A reader shared with me an interesting message he received from ”SPG Member Account Integrity,” which I figured was worth passing on, since I’ve never heard of something like this before.
Continue reading: SPG Warns Members Who Make Speculative Bookings At New Hotels
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
He has never used an invalid payment method for a booking (which frankly seems like an odd concern for Starwood to have)
Why odd? The payment method you provide is your guarantee that the hotel can collect the no-show fee. If it's uncollectible (through error or deliberate fraud) it effectively allows you to no-show without penalty.
It would seem to be a reasonable practice for the hotel to place the no-show fee amount on hold at the time of booking.
He cancels 95% of his reservations? I’m surprised they have not demanded a non-refundable booking fee of $100 for each future reservation. That’s just bizarre on his part and should have consequences. My 8-yo niece and 5-yo nephew have a better track record on deciding what they want for dinner.
Why is this strange? As has been said, 95% cancellation rate is pretty ridiculous. I’m all for for taking advantage of the system (to an extent), but he literally cancels 19/20 bookings he makes.
I think the email is awesome. He’s probably lucky they only gave him a warning.
"At the same time, for those who only book reservations with the intent of canceling, I have less sympathy"
Sure, I get your point and I kind of agree. On the other hand if there are a lot of these people maybe in the future hotels get more cautious announcing opening dates (just like EU261 is intended as a deterrent).
On a side note, isn't some of the shtick of the points bloggers also gaming the system 😉
"Cancels reservations about 95% of the time"
Lucky: "I also get the genuine feeling that he wasn't trying to game the system for compensation"
Are you serious Lucky? What a complete joke, of course he is trying to game the system. Can't believe you're trying to defend him. Now I understand why you were whingeing about hotels changing their cancellation policies, because you're a serial offender yourself.
As to SPG's "unprofessionalism" when they send an email to you as "Mr/Ms", get over yourself Lucky, the world doesn't revovle around you...
While cancelling that many reservations IS odd, I guess I feel like if you as a business offer higher prices for rates that are fully refundable, then the expectation is that someone may cancel them. Personally, I have made refundable/ cancellable bookings in the past if I think prices may come down, and then switch to a nonrefundable rate closer in. I suppose I'm not on anyone's sh~tlist because I tend to stay at the same hotel I intended, just at a better rate. I even flew a refundable fare once because no award space opened up (at least that was good for extra miles).
If SPG/Marriott is worried about refundable bookings made for grand openings, the easy solution is to only sell partially refundable rates on those nights.
This is the new Starwood/Marriott/Starriott going forward IMHO
Yes 95% percent cancellations is abusive and should be acted on
However for folks who are wronged legitimately I expect the company
do do little or nothing for them
Marriott is not the former Starwood in any shape or form and had never been
Underneath Marriott has always been all about the money only
Customers can expect
Crazy sky high pricing on revenue rooms in the future with tons of Bar prticing
Limited award room availability
Excessive devaluations in the program
and the worst customer service in the history of the company/ program
Added to that a massive decline in customer service across the board with the new Mexican Call centers where they know little and lack of empowerment to fix problems
call hold times of 20 minutes to 2 hours as already experiences by many members
calling the elite lines
How did a a company like Marriott not prepare for this?
They rushed to merge the programs and the call centers before they were ready and made sure to erode every day spending across the board on their credit card portfolio
Welcome to the new Marriott Rewards like shooting fish in a barrel
RIP to the former real Starwood 🙁
I don't buy for a minute that this guy isn't trying to game the system or that he has only requested or received compensation once. I'm surprised you think his behavior is above reproach . I hope they do penalize him going forward.
Seriously, just a warning for a 95% cancellation rate? He shouldn’t be complaining. Reminds me of a story I read about an Amazon customer who returned merchandise at about the same rate and got her account cancelled and then wanted sympathy and reinstatement.
On a side note, I’ve been stranded a few times in locations where it’s really difficult to get rooms at good hotels. I was able to get a room for the same day and the desk clerks said that they always have at least 5% (very late but within the free cancellation time frame) cancellations and it usually ends up costing the hotel revenue.
How many actual SPG nights does this person actually do? How often do they pull the 95% cancellations. For the red flags raised I don't think monitoring is too severe a penalty.
As to the unprofessionalism the Mr/Mrs is just too picky-picky. And I think working discounts with two local properties is more than most would do. Is this perhaps a case of DYKWIA? I can see the date issue. They would just give a warning that the date is on the bubble, rather than cancelling.
As the “Reader” who submitted this post to OMAAT, I feel it’s worth pointing out that I don’t cancel 95% of all my reservations - just those made for new hotels. I stay an average of 75 nights per year at SPG hotels, and many of these are high revenue nights. My overall cancellation rate is probably more like 40%.
