A reservation and a charge — but no room

Question: My family is a member of Marriott Vacation Club International and we have a timeshare with them. As part of that purchase, we were told that we have the ability to purchase “getaways” for either a week or a weekend. (A getaway is simply a low-cost way to rent an unsold timeshare condo like a hotel room.)

My wife contacted Interval Travel, which handles reservations for Marriott, to purchase a getaway at a Marriott Vacation Club resort in Orlando. Interval told her that there were no Marriott properties available for getaways at that time, but instead suggested another property called Westgate Vacation Villas in Kissimmee, Fla.

We paid $339 for four nights at Westgate. We received a booking confirmation by mail the day before the getaway was to begin and it appeared to be in order. It wasn’t. When I reached the front desk, they advised me that they had no record whatsoever of our reservation. Eventually, they offered us a “spare” room but only after sitting through a sales presentation.

Once I opened the room, a strong smell of mold and mildew blew out at us. The room had clearly not been maintained, the air conditioning was not on and the air quality was intolerable. With the added complication of severe allergies in our family, there was no way that we could possibly stay in this room.

I was told that there were no other rooms available and that nothing could be done. I told the desk agent that we could not stay in that room due to its condition, and she apologized and said that the only option would be to leave the resort. She then printed me a “zero balance” receipt to show that I had not stayed, and told me that I needed to seek refund from Interval for this experience. I’ve called Interval repeatedly since then, but it has told me there are no refunds for its getaways. Can you help? — Mike Ray, Bradenton, Fla.

Answer: If you had a confirmation, you should have had a room. It’s as simple as that.

A review of your paperwork, which you sent along with your letter, suggests the website kicked out an invalid reservation (your confirmation number was a suspicious-looking “009999999″). But I wouldn’t have known to look for that, and neither would anyone else who isn’t familiar with the resort’s reservation system.

But Westgate didn’t just lose your vacation. The website Marriott Vacation Club sent you to for your reservation kept your money, even though it didn’t offer you the room you were promised. Let’s not even get started on the mandatory sales presentation — highly inappropriate, given your circumstances.

Calling the resort and the website was an understandable response, but it didn’t help your case. I would have started with a short, cordial email to Marriott Vacation Club, which after all referred you to Interval and Westgate. Marriott would have passed your complaint along to the appropriate parties, ensuring a faster resolution.

Why not phone calls? Well, picking up the phone works when you’re standing at the front desk and there’s no reservation. Again, I would have begun with Marriott Vacation Club, since it apparently got you into this.

You might have also considered calling the hotel before leaving for Orlando to double-check your reservation. By doing that, I’m certain this problem could have been fixed before you checked in.

You might be wondering: If you have to call the hotel, then what good is the paper a reservation is printed on? That would be a fair question. The reservations systems that handle hotel and timeshare bookings are far from perfect. You’re better off calling to confirm, just as you would for an airline reservation.

I’m a little mystified by how you could be charged for a reservation you never had, but I’m willing to chalk that up to the same reservation system that churned out a nonexistent booking. Things like this happen.

I contacted Marriott Vacation Club on your behalf, and you received a full refund for the room you couldn’t use.

(Photo: Y. Bognasher/Flickr Creative Commons)

  • LeeAnne

    Every time I read one of these stories in which you advise the wronged customer NOT to call the offending company, but to do it all through email, I realize how difficult that would be for me. If I’ve been so blatantly wronged that it’s impossible for anyone with a working brain not to see it, I want to TALK to somebody in a position of authority and HEAR them tell me that they were wrong, I was right, and I deserve my money back. I want somebody to hear my story and then even TRY to tell me that they are entitled to keep my money. I want to be able to point out to them, in real time, the absurdities of that position — and hear them try to defend it.

    Yes, yes, I know you’re right. The email route is the proper way to do it. It’s awfully hard not to get that instant gratification, though.

    Good job in once again getting the corporate entity to step up and do the right thing. As always, how sad that it takes the thread of bad publicity to get them to NOT steal money from their customers.

  • Jesse

    Great to have to go great lengths for a refund of a service she did not use. Hope this was not a wasted vacation!

  • Kyle

    I am confused as to what role Marriott Vacation Club plays in this situation. Interval International is a completely separate company from Marriott Vacation Club. Interval offers services to timeshare owners, not solely to Marriott timeshare owners I might add, that allows them to trade weeks; they occasionally have excess inventory which is what allows them to offer the weekend getaways. Mike made a reservation through Interval International at a Westgate property, shouldn’t Interval and Westgate be the ones offering compensation?

