When your trip goes off the rails before it even starts, your only goal is getting back on track.
That’s exactly what happened to us. Between a Lufthansa strike and a United mechanical delay, simply making it to Germany felt like a victory. Once we finally arrived at our hotel in Hamburg, we put the travel headaches behind us and enjoyed the trip we’d spent months planning.
Then, on our last morning in Hamburg, Marriott Bonvoy gave me an entirely new problem to deal with.
While we were visiting Miniatur Wunderland, I received an email saying an 85,000-point Free Night Award certificate had been redeemed for our stay at the Moxy Hamburg City.
Except I hadn’t used that certificate.
When I booked the two-night stay, I intentionally selected two 35,000-point Free Night Awards because they were about to expire. The 85K certificate was one I had earned after meeting the spending requirement to upgrade to the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant American Express Card, and I was saving it for a much more expensive hotel.
A few minutes later, I received another email from Marriott saying the reservation had been made using an email address that wasn’t associated with my Bonvoy account. When I logged in, the two 35K certificates were back in my account, while the 85K certificate was gone.
Marriott had replaced the certificates I chose with a significantly more valuable one without asking me.
I Went Back To The Hotel
We had already checked out of the Moxy Hamburg City, but we’d left our luggage there while visiting Miniatur Wunderland. When we returned to collect our bags, I stopped at the front desk and showed them the emails I received.
I hoped it would be an easy fix. The hotel had reinstated our reservation after our delayed arrival caused it to be canceled as a no-show, so I assumed someone could reverse whatever happened during that process.
They couldn’t. The front desk told me that because the stay was complete, they could no longer make changes and that I would have to contact Marriott Bonvoy directly.
At that point, we still had more than two weeks left in Germany and Austria. I wasn’t going to spend the rest of the vacation arguing with customer service, so I took screenshots, saved the messages and decided to deal with it when we got home.
I Thought Marriott Would Fix An Obvious Mistake
On our first full day back home, I wrote to Marriott and explained what happened. I included the original reservation details, the certificates I had selected, and the sequence of travel disruptions, including my messages to the hotel, that led the hotel to reinstate the booking.
I thought that, given the sequence of events, Marriott would look at the account history, see what had happened and put everything back the way it was.
Instead, the first response was essentially that the stay had already been completed and nothing could be changed. Womp-womp.
Did whoever read my message understand what happened? I wasn’t disputing the stay, the rate or the room. I was asking Marriott to correct the fact that it used a certificate from my account that I never selected.
So I wrote back and explained everything again with more context and detail.
Marriott Finally Admitted What Happened
After more correspondence, the case was escalated to Marriott’s Case Resolution Team. That was the first time I felt like someone was actually reading what I had written instead of sending a template-based response.
Marriott acknowledged that the 85K certificate had been substituted without my authorization and agreed that it was reasonable for me to expect to be notified before Marriott changed which certificates were used.
That mattered to me because we now agreed on the details of what happened. I hadn’t selected the 85K certificate, I hadn’t approved the substitution, and someone at Marriott had made the change.
Once Marriott admitted that, I thought the next step would be straightforward: restore the certificate.
Instead, Marriott said it couldn’t do that.
Marriott’s System Problem Became My Problem
Marriott repeatedly said that, due to system limitations, it was impossible to reinstate the 85K Free Night Award. Maybe that was genuinely impossible. Maybe the employees working on the case didn’t have the authority or tools to do it. There was no way for me to know.
Marriott’s internal limitations weren’t my fault. Marriott had taken an 85K certificate from my account without permission, and being told its computer system couldn’t put it back didn’t make the loss disappear. If the original certificate truly couldn’t be restored, I couldn’t understand why Marriott couldn’t simply issue a replacement.
The redemption was especially wasteful because the other couple traveling with us paid only a little over €125 for the same room. Had I known Marriott intended to use my 85K certificate, I would have paid cash without hesitation.
Instead, Marriott made that decision for me and then said it couldn’t be reversed.
Then The Negotiations Started
Marriott’s first offer was 35,000 Bonvoy points because one of the two original 35K certificates had expired after being returned to my account. That was better than the original answer of “nothing can be done,” but it still didn’t address the certificate Marriott had taken.
