I just completed a two week, three island honeymoon in Hawaii, reserved using points for the hotels/airfare.
Resort fees at the JW Marriott Ihilani Ko Olina were "optional" since I reserved prior to their "mandatory deadline". I was charged $25/day parking.
Resort fees were "mandatory" at the Wailea Beach Marriott ($30/day) and Kaua'i Marriott ($25/day). Of course, built into the resort activity package is complimentary internet and complimentary phone calls, which I get anyways as a Platinum Elite member.
As expected, when the points were posted to my account upon checkout, each stay had errors:
The JW Marriott Ihilani Ko Olina did not award points for $25/day parking.
The Wailea Beach Marriott did not award points for $30/day resort fee.
The Kaua'i Marriott did not reward points for $25/day resort fee.
I made three separate phone calls in total, each on the day that the points for awarded for each stay, to get the correct amount of points credited to my account.
The call to customer care for the JW Marriott went smoothly, as it is universally accepted that parking charges qualify for earning points.
However, the calls to customer care for the Wailea Beach Marriott and Kaua'i Marriott went much differently.
During phone call #2 and phone call #3, I was told by the Customer Care Representative that "our policy is that points cannot be earned for resort fees", which makes no sense to me. The money goes directly to the hotel properties and not to any third party. Naturally, I read the "Rewards Terms & Conditions" from the Marriott website verbatim to each Representative, which read as follows:
Earn Points
- A Member is eligible to receive Points/Miles for staying at participating Marriott brand hotels or Ritz-Carlton hotels for his/her room and up to two additional rooms. At least one of the rooms must be reserved and registered in the Member's name and the Member must pay for all rooms, which payment arrangement must be requested at time of hotel check-in. The Member must also stay in one of the rooms. To ensure Points are automatically posted to the correct Membership Account, the Member's Rewards Program Membership Number must be present on his/her room folio and up to two additional rooms, as applicable.
- Charges that do not qualify for Points include taxes applied to the room rate, purchase of Marriott gift certificates or gift cards, purchase of The Ritz-Carlton gift certificates or gift cards, charges for third party-provided goods and services at participating Marriott brand hotels or Ritz-Carlton hotels, and catering or banquet functions charged to the guest room account.
Nowhere in the Reward Terms & Conditions does it say resort fees do not qualify for points, and resort fees aren't a tax, gift card, charge from third party, etc. The Representatives seemed dumbfounded and both put me on hold for upwards of 45 minutes to speak to a supervisor about the situation. Eventually, I was given points for the resort fees at both properties after two 1 hour phone calls, as well as 1,000 goodwill points for each phone call (2,000 total, and frankly should have been more) because of the length of time I was put on hold.
Has anyone else had this issue? The language in Marriott's own "Rewards Terms & Conditions" could not be any more clear to me and anyone with a brain functioning at roughly 25% or greater. Are these representatives trained to say resort fees do not qualify for points in hopes that I/we don't read the Terms & Conditions? Is there any guidance available out there with this issue?