[Editor’s Note: I spoke with the CEO of the hospitality group who owns the Courtyard by Marriott Clemson, read his comments here]
There’s just something special about college football; the pageantry, the emotions, epic wins, and crushing defeats. We’re only 46 days away from a new college football season, which means lots of fans are going to hit the road to follow their alma mater or favorite teams across the country to cheer them on, a sign of home in an otherwise hostile environment.
Unfortunately, college football season also seems to bring out the absolute worst in the travel industry, and that is what this post is about today. The Courtyard by Marriott Clemson is attempting to cancel dozens of reservations made by Texas A&M fans nine months after they were booked.
Full disclosure here: I’m an alumnus of Texas A&M. To try and tame my inherent bias, I will split this post into a few different sections: the facts of the situation, what I think should happen to make things right, and a clearly labeled conjecture section where I speculate what happened, and a final summary of the entire ordeal.
I reached out to Marriott’s corporate communications team in advance of this article with an opportunity for them to provide a comment on the story and have yet to hear back from them, I will update the post if I do hear back.
Here are the facts of what happened
- The Texas A&M Aggies are playing the Clemson Tigers 7 September 2019
- Dozens of Texas A&M fans (update: and quite a few Clemson fans) made bookings with the Courtyard by Marriott Clemson in September 2018, most for multiple nights
- The average rate per night was roughly $130, which is lower than is typical for a football game weekend in most college towns
- In late June 2019, nine months after bookings were made, fans who made the bookings above were contacted and told that their reservations would not be honored
- Fans were offered alternate accommodations in Greenville, South Carolina, about an hour away (longer on gameday) for roughly the same rates
- Fans were told that if they accepted the alternate accommodations, their move would be considered “voluntary”, meaning that customers would not be subject to Marriott’s policy for “walking” a guest (usually equivalent nearby accommodations and a refund of the booking to the customer), which seems absurd to me (“we’re going to cancel your room unless you ‘voluntarily’ accept a hotel booking an hour away”)
(Screenshots of email sent to an affected customer, with names removed)
- Some customers reached out to the Courtyard by Marriott Clemson directly and spoke with a representative who allegedly told them that the hotel had been “overbooked by 100 rooms” (numerous people were told the same, specifically the “overbooked by 100 rooms” part)
Here’s what Marriott should do to make things right
Honor the reservations as booked. Making a change like this nine months after the bookings were made is unconscionable, as customers now have very little time to adjust accommodations and make alternate arrangements for the non-hotel portion of their trips. Even if a legitimate mistake was made, don’t wait nine months to tell your customers about it. And what about customers who happened to miss this email or had it go to a spam filter who show up in September to check in?
I’m trying to give the Courtyard by Marriott Clemson the benefit of the doubt here, but I don’t think the Courtyard by Marriott Clemson should be given benefit of the doubt. I believe they’re trying to pull the rug out from under paying customers with a very carefully-worded email and hoping people will blindly do what it says.
CONJECTURE: Here’s what I’m guessing happened, I have no proof of any of the below but feel it’s at least plausible
- Rooms were loaded into inventory at the typical rate for a Courtyard by Marriott, roughly $110-150/night, and publicly and widely available for booking across all of Marriott’s sales channels and OTAs like Expedia and Orbitz
- Before rates were adjusted due to it being a game weekend, Texas A&M fans who were planning on making the trip for a very highly-anticipated game noticed the rates were low and booked at the hotel
- By the time rates were adjusted upward by the hotel, dozens of rooms (maybe even upwards of 100) were booked at the lower rate
I’m very confident that the above is true, although I have no proof of it. This happens from time to time in the hotel business. Let’s continue.
