El Somnambulo Barely Escapes Clutches Of The Marriott Cult

A generous benefactor gifted us a vacation to San Diego as my wife had been nominated for a national pharmacy award.  As such, we were guests at the Marriott Pulse Hotel.  I emphasize ‘guests’ as the hotel also serves as a spot for ‘owners’ of Marriott Vacation Club plans.

When we checked in, a staffer quietly called my wife aside, told her they had some gifts for us. All she had to do was sign some paperwork, which she did. When we got to our room, we found that the ‘gifts’ were contingent upon us listening to a ‘presentation’ about the Marriott Vacation Club. There was no way we could afford to join, but we figured, why not hear them out since zoo tix and a $100 gift card awaited at the end of the tunnel.

When we arrived, we were ushered into a lounge where there were pastries and beverages. Others came in. We assumed that we’d get a group presentation about the Club. We, uh, were wrong.

We were taken into a cubicle, one wall with an eraserboard and another with a video screen that was used to present features of the program. Not one, not two, but THREE different salespeople tried to convince us that what we really wanted to do with our lives was to initially fork over about $29 K for 2000 points that we could use for vacations at all of these Marriott resorts. We listened respectfully for an hour while the first salesperson performed mathematical gyrations on the eraserboard as to why this was a great idea. Which it might be for someone who just wants to spend all their leisure time traveling. And has money to piss away. Which is not us. We eventually told her that we were not in a position to consider this. The highlight of her spiel was when a message flashed across her computer screen informing her that someone had just cancelled out of their contract. I suspect there were several more of those as the day went on. But, I digress.

Enter salesperson # 2, the so-called ‘numbers guy’. He said, well, gee, we don’t usually do this, but we can get you in for 1000 points and we’ll even pro-rate your fee. Oh, did I mention that there are ‘maintenance’ fees that will cost you an additional $1100 dollars a year? After all, under this scam, you’re an ‘owner’, not a guest.  One of the ‘privileges’ of ownership being that ‘owners’ get to defray Marriott’s maintenance costs. Perhaps owners get to paint fences on enclosed Marriott properties as well. We were still not interested b/c this does not work for us.

Enter salesperson #3, who tells us that there’s a great ‘making up your mind’ plan where, if you’re willing to endure this hard-sell one more time upon returning, you’ll get $400 off your next stay at that hotel. Which would possibly work if we had any intention of returning to this hotel, which we don’t.

No.

It was clear by the demeanors of all three sales staff that they were not happy with us. When we went to get our ‘rewards’, the zoo tickets mysteriously were not available. ‘Computer problems’, they said. Fine, we said, we’ll just take the gift card. We can’t do that, they said, they have to be issued together.  This isn’t a hotel, it’s a cult.

Fortunately, our ‘generous benefactor’ called them, read them the riot act, and we skated with $225 in gift cards. We spent them in a totally guilt-free fashion.

The founder of Marriott was Willard Marriott and, yes, Willard ‘Mitt’ Romney was named after him.  I don’t know whether ‘lying for the Lord’ is/was part of the hard-sell.  But I know that, following this experience, none of the employees looked the same to me. I also know that we will never frequent a Marriott property ever again.

Just thought you’d like to know.