Marriott had used an award worth up to 85,000 points. Offering 35,000 points did not make up for what I had lost, so I pushed back.
After additional emails, Marriott offered to deposit the 35,000 points and submit a request to extend the other 35K Free Night Award. That would recover approximately 70,000 points of potential value. It still wouldn’t replace the 85K certificate, but it would get me incrementally closer.
This is where dealing with a large company becomes exhausting. Marriott agreed it had caused the problem and that I hadn’t authorized the change, yet I was the one who had to keep writing emails, explaining the same facts and negotiating over how much of the loss Marriott was willing to return.
Why I Finally Accepted Less Than I Lost
Could I have kept escalating? Probably. I could have asked for another supervisor, written to Marriott executives or continued arguing that Marriott should provide the equivalent of the 85K certificate it took.
Maybe I eventually would have received another 10,000 or 15,000 points. Maybe someone higher up would have found a way to restore the original award. Or maybe I would have spent several more weeks receiving variations of the same answer.
At some point, I had to decide how much more of my time I was willing to give Marriott to fix Marriott’s mistake. I accepted the 35,000 points and the promise that Marriott would request an extension of the remaining 35K certificate.
I didn’t accept because I believed the offer was fair. I accepted because I no longer wanted to keep fighting just to get incrementally closer to being made whole.
Marriott’s mistake had already cost me enough. I wasn’t going to let it keep taking up my time either.
I Still Had To Fight For What Marriott Promised
The 35,000 points posted to my account, but nothing happened with the certificate. Marriott had agreed to request an extension, yet as the expiration date approached, I still hadn’t received an update.
I sent a follow-up email and didn’t receive a response. After waiting, I contacted Marriott again.
Eventually, Marriott issued a replacement 35K Free Night Award valid for six months. The final resolution was:
- 35,000 Marriott Bonvoy points
- A replacement 35K Free Night Award valid for six months
Even receiving the compromise Marriott had already offered required more emails and more follow-up. That was the pattern throughout the process: nothing happened unless I pushed for it.
Why I Never Mentioned YMMV Or BoardingArea
I bet some of you are wondering why I didn’t bring up the website or that I could take this to social media. Throughout the entire dispute, I never mentioned that I write for Your Mileage May Vary or that the site is part of BoardingArea.
That was intentional. I didn’t want special treatment. That would defeat my purpose because I was curious to see how Marriott’s regular customer service process handled a documented mistake involving a Bonvoy member’s account.
Now I know. The first answer may be a blanket denial. Getting someone to acknowledge the actual problem may require escalation. Even when Marriott admits it made the mistake, it may still refuse to make you whole. And after agreeing to a compromise, you may need to keep following up before you receive what was promised.
Yes, I Was Bonvoyed
Marriott used an 85K Free Night Award that I didn’t select and never authorized. It later acknowledged both that the substitution had occurred and that I should have been informed, yet it still never returned what it took.
The employees I dealt with later in the process were polite and understanding, but being sympathetic isn’t the same as fixing the problem. The final compensation recovered some of what I lost, but not all of it.
Marriott made the mistake. Its system supposedly prevented a complete correction. In the end, I absorbed the remaining loss because continuing to fight was no longer worth the time and frustration.
That isn’t a fair resolution.
Deep down, I know I was Bonvoyed. I also know I could continue pushing, writing more emails and trying to get another small concession. But after having to fight at every stage—first to get Marriott to understand the problem, then to acknowledge it, then to offer compensation and finally to deliver what it had already promised—I’m done.
Accepting Marriott’s offer doesn’t mean I think it made things right. It means I decided my time was worth more than continuing to argue with a corporation that had already admitted the mistake but still wouldn’t fully correct it.
There is a practical lesson here. If Marriott reinstates or modifies one of your reservations, check your account immediately and verify exactly which certificates or points were used. Had I not caught this while I was still in Hamburg, I might not have discovered it until months later.
But the larger lesson is harder to accept. Even when Marriott admits it took something from your account without authorization, you may still be the one left paying for the mistake.
That’s what happened to me.
And that’s what it feels like to be Bonvoyed.
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