- The Courtyard realized their mistake. However, they couldn’t just tell customers that their reservation wouldn’t be honored and have those customers see those same rooms available for booking at triple the price, that would be incredibly blatant and probably violate bait and switch laws in South Carolina. Instead, they [warning: conjecture and speculation] could have done something far more devious and underhanded
- Hotels overbook all the time. Airlines do it too. What the Courtyard could have done was beyond that (and I have to admire their creativity if so): they reloaded their entire inventory for sale at the higher gameday rates and then waited
- Nine months later, the Courtyard could have finally sold out of rooms at the higher/gameday rate. Now that the Courtyard was sold out, they could finally cancel the lower-rate bookings, since customers wouldn’t be able to look and see the same rooms available for sale for a much higher price
- In those same nine months, the rest of the hotels in Clemson are either sold out or are charging like $700/night for rooms
- Since “no alternate accommodations” were available locally, the Courtyard could have worked out a deal with hotels an hour away and offered those as the “nearest reasonable alternative”
A random search of Hotels.com today yielded the above result in Clemson, SC for a 2-night stay from 9/6/19-9/8/19
Here’s the thing: whether my speculation is right or wrong, the Courtyard by Marriott Clemson handled this terribly
Regardless of how correct my speculation is (although I imagine it’s within a standard deviation of being correct), it is 100% wrong of the Courtyard and Marriott as a whole to wait nine months to tell customers they’re out of luck. Nine months is more than enough time for people to make non-refundable plans that were no doubt messed up by the Courtyard’s delay in communication. I cannot imagine what a customer who happened to miss the email letting them know their reservation would be canceled will feel like when they show up to check in.
A confirmed reservation is just that: confirmed. A reasonable person would expect that a confirmed booking would be honored. A reasonable person would also expect to be notified if something was wrong a heck of a lot faster than nine months. If you’re going to walk guests, walk them to a nearby hotel and bite the bullet. Otherwise, honor the bookings you accepted almost a year ago.
Some customers with status said that the Courtyard by Marriott Clemson told them that status would be taken into consideration when it came to sorting out which bookings would be honored. That is also garbage. These weren’t listed as auctions! Customers shouldn’t have to worry for almost a full year that some person with status will “outbid” them for their confirmed reservation.
Marriott: do the right thing
Honor the reservations as booked. This goes beyond the #bonvoyed nonsense. This appears to be an attempt to cover up a mistake with carefully-worded legalese designed to coerce clients with confirmed reservations into accepting unreasonable alternate accommodations instead of the rooms they booked when they were publicly available for sale.
Do the right thing. Or do the bonvoy thing, whatever you want to call it. This is wrong.
Has this ever happened to you? What did you do about it and what was the resolution? Tell me in the comments below!
Great piece, and I fully agree that they should honor the original reservations as booked. Eat the cost and learn the lesson, and it will never happen again. Sadly I guarantee nothing will come of this.
Y’all as. Clemson fan I am so sorry that you are having to go through this hopefully the owner of Marriott of has what is coming to him and he gets fired would love for him to just Use his house for accommodations. Best of Luck to everybody and not Clemson fans are like most are like y’all kind and generous. Fill free to call are local news channeled wyff 4 or wspa 7 to get more of the word out hopefully guilt will work but I think you need a heart for that. Best of luck and GO Tigers
The Inn at Patrick Square in Clemson had the same problem. To their credit, they are honoring the original reservations. They could teach Marriott a lesson on how to treat customers.
We saw this reported and knew we could help. We live 30 min from downtown Clemson. We have a new completed walkout basement with 1new king bed., 1 full bath, day bed with trundle, large living room, eating area we can rent out for that weekend. 4 people total MAX. For info email Kristieandbill70@gmail.com.
This is so typical of Marriott these days… the customer means absolutely NOTHING… Let them get away with it, and they will keep doing it more and more….
And then it will spread… Airlines next? Book your trip to Australia 12 months out, then they cancel it after 8 months because now they know they can sell it for more.
Will be interesting to see what Marriott does here. As explained below, I don’t think the customers have any real recourse so it’s really a matter of whether Marriot wants to force one of their hotels to not be scumbags at a cost of maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars at this point. (How do you find lodging for everyone you are going to walk this late in game? Only way is to spend a fortune)
Marriott is in the wrong here but the customers are probably without recourse. The conservative tilt of SCOTUS over the years has led to greatly increased enforceability of arbitration agreements and countervailing erosion of consumer protection laws. Here A&M fans can’t use South Carolina courts or class action but would be limited to arbitration in Bethesda, MD. The cost of going to arbitration would far exceed the cost of booking two or three nights at market rate for the game. So if Marriott says too bad, they are essentially without recourse.
Please don’t bring your biased views of the Supreme Court in here. There are no laws regarding hotels having to honor reservations – they can cancel it at any time. Only airlines have special laws regarding this.
I know the University had nothing to do with this(I hope), but as an alum this is kinda embarrassing. The only possible silver lining here is that most A&M fans will likely into and out of GSP which is pretty close to the Marriott property in Greenville.
