Donald sent a message to Arne M. Sorenson – President and Chief Executive Officer of Marriott International, Inc. – Email Address that said:
Dear Mr. Sorenson: Prior to departing our home in Germany where my wife and I live (we're both retired), in horor of our 54th wedding anniversary and our daughter's 53rd birthday, we booked a stay at the Marriott at Niagara Falls, 21-23 June 2016. I recently retired from the Army (22 years) and civil service (30 years and I'm also a Viet Nam Veteran). This was going to be a big event for all of us, since we've never been to Niagara Falls before. Unfortunately, a few days after arriving at our daughter's house in New York, my wife was admitted to the hospital with a severe case of pneumonia and a heart condition which the doctors said would require her having a stint inserted to the heart. Needless to say, we had to cancel our reservations at the Marriott, so since I had booked our reservations using my VISA Rewards Now points (more than 71,000 points), I contacted our travel person at Rewards Now and asked her to cancel our reservations and to ask if we could either regain all the points (more than 20 years worth of points), or at least postpone our reservations until August when my wife would be able to travel again (4 hours drive from Vestal, New York to Niagara Falls). Our travel person said she would contact the Marriott and explain the circumstances to them and request our points be reinstated or new future reservations be made available to us. When our travel person called us back, much to our dismay, she said the people at the Marriott at Niagara "refused to budge" and refused to do either one. So I ended up loosing all my more than 70,000 points (which in my opinion amounts to more than $70,000 considering each point was equal to $1.00). I also offered to send the hotel doctors statements saying what had happened to my wife, but that didn't phase the hotel people either.
We are scheduled to return to our home in Germany in early September and we are now considering visiting Niagara Falls in late August, but will be looking to stay at another hotel this time.
I'm sure the Marriott at Niagara Falls was able to rent our rooms to someone else in June, so I really don't think they lost any money, but actually made money at our costs.
I just wanted you to know that we are really disappointed in the Marriotts policy, but hoping there may be a silver lining somewhere ahead.
Your time in reading my email is sincerely appreciated.
Thank you kindly,
Donald
