a pretty secluded area, and there aren't that many restaurants, so it's nice to have someone cooking for you.
@ Deb -- That's super frustrating, and exactly why I wouldn't have much faith in Marriott resolving anything. Ugh.
@ Jeff -- I hear you, though to provide a bit more background, once I found out the property management company, I looked up reviews, etc., and they were all generally positive. So that's what made me feel comfortable about this, rather than the assurance knowing that Marriott is involved. I could've always canceled after booking if there were a lot of bad reviews.
@ Anthony -- Hah, it's not possible to split the points, but a discount should absolutely be factored in to reflect the value of the points earned.
"Just over a month before check-in, Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy was running its best promotion ever (at least for longer stays at more expensive properties), so of course I rebooked"
I'd be nervous doing that in case someone jumped in and grabbed my villa and I let down 10 friends and a partner! Large cojones, Ben.
The concern is, will a cancelled booking come back to the inventory immediately or at all ? If there is a delay, there is a greater risk of someone else reserving it.
Airbnb isn’t any better with their customer service. This is just a risk of renting a house through any platform
Marriott Homes are a disgrace and I will never book with them again. Our Paris apartment was infested with bedbugs and other insects.
Total compensation offered by Marriott to cover €2000 euro of costs and a destroyed holiday - 10000 Mariott points. They can have them back!
Just when you think it could not get any worse with Marriott. We’ve had several bad experiences on the hotel side this year, but this was even more horrific. We travel extensively for leisure (six months annually) and for the most our stays are in hotels across a wide range of Marriott brands. Trying to be a loyal Marriott user, we decided to try Homes and Villas by Marriott.
Our trip took us to southern Italy, specifically Ostuni in the Puglia region. The apartment we chose, Palazzo Rapana Superior Apartment is a two-bedroom space that touts all the comforts of home, as well as an indoor jacuzzi, which they feature prominently on the Marriott site. This location is booked across a wide variety of other booking engines on the internet on which they do the same.
Be warned, this apartment is nothing as advertised.
The check-in experience is a nightmare. We had to navigate the front entrance of this location accessed by keypad. It took 15+ attempts to respond (pic). It is very old and non-functional. Multiple attempts to call the management company (which Marriott defaults to) for assistance were unanswered. The inner access is by key lock, which is likely original to this 100+ year old structure (pic). Again, a nightmare and no guidance and no one to contact on how to use.
The space is very dated and quite gross. There is paint chipping off the walls in several locations (pics). The showers appear to have mold around the base (pics). The jacuzzi has lovely accents of brown and green (mold) at the water level (pics). As tempting as it was, we decided not to use for fear of some type of infection.
We reached out to the property management to request soap for the showers and informed them that only two of the pillows had pillowcases (pics -lovely stains on the uncovered pillow). There were also no towels for use in the kitchen (used bath towels) or soap for the dishwasher.
You are also expected to follow a daily garbage schedule and are threatened with fines if you don’t adhere. The schedule requires daily adherence (pics).
Lastly, the “Unlimited Wifi” is very limited. It barely works with one device (don’t expect streaming), and two devices are a wish and a prayer. Not very pleasant when overall cell signals are one bar at best and you have to go out to the street to have a conversation. Do not rent this location if you have any intention of getting work done.
I can’t stress enough how poor this experience is. Marriott would be best served to have their “Curators” spend a little more time evaluating potential properties and be less concerned with offering disgusting options like this one to drive revenue. Avoid this property and Homes and Villas by Marriott at all cost.