After staying at the Marriott Grand Cayman Beach Resort last month and having a few issues during our stay I received a message from the hotel apologizing for our inconvenience and offered to send a "welcome back" certificate good for two free nights at the hotel to be used within a year. The review of the hotel is the second one shown: http://www.rewards-insiders.marriott.com/marriott-hotel-reviews/gcmgc
As promised the certificate came in the mail and was a complete slap in the face based upon the number of restrictions and hotel renovations taking place this summer and fall. I sent an email message back to the hotel shown here and have yet to get a reply from them regarding this issue.
I received the "welcome back" certificate yesterday in the mail and while it is a very nice gesture we find this is just about worthless. In a previous email dated April 19, 2013, shown below I mentioned we would not return until the completion of your renovation, yet it does not appear that was considered with this certificate.
The blackout restrictions placed on the certificate from December 20, 2013 until April 30, 2014, and your renovations taking place over this summer/early fall it would appear we have approximately 30 days in which to use this certificate. If my calculations are correct that provides a 30 day window from mid November 2013 until December 19, 2013, for use of the certificate which as you can probably tell is certainly a small window of opportunity and other travel plans have already been made during that time. Then more restrictions, reservations cannot be made more than three months in advance and subject to being available which makes this useless.
Your kind gesture would be much better received and could be used if there were no restrictions placed upon a "welcome back" certificate where it could be combined with travel plans that are made 4-6 months in advance and reflected the desired room upgrade of a "junior suite" which we originally booked for our stay at your resort. I don't wish to sound ungrateful for your offer, but wish the offer was one that could actually be used since it is titled "welcome back".
I'm guessing this is just another in the growing list of Marriott issues that makes the most loyal customers desire to book hotel rooms with other hotel chain or independents. 