  • Thomas

    If you, or anyone have a problem, contact Marry Kelly, she’s J.W. Marriott’s personal assistant. MaryAnn.Kelly@marriott.com

  • http://www.roamingtales.com Caitlin @ Roaming Tales

    Calling can work if you keep a record of who you spoke to and when. I sometimes use it in conjunction with email and the emails will say things like “at 11.59am on October 20 I spoke with Anna L in customer service and she said blah blah” etc etc. Enough notes like that and it tends to put the wind up companies as that sort of evidence and contemporaneous notes is indeed admissible in court.

  • Dang

    Never hear a good story about Time-Sharing Proprieties, nor Marriott Vacation Club. Please stay away from them. I avoid them like plague. Call me stupid but I never understand Time-Sharing logic, I like to keep the money in my pocket and prefer to pay more expensive updated hotel or resort.

  • skoc50

    If this is the first time the OP was using their Marriott Vacation Club timeshare, I’d sure be gun shy about any future dealings with them. I almost bought into the Hilton Vacation Club timeshire and am really glad I didnt. They couldn’t even provide me with a list of properties they use so I could look them over to see if they were suitable for my style of vacationing. They wanted me to make a decision “on the spot.” I graciously declined and will continue to book what I want when I want without worrying about their availability matching my requirements. The discounts sound tempting but what good is a discount if all it provides you with is a lot of grief and no place to stay on your vacation. Some gambles just aren’t worth it.

  • David

    We own timeshares with Marriott Vacation Club. One of the benefits of owning a timeshare is that you can join Interval International, a completely separate company with a contract to provide services to MVCI owners, as well as owners of other timeshares. Getaways are one of the great benefits of Interval International membership. If you want to purchaswe a Getaway, you call and deal with Interval, NOT Marriott. It is analogous to buying a car which includes a two-year AAA membership. If you need road service and AAA falls down on the job, would you expect the car dealer to reimburse you? I think not. I am afraid that several of the comments, and Chris Elliott’s original article, simply do not understand the whole timeshare concept and how the various options work.

  • Ann

    Clearly neither Chris nor Mike have done their research on the relationship between MVCI and Interval. MVCI is not at fault for Mike’s troubles, Interval is. MVCI was providing great customer service by finding a room for Mike. Interval can be tough to deal with, but ultimately, Mike gave his money to Interval, who should have dealt with the issues promptly.

    Also, having been to several MVCI properties, I find it very difficult to believe that any room would be in the condition that Mike described. The majority of the those rooms are used on a weekly basis and would never have the chance to fall into such a pitiful state. But that’s a different story for a different time…

  • Eileen Joan

    Send an email – what do you do if you don’t have a lap top or did not take your lap top with you on vacation? When you send an email, you don’t get an immediate response and in some cases you need immediate help. You’re already in Florida and now you have no place to stay and your family is looking at you to FIX it.

  • Bill

    There seem to be a lot of strange things here. The smelly room was in another property, not MVCI. I fail to see why MCVI was asked to pay, they had nothing to do with it.

    I’ve never been into any vacation clubs and don’t plan to. Ever.

  • Dixie

    We’ve used Interval Int’l Getaways several times in different cities and have always been pleased. We’ve also used Marriott timeshare properties in Orlando and they were all high quality (the new Lakeshore Reserve is faaabulous!). We’ve never stayed at a Westgate resort. It sounds like perhaps the Interval reservation was last-minute — maybe in this case it’s a good idea to confirm your reservation with the hotel’s front desk in case there is some breakdown in communication between the online or phone reservation process. Our last Interval Getaway was with the Sheraton Vistana Resort in Orlando and we were treated well, had all our pre-checkin requests honored, and were even able to bypass the long checkin line and use the express option since we’d already been in contact with them. So many Interval reservations go very well, and the Getaways are a great deal.

  • Tere

    You know, that “always call to confirm before you leave” advice is the best lesson I have learned from this site over the years, and it saved me from a huge headache just last weekend. Off to the Stewart Rally in DC, the hotel I was booked in for 3 nights – with written confirmation – only had me in their system for one night. I had made the reservation online the morning after the rally was announced, and the price was MUCH lower than it was 2 days later when my brother tried to book in the same hotel, so I suspect they weren’t happy to have confirmed me at such a low price before they had a chance to up the prices. When I pointed out their mistake on the phone and offered to forward her my written confirmation, she changed it – and read back my “new” info as two nights!! I had to correct her again to get the third night at the same price.

    I can’t prove that they were deliberately trying to “lose” my reservation so they could re-sell it at a higher price to someone else, of course, but I don’t have to – because I straightened it all out before I left. Thank you for constantly driving that lesson home – it saved me a huge headache (and probably a huge bill at another hotel) last weekend!

  • kanehi

    When I make reservations online months in advance I call the hotel ahead and confirm that in fact the request went thru. Peace of mind when travelling and don’t want to be bothered with errors. I also print two copies of reservations in case one gets lost during the trip. Also all the correspondence are in my laptop, just in case.