Residence Inn by Marriott Miami Airport — Hotel in Miami

I am a Titanium Marriott Rewards Member. I start this review off with that information as you should be able to tell that we CHOOSE to stay at a Marriott whenever we can and we travel A LOT for work. Recently, we stayed at the Residence Inn by Marriott Miami Airport for what was supposed to be a check in on Monday (11-6-2023) and check out on Friday (11-10-23) for a business trip. I am frequently rerouted or sent to various cities in the state for my work and my plans frequently are changed so sometimes I have to change my reservation end date. I've never had a problem - particularly as I am a Titanium Member - until NOW...||||Full disclosure - the fine print of the reservation read that an early departure may result in the forfeiture of one night's room stay. This has also been a codicil in previous reservations but managers or desk attendants have always overlooked it as I am completely at the mercy of my company schedule and they've understood and tried to be of the most help to me. Not this time! Also, my quibble isn't that they stuck to the rule - it was how they went about it.||||I went down to the front desk on Thursday morning to explain my situation and ask for an early check out. The desk attendant looked at me quite literally like I was crazy and said that there was the early check out stipulation. I explained again my situation and asked to speak to a manager - very respectfully I might add. The next person to approach - actually both of them walked back together - was not the manager on duty but was some sort of shift manager. She also took a hard and - in my opinion - rude stance of informing me of the penalty of which I was painfully aware. At no time did anyone say, "I'm so sorry but this is the policy..." or "I certainly wish I could help you..." - nada, zip, nothing. In fact, I would go so far as to say they were not only rude but seemed to be happy that I would be assigned the penalty. I left as I had to get to my work account but DID NOT check out as I planned to call the Titanium support to see if they could help. Therefore, I left the reservation as is. Upon calling Titanium support, I was informed that since the policy was in the reservation it would be solely on the hotel to allow mw to leave early without penalty. Please note however - it is COMPLETELY at the discretion of the hotel to not asses me the penalty. Titanium support can't override the hotel in that case and the representative was pleasant and apologetic but couldn't help. Fine - I can accept that. At that point, I figured I would do a remote check out when I had time. This is when it gets interesting-||||I then got a call from the Manager on Duty at the Residence Inn. When I answered the call, I had hopes that he was going to override the issue but also had resigned myself to paying the penalty. What happened was the MOD called to berate and reinforce what I had already been told and accepted. When I tried to interrupt him just to say fine do whatever, he continued to - at least 4 times - repeat and restate the policy. He also informed me that I had been checked out which was NOT my intention to do. So, he called for no reason as nothing was left undone when I had left the front desk that morning but he ALSO checked me out of the hotel WITHOUT my permission. The point - be it a moot one or not - is I had PAID for the room so he should not have prematurely checked me out and then he prematurely assigned me the penalty. My wife wanted me to call and rage and tell them to check me back in for the night just to make the point but I came here to leave a review instead.||||Bottom line - this is no way to do business. I stay at Marriott's 5 of 7 nights a week and that alone should at lease have elicited an "I'm sorry but..." and yet all I got was attitude and disrespect. Many people have been telling me to change my loyalty program from Marriott as their service and perks for high loyalty plans has changed and diminished but I've resisted. I'll now consider it. If you can't even have pleasant staff to deliver bad news then exactly what am I loyal to? The most galling piece is being checked out. To me - that stepped over the line. Had the manager called an ASKED if I wanted to check out it would have been one thing but I was INFORMED that I was checked out. Needless to say, I'll never...

We did not have any problems during our stay, but after the customer service nightmare we experienced afterwards I feel it necessary to warn other potential guests. We booked the Residence Inn Miami Airport the night before an early flight and agreed to pay 31,000 points plus $56.50. When we checked in, the front desk agent seemed confused and said we owed 40-some dollars, which I assumed was pre-tax and handed over my credit card. Later that evening, the front desk called our room because the charge hadn't gone through and they needed to run my card again. I happily obliged and ran down to the lobby to pay again. The next morning our folio was emailed to us at check out and having never had a billing problem with a Marriott property before I assumed it would be correct. My mistake.