The reason for my reservations - not that I would recommend anyone else copies me after my experience! - is that hotels often offer really attractive rates when they are preopening. If I were gaming the system, I would have a small fortune in “goodwill” payments (I don’t), received countless free nights (I haven’t), and I certainly wouldn’t have voluntarily paid no-show charges (I have).
The part of the email which I thought was really quite rich was the (almost) guilt trip on hotels having rooms which sit empty on opening day. Maybe if hotels want to have 100% occupancy on opening day, they should guarantee their opening dates rather than setting them speculatively. I have attended a significant number of openings and the vast majority have been deserted - as in, I was one of three or four visible guests in a hotel with several hundred rooms. Somehow, I find it hard to believe that the hotel was at 5% occupancy due to speculative bookings and cancellations with false payment details.
Now you may or may not believe me - but SPG have this information in their purview and could easily have checked before taking the drastic step of deactivating my (and presumably many others’) accounts. Bearing in mind people have been encouraged to book hotels speculatively pending the category changes, I thought others would like to know that SPG are clamping down on this. Needless to say, I will be moderating my behaviour going forward, if my account is reactivated (and completely accept that I am not without guilt in booking hotels indiscriminately). Though frankly, account reactivation doesn’t seem like a sure thing based on their unresponsiveness.
Dude, the first e-mail might have been a fluke but the second one explains the intent pretty clearly... They say they are proactively setting up other arrangements for you so in the event the hotel doesn't open on September 1st you have other arrangements already set up. I get that your circumstances as a blogger are different and you want to review new hotels, but for a traditional vacationer which Starwood assumes you are (they cannot know the backgrounds of every single person that books their hotels) that is more than enough. So yes, to answer that question the hotel is opening on the 1st but in the case it doesn't, everyone booked will have other plans set up already.
The increasing attitude over things that are not worthy of snark is becoming off-putting as a reader.
"cancels reservations about 95% of the time"
That alone should have set off some red flags...
No different than when the W St. Petersburg deflagged and they took two months after notifying me to rebook at a distant Courtyard. I declined.
Unfortunately travel blogging is driving some unsavoury practices. There is obviously a big market advantage in being one of the first to review a new hotel or flight so a lot of bloggers will be booking hotels just after they open. Closer to the time, they necessarily then prune down to an itinerary which works for some the ones which do open on time.
I am not saying it is "right" but I do think there might be an innocent explanation.
The reason hotels never open on time is sometimes, they wait till the bookings pick up to a level that justifies a full opening. Basically if I announced a 1 June opening but through July 15, I only get bookings that would result in 12% occupancy, its cheaper to rebook these guests to a nearby property than to commence full operations with the associated variable costs.
Basically they cancel confirmed reservations and evict guests because....money.
That's one reason. Another factor at play is owner-management conflict of interest and they both pull in opposite directions so to placate the owner unrealistic deadlines are promised. Yet another reason is government. No one in any country can really rely on government to provide approvals in time and unforeseen things crop up in complex projects. But mostly reason number 1 since the other ones can be accounted for by not announcing an opening until 100% ready.
Amazon is scam. A lot of the stuff they sell doesn't meet the standard it says it should in the review.
Essentially they have outsourced the QA to the crowd and act surprised when they have high return rates? Any Tom dick and harry sells whatever they want on Amazon.
Also how do two gays decide which one will be the Mrs. How is Starwood to know? Tell them that s/o is the mrs.
Come on Debit, asking a gay couple who of the two is the female is like asking two chopsticks which one of them is the fork and which the knife.
I really thought you had improved recently, but I guess I was a bit mistaken.
@"Reader" : You still aren't explaining why you cancel 95% of new hotel bookings, yet Lucky claims you are not gaming but "just enthusiastic" about "new hotels"... enthusiastic about booking or actually staying?? I have had a hard time finding cheap rates at new hotels, rather I see the opposite: they don't have my corporate rate loaded or are not set up for award stays yet.
@Dmodemd, in truth I didn’t have a good reason. I just thought there was no opportunity cost to booking any hotel and cancelling. I could easily have been more selective, and only chosen places I thought I might go to (rather than properties it was more likely I wouldn’t go to!).
As for the rates, it’s not always guaranteed to be cheaper (hence why I never book prepaid rates) but there is often a huge price variance before hotels open compared with after they open. It was after I got burned a few times with hotels getting more expensive that I became obsessed with locking in speculative reservations where there was no “cost” to me. Clearly I was wrong!
Unless he made a mistake when entering his cc info, the reservation was made with an invalid card. That doesn’t mean he intended on gaming the system, more like he always assumed he wouldn’t be following through on most of his reservations and obviously didn’t want to be stuck with any charges. I can see using an invalid card when reserving at a shady Best Western or hole in the wall establishment that might charge you ahead of time even when payment isn’t due until check in, but that shouldn’t be necessary with Starwood or any other chain with decent customer service.
