lougord99

I will start using Marriott's online check in when they adopt Hilton's system of allowing you to choose your room during that check in.

lessthanzero

Thanks! I didn't actually know that.

quinella66

I see no purpose of online check in and don�t bother. Once I tried when the front desk check in line was long, but that was due to housekeeping backlog causing rooms to not be ready and it didn�t help.

I remember working at Starwood years back when they introduced this feature - the percentage of people using it was really low, begging the question of whether it was worth it. Not only does it require the IT work of the central systems, but also upgrades to door locks of all rooms of each property (if the phone is to open the door and truly bypass front desk).

uanj

I stopped using mobile check-in because I never once was able to skip the front desk and it defaults to points as your welcome gift. Sometimes I may want breakfast instead and I was told you need to change it at the front desk as you "really" check in.

They may have had bigger plans for mobile check-in but as it stands, I see no point in it.

KathyWdrf

I have actually sometimes used online checkin at Marriott, because it's useful to find out what room you have been assigned (i.e., sometimes there are certain rooms or types of rooms that I either prefer or want to avoid, and the room number is often a good clue). It might even enable you to check in early, in some cases.

On the other hand, if it's a property that I already KNOW doesn't really make use of online checkin (based on past experience), I'm not going to try to use it.

Either way, the online chat feature can be very helpful. I would definitely use it to alert the hotel to late arrival. I also have used it (for example) to request a "late" checkout (such as 12 noon instead of 11 AM). It's good to have the "paper trail" (or rather, a "screenshot trail") as someone else mentioned.

uanj

Wow, you're lucky! I always get a message that I am checked in and be sure to stop by the front desk to get my key. At which point I will need to show ID and ask myself the age-old question what is mobile check-in really about after all? BTW, you can message the hotel before you do mobile check-in.

Hilton app is great at this. You can choose your room and has had this functionality for many years ! I would love to see Marriott mobile check-in reach that level of function.

MissJ

Trying this chat thing for my stay this week. Hopefully I can finally not end up right by the darn elevator.

KRSW

That'd be a nice way to handle it, but Marriott refuses to provide e-mail addresses for properties....

Where does this happen? I've never had online check-in show a room#. Most of the time when I stop by the front desk, they still have to make the keys, go through the normal processes of checking in, regardless of whether I did online check-in or not.

Dr. HFH

When I know days in advance, plenty of time to ask the Lurkers here for the email address. Also at some hotels (e.g., StR, LC) the Concierge Desk sends out a welcoming email in advance to see if you have any special requests. I just reply to it.

KRSW

While the Lurkers are great resources and are very quick to respond (Thank you Christina!), it seems like a waste of time for both me & the Lurker to provide what should already be on the website. After all, Marriott requires phone # and FAX # to be posted on every hotel's page.

It wouldn't be difficult to do [MARSHA code]@marriott.com, even if it was just a forwarder to the hotel's own internal e-mail accounts. I realize Marriott has 8,000 properties flying their flag, but even the world's worst/laziest programmer (me!) could script something in Python in an afternoon which would automatically create these accounts.

painintheuk

The Courtyard in Sedona (which to be fair might be as expensive as some StR/LC, at least when I visited!) had the concierge desk send an email well in advance. I was able to arrange to have some packages accepted, which was great. It's not common, though I tend to stay at lower end properties.

KathyWdrf

I know, but I usually have no need to message the hotel before checkin.

Yes, Hilton has had that functionality for close to 20 years now, and I have been using it that long (when available). It's surprising that few (if any) other chains offer it.

KathyWdrf

There are quite a number of Marriotts for which online checkin simply does not work. It may pretend to work, but it never gets to the point of actually completing the task. I don't know if this describes your situation, though.