Upon getting to my destination, I eventually opened the email to find an entirely blank folio. When I checked my credit card statement, I had been charged $169.50. I immediately tried to call the hotel, but apparently this property uses a centralized customer service, multiple agents of which insisted I couldn't talk to the hotel directly. Instead they could only open a ticket and someone would get back to me. So we opened a ticket.

A few days later I got an email explaining I was charged $150 plus tax for the room, which equals $169.50, and wishing me a nice day. When I responded explaining I didn't owe $150 for the room, I was told they were sorry but they couldn't give refunds. When I sent them my reservation documentation showing that I should only have been charged $56.50, they offered me a $100 Marriott gift card. At this point I was weeks into trying to get my money back and told them flat out that unless I got a minimum of $113 back (the actual difference), I would have to initiate a charge back, but also suggested that after the literal hours I had put into fighting this a full refund of my money and points would be a nice gesture. They said I could choose the $169.50 or the 31,000 points. I took the money, but it could only be issued by mail as a check. But I don't live at my US residence, so I got another email asking me to change my account address to my mailing address. I did so, and then got another email telling me they couldn't find my zip code. I told them that was fine, I was done dealing with them and initiated the charge back.

Only at this point did anyone in this excruciating excuse for a customer service system decide to contact the hotel. Their operations manager reached out to me a few days later with a two line email that said, "sorry, we've refunded you $113."

I was going to let it go at that point. Do I think it was a fair resolution? No. Was I beyond done dealing with this? Absolutely. And then today I got back the results of the dispute resolution I had completely forgotten about. It was denied, and the evidence attached was a new folio, never provided to me, charing $150 plus tax - except the check in and check out dates are the same day because this isn't the folio they emailed me at check out. All of this amounts to flat out theft in my book. And while I don't think it was intentional on the hotel's part, I could not in good conscience ever let them touch my credit card again after the hours of my life I have wasted on this issue.

Sorry for the rant everyone, but no one has time for this sort of thing. Maybe one long review can save someone else this absurd headache...

Booked this based on reviews read on line. We were in town for a college visit and pre-cruise stay. We did not travel together, I arrived many hours after my children and husband. Ours was a 2BR 2bath suite. We had booked the room for 5 people. When we pulled out the sofa bed, it had no linens on it, which is the first time I have encountered this - EVER!! We do travel a lot! We searched the room and there were no linens or pillows for the sofa bed. We had to call at almost midnight for sheets and a blanket. We were given 2 fitted sheets. The next morning we noticed that we had only 2 bath towels between two bathrooms-certainly not enough for 5 people. We had to call about this both days.

There was also no spare toilet paper in either bathroom, so we had to call about this as well. The day staff at the front desk were lovely. Cannot ay the same for the night staff on the Thursday that we checked in. The clerk was actually rude to me when I indicated that I needed directions to our room- the rooms are not on a floor that corresponds to their number- we were in a 5th floor room but had to get off on the third floor ( or visa-versa). I arrived later than my family and was not told this simple yet necessary tidbit. After 14 hours of travel, not wandering around on the wrong floor would have been nice!! What would have been NICER would be a lack of eye-rolling by the attendant when I came back to the lobby and asked for assistance.

We are very easy going people. This hotel just rubbed all 5 of us the wrong way.

There is an awesome Cuban restaurant in the front of the complex which we highly recommend. The rest of the family also ate at a restaurant on the Marriott campus that was superb ( I was still traveling and missed it!).

The airport shuttle service was easy. We had to return a rental car and make our way back to the hotel. The entire process was less than 45 minutes. THIS we really appreciated!

Was the rest just a fluke and we had a bad stay? I hope so. But I cannot recommend this place without...