@"Reader" I think you learned your "lesson" about the unusual practice of making so many speculative bookings at new hotels. I'm not sure there is anything else to be gained here by continuing to engage anyone here about that topic. Thank you for your data point, at least now others will know not to follow in your footsteps. One question I do have for you though is, in your experience, have the service levels at these newly-opened hotels generally been less than an equivalent long-established hotel?
@George get out of here with your bigotry. Completely unwarranted comment and you should be ashamed.
That JW in Cabo does look nice from what I've seen. That would be a nice review. Let us know whether it's worth it or not!
@Reader and Lucky...TPG just ripped off this whole story with a shitty cut-and-paste job and a weak “hat tip” at the end. Considering what went into writing and researching this article, this feels egregious.
Slightly OT but the chains are PATHETIC when it comes to providing updates about opening dates. The worst at the moment is STarwood and the new Sheraton in Colombo ( Hyatt just as bad, in fact, same city). The dates keep drifting but rarely updated on the site and NEVER any news about the project.
I'm only interested in new hotels in places where there isn't a decent points option: Colombo is a good example ( nothing great near the airport , resorts too far for a short stay, no major chains in town other than Hilton).
There is a desperate shortage of rooms and yet this thing has taken 5 years to build...and still far from finished.
He's both a frequent customer and a gamer. Nothing contradictory about that; in fact, being a frequent customer helps his knowledge base as a gamer. He got caught. No excuses needed and no sympathy here. It's people who overdo the speculative reservations that nudge hotels toward nonrefundable rates, earlier cancellation deadlines and the like.
Thank you Lucky for this post and you blog generally which keeps us updated on interesting developments in the points/miles world.
On the Mr/Mrs. thing, I'm really surprised to see you complain about that, because as someone who I thought was "woke," I assumed you were aware that we are moving toward a gender neutral dystopian world where people now write "they" as a singular instead of using "offensive" pronouns like "he and "she," they say "Latinx" instead of Latino/Latina, etc. How dare a hotel presume that a one time "Mister" guest has not transitioned to female to since his last stay. Perhaps instead of "Mr/Mrs" they should have just used the new non-offensive title "Mx" (I just looked that one up, it's a thing).
Anyway, back to the cancellations. I'd like to hear from "Reader" about how many new hotels he booked at and why. Did he book 20 new hotels and cancel 19, or did he book 100 new hotels, all over the world, and cancel 95 of them. Not just the percentage, but the number of bookings. He says above "I could easily have been more selective, and only chosen places I thought I might go to" so I'm struggling with how there was good faith here. Was he just bored and gets a kick out of booking and canceling hotels? Because if he says he had no reason at all to make these bookings, and SPG says that they have a pattern of people making new hotel bookings and demanding compensation, I have to side with SPG in presuming that's what he was attempting.
This raises a broader question for the rest of us though. Do hotels monitor accounts generally for speculative bookings and are others punished for canceling too often or too late? I make a lot of speculative bookings myself. I always have the good faith intent that I might stay there, but I tend to fiddle with plans and change dates around, and very often I'll book a hotel as a "placeholder" like "let me just lock down a reservation at this Hilton in the area, it looks OK, then I'll properly research hotels later and see if I can find a better deal." Or, "I think I'll be in Los Angeles for a few days somewhere between December 1-7, let me book six consecutive one night reservations at this hotel, and then as we get closer I'll cancel some or all of the nights." Or, "I'll be in London from May 22-24, I haven't yet researched exactly what I want to do or where I want to stay, I'm going to book two hotels now just to get them on hold (sometimes with the same chain) and then I'll cancel one later, when I firm up my plans about what part of town to stay in, or when I see what promotions are on offer (Accelerate, triple points, etc.)
I try to be courteous and not wait until right before the cancellation deadline before cancelling, but I do book a lot of hotels speculatively and then cancel. I'd be really curious to know if hotel chains monitor this generally, do we all have a speculation score attached to our accounts, is there a certain rate of cancelling that puts us in jeopardy of closure just from speculating, etc.
cancelling 95% of pre opening bookings is not "overdoing it a bit" - it is unacceptable.
he's lucky his SPG account wasn't deleted, rather than just being suspended.
it's people like him that ruin this for the rest of us.
I have a similar story with a booking a Hotel du Louvre in Paris.
The opening was pushed back from May until Sept 14,which was to be our first night there. Booked points plus pay rate,received an email offering to be moved with upgrade of points to Park Hyatt Paris Vendome for extra 10,000 points night and no cash outlay....or an extra 5000 to Madeline. -5000 for Etiole.
Naturally I jumped at Vendome.. after spending 3 nights last year...after some quick emailing and then phone was told Vendome was no longer available as she was going down the list and I'm about halfway down alphabet and no availability , I guess they had spent their quota there and I didn't push it (even though I could still see rooms on the homepage at standard rates) Anyway accepted Madeline for 15,000.. and cash part was cancelled. However now the dilemma (SWP) is Prince de Galles @ 20,000 night is hard to pass up and not planning another trip to Paris in the near future.