WARNING: Bad experience with leeboy
I booked a certificate back in June for a stay in January 2021. All was well until this week. This week I got an email stating the certificate was cancelled and they were unable to get Marriott to reinstate it.
Details about why the certificate was cancelled are not clear, but it appears to my that Marriott caught on to these certificates being bought/sold and cancelled them all. Note: I did not contact Marriott or the resort or do anything to bring this on.
Leeboy is not offering a refund. I am in the process of disputing the transaction with Amex.
NOTE: This really has nothing to do with COVID. I did not request any changes to my certificate after booking. I was ready to take the January trip regardless of COVID.
Buyer beware!
maybe that is why they refused to try and get cert returned I bought. Tried to cancel 1 week before travel and they told me too bad so lost $1100. something has changed with his operation
I am really sorry for the trouble you are going through and you can message me privately with your name and booking details and I will do my best to clarify the issue you are dealing with.
As general information for others to keep in mind when purchasing or dealing with Marriott certs.
Does purchasing a certificate have a risk? yes!
The risk is basically you show up to the hotel and the hotel, for whatever reason the hotel cannot or will not accept the certificate and will charge you the rack rate.
I will list just a few issues to give you an idea of why they can be risky.
1. Some hotels will automatically change the room to a cash plus points reservation when attaching the cert. Recently more and more locations are having the same issue and NO ONE, not even the hotel can fix it. Its a bug in the Marriott system
In other words, the reservation upgrades for an additional fee without asking. For eg., Ritz Bal Habour upgrades to the ocean front for an additional $100 a day.
The only way around this issue is to attach the certificate Manually to the reservation. What that means is that the reservation doesn't actually show as paid with a certificate but the rep will go into the old system and put a note with the certificate number which hopefully the hotel will see and then use the certificate to get paid by Marriott.
This can be a huge problem because if the reservation is more than a month or so out Marriotts system sees this reservation as a points advance without any points attached to the reservation and send dozens of emails to the account holder saying that he doesn't have enough points for the stay and the reservation will either be canceled or changed into a cash booking. Many times it does actually get canceled a week or two before the stay, and being within 30 days we can't even rebook it
2. Certs won't attach. Plain and simple. No matter how many times we call the cert just won't attach. The only option is to once again attach manually which as I said in the first point has many issues.
3. Reps and some hotels are saying you are not allowed to gift certificates and the account holder must be at the hotel.
I have multiple emails from elite services stating you can gift but there is a list of hotels that are than happy to charge you the rack rate instead of the small compensation they get for rewards
4. Reps deleting certificates when trying to attach or detach. Every time we book or cancel or a reservation we lose a certain percentage of certificates. This is fine before you purchase but if you need to cancel and I am holding your certificate for a couple of months and then a certificate is lost who should we blame?
5. Clients calling into Marriott or the hotel. When the hotel asks to verify the email address or credit card they cannot and the account is put into audit and sometimes the reservation is canceled
6. The hotel will take the certificate and redeem it a couple of weeks prior to arrival. When this happens we cannot change the dates or cancel the stay or we risk losing the certificate.
7. Certificates get lost when canceling a booking. Yup, they just get lost/deleted. And even though we keep track of the certificate numbers the reps can't find them.
8. You book a hotel and then a few months later the category changes. Any changes we make to the reservation the certificate falls off and then we cannot rebook at the same hotel anymore
This isn't just us. Anyone using certificates will eventually come across the same issues
About 90% of the time we manage to get a reservation booked properly and there are no issues.
It's in my best interest to offer the best service I possibly can. If you can't understand that I am just the middle man and you are purchasing a deeply discounted stay, then buying certificates maybe isn't for you.
Over the years clients have stayed at resorts that would retail for $20k plus and paid the $1800. When it works (as it does 90% of the time) everyone was happy but when the next vacation there is an issue they are quick to call me out as a fraud and demand their money back.
I am simply buying and selling certificates from one individual to another and making a small cut.
Yes, there is some risk, rules change, hotels go up in category, Marriott cancels certificates. When an account gets audited or canceled for buying and selling the buyer takes the risk. Not the broker.
As a broker, I guarantee the seller isn't a fraudster and make sure the reservation gets done 100% correctly. We even check on the reservation periodically and call the hotel an hour before you arrive to request an upgrade and check you in remotely.
I do not work for Marriott, I don't make their rules and I cant even fix the dumb bugs they have in their system for years at a time.
When a reservation gets canceled we try our best to fix it. When a certificate gets lost we work hard on your behalf to get it back. As a last resort, once we don't see any other way of salvaging a reservation we offer to refund our commission on the certificate.
Since March it's been really tough for many, especially for the travel industry. We offered to waive our change fees for almost 6 months until individuals were just booking and canceling all day and we had to start charging a fee again. In the beginning of March, we had loads of cancellations and many individuals canceled their stay and just dispute their charge on us even though we already paid the account holder for his certificate.
We had other individuals that would call Marriott to tell them they bought the certificate to get the account in audit and then tell us the account is messed up and they need their money back.
Marriott May cancel a reservation or a certificate for a number of reason but ultimately, the rule stays the same. Unless the seller is a fraudster and just canceled your stay the risk of purchasing rewards is on the buyer.
You paid him with Amex?
I understand that many people may come on here and may not realize what they are buying we, therefore, have a booking request form that spells it all out clearly before you purchase.
It's sad that in times like these when the travel industry and travel agents are working extra hard with little pay there are those that would just dispute the charge and steal from the middle man...
I know this isn't the answer some of you are looking for but I hope this clarifies things just a bit. For anyone else that has any questions feel free to reach out.