However, as you mentioned, getting into and out of the game is a nightmare given how small Clemson(town) is
Marriott General Manager here. 1 of two things happened: 1.There is a new tool called One Yield2 that takes into account historical data(cancellation forecasts etc) when automatically deciding how many rooms to overbook you by. This is because for dates like these, especially if it happens on the same weekend every year, you’re going to have masses of people inevitably cancel and you don’t want to be stuck with a less than full hotel. However, this is on the on property management and revenue management for the franchisee to keep track of. Or it could be 2 like the writer says and they realized they never bumped rates during a high demand date and are trying to do a bait and switch. If it’s 2 you need to do what every other management company for hotels have done in the past and accept that you messed up, take the low rates rooms and just make sure you are more diligent next year.
If you booked with Travelocity, Orbitz, etc., they’re doing you a favor. You could have shown up and they could have just told you then. For those that actually booked through Marriott itself, this would be a pretty big issue they would be happy to accommodate you for. As a Titanium member, I would only be given $100/night and 90,000 points. They still profit.
Well actually, the cost of 90k points is nearly $1k for the hotel to buy so it wouldn’t be profitable. That’s the point of having that rule in place, it makes it cost-prohibitive to walk a member at or above Platinum.
The cost of 90k points is nowhere near 1k dollars… source: I’m a Marriott General Manager
Is it true that you guys can reduce the number of nights I need to regain my titanium status if it looks like I won’t meet the goal that year? I wan’t to keep my status but most of the Marriotts I’ve stayed at lately suck.
Most churners estimate redemption value of Marriott points as 0.7 cpp. Assuming you can buy at, say, 25 percent of that cost I’m guessing 90K is about 150 dollars.
Marriott General Manager here too. This isn’t true
as a Marriott general manager, you should be embarrassed
? In what way?
As a premier non-conference game, this has been on the schedule for years. It is completely unacceptable that a hotel would accept a reservation and then cancel it when they presumably can get more money. The people should show up with the reservation, get the compensation for being “walked”, and demand to be put somewhere else.
FYI, it is not only TAM fans that are affected. Many Clemson fans(who have a widespread footprint) also are getting the boot to the Greenville location.
It’s very shady, but it isn’t like the Clemson Marriott is targeting Aggie fans.
Good point, I’ll update the post, thank you!
Hey Andy! My name is Allen Devlin and I’m a reporter with WYFF here in Greenville S.C. Id love to speak with you about this situation and get some more details. Please feel free to reach to me via my cell at 864-720-4306. I also sent an email to your media contact from Allen.Devlin@hearst.net
It was not just A&M fans that were hosed here. A good number of Clemson fans were similarly situated and complaining about it on Clemson boards like Tigernet.
Folks, it’s a software issue. This has happened in multiple locations after the rollout of new revenue management software a few years ago. The software isn’t perfect and has to be watched by the hotel at all times. The hotel didn’t maliciously do anything here based your your description of events; the software picked up on the increased demand and raised rates until the bookings stopped. It also over-authorizes how many rooms are available to sell based on a bevy of historical data and, like this case, isn’t always making the right decision.
It’s not right, but it happened nonetheless. The travelers should do what is best for them.
Sure, “Software issue” on the biggest home game of the year, with arguably the most well traveled alumni base in the country and a possible top 10 matchup.
The only “software issue” was between eyes and keyboard from whomever set the rates.
Todd, I think it’s entirely conceivable that’s it’s a software issue but the real mistake was no human checking the software until it was too late. Doesn’t change my stance for a second but there is so much software behind the scenes that it’s 100% plausible
100% correct. The new software has caused my hotel to oversell by dozens of rooms at times. It is frequently “updated” by Marriott, and any restrictions placed by hotels are wiped out regularly.
Thanks for chiming in Matt
If it were a software issue, they would have reinstated the original reservations to accommodate them and sent the newer ones to the hotel an hour away. This was greed.
A&M isn’t the most well traveled alumni base by a long shot. How about Michigan, Notre Dame, BYU, tOSU, Wisconsin, LSU, Alabama?
I don’t know which story is true, but if there is some problem with the software problem that allows substantial overbooking, you would expect that to manifest itself on the day of the biggest football game of the year, as opposed to some random Tuesday in June.
