Being a Marriott Bonvoy member is like navigating Kafka’s bureaucracy blindfolded. But there’s a special sort of hermeneutical exegesis required to unearth the true meaning of their elite breakfast benefits – as every brand, region and resort status rewrites the rulebook.
Figuring out the correct breakfast benefit for a given hotel is harder than unraveling Schrödinger’s cat’s tax return. But I’ve spent the last seven years trying. And here is what I know about the breakfast benefit for Platinum members and above at their Delta Hotels brand.
- If the Delta hotel is not a resort, then the benefit is for the member and one guest in the lounge. However, if the hotel doesn’t have a lounge (or the lounge is closed) then the member chooses 750 points or continental breakfast in the restaurant. That choice is separate from, and in addition to, the Platinum welcome gift.
- If the Delta hotel is a resort, then breakfast can be taken in the restaurant for the member and a guest as the Platinum welcome gift choice.
And that brings us to the curious case of the Delta Victoria Ocean Pointe Resort in British Columbia, Canada… the resort that isn’t a resort when they don’t want it to be one?
Credit: Delta Victoria Ocean Pointe Resort
This property has a club lounge, honors elite breakfast there, and refuses restaurant breakfast as outlined by the Marriott Bonvoy terms.
According to the hotel’s front office manager,
While the property’s name includes the word “Resort” it is not classified as a Resort under the Marriott Bonvoy program’s official brand portfolio and therefore, it is not subject to the breakfast option of the Elite Welcome Gift.
Credit: Delta Victoria Ocean Pointe Resort
Credit: Delta Victoria Ocean Pointe Resort
Oddly this isn’t even a franchise, Marriott actually runs this hotel. At least if the hotel is “very consistent” in taking this position about whether or not it is a resort, as the manager goes on to suggest, then they shouldn’t be able to push back on late checkout requests arguing the benefit is subject to available (the resort policy) rather than guaranteed.
Still, this manager says that when the hotel calls itself a resort, it is.. lying?
And as if to give this Marriott Ambassador member’s loyalty the final shove, the hotel’s valet wrecked his rental car.
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