Its happen to me only once. The hotel paid for my first night at another Marriott hotel, at a higher rate. My understanding is that they don't have to pay though.

 

I agree. I have no problem about employee getting cheapest rate staying at a RC, but if FF rate are also able to earn points and stay, and this guy not even a Marriott employee, he probably giving some money back to the one who "sell" the employee rate, is this fair? Using the trick got SNP, $150 staying at a RC half moon bay while rest of us paying $800like an idiot. Earning Platinum can never been that easy before, oh , he can still enjoy benefit.

The one reason I've never choosing Hilton is that this company giving any human being a gold even Dimaond as long as you want to, employee are also easily getting a Gold even Diamond with cheapest rate as well, their elite experience is useless to me and making those elite guest who paying more a fool,If one day Marriott like this, I would just give up my lifetime status and rather paying at a Four seasons or MO.

And did airline company ever giving miles and status to those 80 percents discount employee ticket? No!

There is a reason why Hyatt and IHG never giving credits and status to its employee and from my perspective this is not the best move of Marriott.

 

Had to call in for a friends stay on Dec15, but I’ve had 2 stays since dec 21 post automatically.

 

Dealing with this now. Had one on Dec 14 or 15 post automatically; another on Dec 28 has not. Filed the form and got rejected. Going to reply now and see what they say. I'll call if I need to.

They're saying that my account needs to be "converted to an employee account" which shouldn't be the case. I'm not the employee but my wife is. It should still count for me since I did book it under my name and credit card. She did provide the form and I'm already elite through my own travel.

Edit: Emailed back and within an hour got a reply and they added the points/nights. I had to explain what I stated above since that seems to have been the source of confusion.

 

I had another stay with the friends rate on Jan 1 that didn't post. However, my dad's associate rate did post (same hotel, same night). Go figure.

 

Curious, who exactly is eligible for these rates:

- Who qualifies as an "associate" of Marriott? Any employee?

- Can they just nominate anyone as friend & family? Is there a limit?

 

MMF - friends - 5 nominees, 2 or 3 months validity iirc

 

Not sure of the first question but I can answer the second as I just used the Explore Friends rate this week.

There are two different rates with different booking codes.
The Explore Rate is used by:
Spouse or Domestic Partner of Associate
Child of Associate
Parent or Parent-in-Law of Associate or Parent of Domestic Partner Brother or Sister of Associate

The Explore Friends Rate can be used by anyone the employee chooses.

In both cases, the employee must give the user an authorization form that is good for two months from the date of issue and has to be generated by the employee in their internal system. The form is personalized to the friend/family member and has the employee’s name and employee number as well as their manager’s name, phone number and email address. There is no limit to the number of times the form can be used in that two month period, nor is there (I believe) any limit on how many forms the employee can give out. I just used one on Tuesday as a friend of an employee. He gives me a new form every two months and I am always asked for it at check in. It is very specific that it may only be used for personal (not business) travel. . The rates can be quite amazing.

 

Interesting, I've used this rate once a year or two ago, and twice this year, but have yet to be asked to produce the form (though I have had it available to be presented if need be)

For this year's stays, neither one has posted automatically, but both have been manually posted fairly quickly after submitting a "missing stay" form.

 

My stay from this week hasn’t posted either. Nor did the one from last week come to think of it. But I have used the form probably six times since November and have been asked for it every time.

 

I was 2/2 on posting automatically 2 weeks ago.

 

I'm 2 for 2 as well but I'm missing an Award stay so go figure. :-:

 

Does anyone know if there is an issue using the Marriott e-gift cards on stays booked with Explore Friends/MMF?

they have that great 20% offer but wouldn’t want to risk that not being usable

 

There should be no issue, gift cards are a valid form of payment.

 

I was wondering the same and can’t see why Marriott would want to penalize their own employees and beneficiaries from helping infuse cash into the company via these promotional offers.

I have a few stays coming up and this would help me save at least $10 per night on average.