Software issue? No. This is double booking and has been around long before computers. If it’s really just a software issue, the software could easily be “fixed” to limit sales to the actual number of rooms. Instead, it looks like Marriott (at the corporate level) intentionally, systematically, cheats people across all it’s hotels. If Marriott chooses to use software to automate that process, that’s still an ethics issue, not a software issue. To label it a software issue implies that it’s an accident. This is not an accident, Marriot is cheating people by design.
This behavior, whether implemented through software or not, is a serious problem. Double booking handicap rooms is an even more serious subset of the same malicious behavior and should be flat out illegal. We’ve pretty much given up on hotels for this reason.
I’ll be curious to hear what the end result is of all this. I hope you’ll post a follow-up.
Complete, bullshit, to be frank. Call it what you want.
This reminds me of how gas stations (and some hotels) dramatically raised prices after a hurricane. It is called price gouging and is illegal in most states. This is no different.
It’s completely different. Price gouging is exploitative (eg your example of taking advantage of a natural disaster by raising prices for necessity items) while this is a hotel trying to take advantage of higher demand in the area – no one is being forced to pay. That being said, if Marriott screwed up it is clearly on them to deal with the cost, just pointing out that the practice of dynamic pricing itself is not the issue here.
I’m a Clemson alum who booked (directly) way out in advance of the schedule announce. Multiple room options available at the time and I even called the hotel to verbally confirm my reservation (it was confirmed). Now I’m getting asked to leave? Garbage
Days Inn Albuquerque North did the same exact thing to me during the international Balloon Fesita in October 2018. I booked a year in advance. But they didn’t cancel or tell me anything until I got there. They simply told me they had no reservation. Which I had proof of. They pretty much left us out in the cold.
Complete cop out to try and pin it on a “software glitch.” Overbooked by 100 rooms. Very unlikely. Former Marriott GM here.
there is nothing new going on here. As a longtime visitor to Tallahassee to watch the Seminoles. This has been going on for over a decade. The blogger is exactly right. Fans tried to game the system knowing full well that if they took down reservations for the whole month of September and ultimately got to cancel for free they would effectively be guaranteed to see this game at well below market rates. this is behavior that has been going on forever as well. The hotel’s rightfully so have the right to charge a premium for special dates meaning Clemson home games. Hotel rooms in Clemson are at a super premium during football weekends just like they are in Tallahassee. This is how many of the hotels are able to stay in business as they collect 70% of their revenue during a 6 weekend stretch in the fall. You may not like it but you all know that the folks that did this we’re getting away with it because of a glitch in the system in an oversight by somebody that didn’t look at the schedule well in advance. I don’t like it but I also don’t like how you are able to block booking reservations knowing full well you’re only going to use one out of the four for the month of September and have no penalty. What would you say if there was a $100 penalty for canceling on any reservation made during a home football weekend or a potential home football weekend? How many people would have booked those for reservations consecutively for every weekend in September? Answer nobody
Todd, I’m not aware of anyone booking entire blocks of rooms for the entire month. The research I did for this article involved mostly 2-night stays only the weekend of the Clemson A&M game.
I am a revenue manager and I can tell you 2 things-
1. whomever at the hotel was supposed to be managing the inventory, completely dropped the ball (no pun intended!). They weren’t looking at their special events 365 days out and managing rates and inventory- in essence, their job.
2. the idea that they are trying to “pre-walk” guests without paying for it is ludicrous. you have a valid reservation that they need to honor. As long as you have a confirmation number, if they cancel it, then there will be a cancellation number with history that shows who did what in the system. So there will be a digital trail. I would show up at the hotel and make them walk you and pay for the room in Greenville.
Also…light up TripAdvisor with reviews for the hotel. They will definitely think twice before they decide on this course of poor customer service again. You do have some recourse here.
Lol…”gaming the system”? Making a legitimate reservation for a listed rate is an example of a consumer taking advantage of a business? The hotel is the victim? You’re kidding right?
I don’t think Todd understands the issue at hand here
Todd, This game has been scheduled between A&M and Clemson for years. Everybody has known the date for well over a year. If the hotel get such a huge chunk of its business from only a few weekends, then they should know even better than a bunch of fans which weekends those will be, and should block out bookings on those weekends until they are sure they have the rates and cancellation policies they want programmed. If they weren’t aware of the game date and that it would be a big weekend, they are ignorant and should not be in their current positions. If they knew and just didn’t get around to blocking out the cheap rates and loading the game day rates in time, then they are negligent and shouldn’t be in their current positions. Either way, if they deliberately double booked the hotel to get rid of the cheap rates that had been booked a year in advance, they are committing fraud and should not be in the current positions. Pretty much any way you look at it, Marriott should be looking for a new GM for the hotel because they have done a terrible job handling this.
Yeah. I would almost guarantee you that people did it. I used to do it based on the predicted month/weeks we played certain teams. The Marriott’s in Tallahassee caught on quickly and locked you out a year in advance until the actual schedule came out. Do you agree that they should be able to charge a premium rate during “peak times”?
I think the point people are making is that this is a non-conference game, so the specific date is announced long before the hotel begins accepting reservations. The specific date of this game has been known for more than 2 years, so there was no reason to book multiple weekends when rooms became available.
For conference games, where the schedule is often released after hotels have already made rooms available, you’re absolutely right: I, and many others, will book a room for multiple weekends knowing that I can cancel my reservations for the weeks that don’t end up being big game weekends. But this isn’t that situation.
Again, if the Hotel policy allows for it, it’s not taking advantage. They rightly closed the loophole years ago in the example I gave. The Clemson example was an oversight by the Hotel (my guess is it’s not a corporate property). IMO, they have every right to do what they did. It’s unfortunate what happened; however, I’d much rather stay in Greenville than that tractor town Clemson!
The schedule had already been announced when people booked. They didn’t book every weekend and then cancel after the schedule was announced.
Also, that’s fine that you would rather stay in Greenville, great. People booked Clemson for a reason. What if they’re flying into Atlanta?
I’m not a lawyer but I am not sure if the hotels “have every right to do what they did.” For one thing, we don’t know exactly what they did. What they admitted to do (which may be different from what they did) was this. They (intentionally or unintentionally…they are clearly ambiguous about this) overbooked the rooms and then made the customers who paid less to go to another, less desirable property. What I can’t tell for sure is whether the hotel maintained the reservations for those who paid more. If they actually did that (basically giving the rooms to the “highest bidder”), they have clearly wronged their customers, and possibly broken the law.
I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t think the hotels “have very right to do what they did.” Obviously, we don’t know the full extent of what “they did.” However, they have already admitted to (intentionally or unintentionally) overbooking the rooms, then forcing those who booked earlier last year to a less desirable location not too close to them. It is not clear if they overbooked at a much higher rate and dumped those who booked at a lower rate. If that’s what they did, they’ve definitely wronged those who booked earlier. I would like to think that there is a law that prevents hotels to effective give the rooms to “the highest bidder.”
Guess we located the real manager of the Clemson Marriot
Everyone who has half a brain and has read this article knows that Marriott screwed up by booking rooms on a premium weekend but for the normal rate. This is Marriott’s fault, plain and simple! To hold these reservations for ten plus months while continuing to double book those same rooms at a higher rate is totally unethical. Marriott messed up by not coding the A&M/Clemson game weekend in their computer system when the two schools signed the contract years ago. Therefore, Marriott needs to honor the original reservations and absorb the loss and learn from it so this same mistake is never made again. A top Marriott employee needs to publicly apologize and state that the original reservations will be honored. Sadly, this will most likely never happen. In reality, Marriott will issue a half-hearted apology to those affected and tell them to go to a town an hour or more away, which is exactly what they have already done. Welcome to the land of no accountability when it comes to making money and screwing over consumers!
First World Problems – This never would have happened in the Ken Hatfield era.
I’d be willing to accept $5K/night compensation for canceling my reservation. Otherwise, the hotel should expect a lawsuit.
Clemson has hotels? Who knew
Aggies should flood Marriott’s social media, especially Twitter, with tags including #collegefootball, #tailgating, and other sports-related tags. Corporate brands pay attention to their reputations on social platforms, and marketing people are more likely to force a change at corporate level than managers, because they’re aware of the harm done to the brand. Keep it up until Marriott honors the reservations. Tag or call Finebaum and get him riled up about it. Also, contact the Greenville News/Anderson Independent and WYFF TV.
This is why a locally owned B&B is a much better choice. Liberty House Inn in Liberty, SC still has limited availability, and we will always honor your reservations, at a much more personal (and affordable) rate. We are just a few miles down Hwy 93 straight into Clemson, and although we are tigers through and through, we enjoy hosting opposing fans, as well. 864-372-5110 We are not an Air BnB! We will make you breakfast, personally. Shame on the big guys for not honoring those reservations!
Hotels along the path of totality during the 2017 eclipse were doing this too.
First – thank you for such a thorough article, I have learned so much reading this. Second – I am living this “nightmare” right now! (Yes, bigger problems in the world but to my die hard Aggie family this is HUGE!)
I booked 2 rooms at the Clemson Marriott on the Marriott app on Sept. 16, 2018 (10 months ago for me) I had been watching the site for weeks for the availability to pop up so I could book on the first day they were available. We attend all the out of town games – this is our “vacation” every year, we will be going to 4 games, my husband works 2 jobs to do this – the second job pays for all the football “fun stuff.” We booked the rooms and began planning our trip to Clemson. We had met the nicest fans at a tailgate last year and are truly looking forward to them showing us their city/football venue.
I received a phone call yesterday (no email) from a woman that identified herself as a “higher up” with Midas Hospitality. She asked if I still planned on coming to Clemson and of course I responded yes, looking forward to it! She informed me the hotel had been overbooked by 150 rooms (I see other people were told 100, I was told 150) I was told they were holding rooms for me in Greenville and would be providing shuttle service. It all began to be a blur after that honestly because I was trying to process the fact that this woman was trying to cancel a vacation I had been planning and saving for the past year. I too said I was sure they were holding out for those that paid more and how were those that were canceled picked? She said she had no idea how they were picked (I find this odd being she is one of the persons in charge) I also now wonder how/when were they going to shuttle me? Are they talking the game? I am attending midnight yell, a tailgate, freshen up before the game, my elderly mom will be staying in the room while we are at the game, I want to be able to celebrate the Aggie win (haha gotta think positive!) and enjoy an adult beverage and then we cannot drive. Are they going to shuttle me to Clemson to go back to the airport in Atlanta? Who is going to coordinate all this? I also have a non-refundable transfer service paid for to and from the airport. Here is what they should have done. First not overbooked and all the other good info those of you have already said. I also believe they should have “sucked it up” and paid for the overbooked guests to stay in the area no matter the cost. Holiday Inn still has rooms available – $350-$400 a night. Why on earth would I want to go over an hour away in Greenville? And yes, I knew I was booking the property at an extremely low rate. But what was I supposed to do? Call and say “hey, I want to go ahead and book my room but someone is clueless about football around there and has not adjusted the rates?” Not my job. I always book my rooms a year in advance and I have gotten “deals” on quite a number of rooms but I have NEVER been canceled, moved or called almost a year after the booking and told it was just discovered there was a “glitch.” I was also told I did not book on their site. I am assuming that is a script told to persons that booked through 3rd parties? That would not be my case, again, I booked on the Marriott app. I was offered $150 a night or 50,000 points per room. Which would not get me anything in Clemson. I asked for the phone number to Marriott customer service and at first I was told she did not know it. She did put the phone down and retrieved the number and gave it to me. I explained I would be reaching out to Marriott and I have started a “claims process.”
My next step was to post on social media about my experience for tips and advice. That is when my new Clemson fan chimed in and conveyed his apologies and said he had actually read about this, so a quick google search led me here. I did not accept anything and actually do not know where I am at right now. I was told I would be contacted via phone my the Marriott customer service rep I spoke with in 3-5 days. My reservations still show on the Marriott app. I am a lowly gold member (so many of my friends are Titanium, I didn’t even know that was a level!) but I do have the Marriott credit card that I charge $6K-$8K a month on. Any advice or thoughts would be appreciated, please no negativity, I am already pretty bummed and really am not up to being defensive or confrontational. I just wanted to enjoy my family being able to walk to the game from our nice hotel and hang at a tailgate with our new Clemson friends. Staying an hour away from all the fun is not an option for me 🙁 Side note: I just booked the Holiday Inn so at least I will have something, my frustration is I was not given a chance to plan and weigh my options. I wish now I had booked the Abernathy but honestly I tried for a month to book and the site was not available. I called the hotel and they said the rooms were not open yet so when these were super cheap at a nice hotel I went ahead and booked at the Marriott 🙁
***UPDATE*** I just received a phone call from the hotel and they indicated there had been a miscommunication – I was not cancelled, I was supposed to be offered an “incentive” to move. I had 2 rooms booked so I did offer to let one go, we can all stay in the same room and let someone else have great news as well! Win-win for everyone, bringing home an Aggie win would be even better lol! Thank you for your travel blog and thank you Marriott! Looking forward to our visit to Clemson 🙂
That’s great news Vicki!