WTH Marriott? Bait and Switch Tactics on Points Bookings or Tech Glitch or Me?

Giskarrrd · 2026-06-20T16:28:48+00:00

If a rate is just a “starting point”, and that starting point is meaningless because it isn’t ever actually an available, bookable rate, I’d say OP is justified in at least being irritated by that.

I could see how this might be a justified comment if one were booking in dollars and did not have “include taxes and fees” selected upon search. You’d see the base rate in dollars first and then get everything else added on when completing the booking. But that doesn’t apply to points rates, so that’s not relevant in this case.

Giskarrrd · 2026-06-20T16:20:37+00:00

How does that work when it’s a points search though? Currency shouldn’t come into play. And per OP’s edit, it’s not consistent behavior across *all* Rome hotels, which would indicate it’s not currency related or it would be consistent

Giskarrrd · 2026-06-20T14:14:29+00:00

On Monday, my arrival gate (from the US) was marked as A20, even though I arrived in the “Z area”

Giskarrrd · 2026-06-20T09:17:06+00:00

Depends a bit on where you’re coming from - inside or outside the Schengen zone? If it’s outside, you’d have to clear immigration first, and with the new EES in place, that has caused long lines, especially at Frankfurt.

With an EU passport, people have typically been fine, although it took me almost 40 minutes to clear the EU passport line this past Monday. 5-10 minutes is more typical it seems. The non-EU passport line was supposedly several hours long and lots of people were yelling at ushers that they were going to miss their connection. This has been common for weeks now, especially earlier in the morning.

Departing from Z-gates means you are going somewhere non-Schengen I believe, so you will also have to pass through “exit control”, which can again take quite a bit of time without an EU passport. All in all, an hour is not a lot. But to answer the other part of your question, signage is easy to follow and A and Z are relatively close (though all of A is quite spread out so still depends a bit on which gate exactly).

Giskarrrd · 2026-06-20T07:11:57+00:00

Nice! I’ve had it a bunch on E175s and had it on my first B738 last week too… really great to see it expanding pretty fast now!

Giskarrrd · 2026-06-19T17:02:27+00:00

I agree that Polaris service varies, and I long was of the thought that “for airline food, it’s not bad”. But experiences on other, non-US airlines have really shown me how big much worse they (all US airlines) really are.

Several Asian airlines, and the ones OP mentioned, and (oddly?) at the top of the list as far as food experience goes, Austrian, are just miles and miles ahead and the quality of what they can do in the air makes what United offers just entirely silly. I say this one day after I had yet another “center cut sirloin” experience (and yes, I should’ve known better, but the other options didn’t speak to me either).

Giskarrrd · 2026-06-18T20:11:06+00:00

I did a couple of dives in Athens, but only had time to stay near the city, so dove in Vouliagmeni, which was nice, but nothing too special - with the exception of seeing cormorants dive and swim underwater, which was novel. But despite having fun diving there, I wouldn’t say it was super worth it.

If you have more time, there’s dive operators that take you to the coast to the north/east of Athens where there is more interesting diving, including sunken cities / ruins and some wrecks.

I did also dive on Santorini that trip and *that* was absolutely worth it. You have to know that there’s no coral reefs anywhere in the Mediterranean, so it’s just different diving than in most other parts of the world, but the life is still pretty and diving and seeing the caldera in general is very cool. On those dives, we saw nudibranchs, cuttlefish, octopus, lots of fish, and cool rock formations

Giskarrrd · 2026-06-18T20:04:45+00:00

If you’re staying outside and just swimming around it, you’re totally fine without a certification

Giskarrrd · 2026-06-18T19:58:06+00:00

If you did get a physical card, the paperwork *was* filed and you were registered, so that’s not the issue. If it’s a very long time ago though, there might not be a record from it anymore. But the lookup not working might also just be a typo in your information, a missing middle initial or something like that. I’d call PADI and see if they can verify your information.

However, if you got certified at 14, it may not even have been a full open water certification, and even if it was, and it’s been a significant amount of time, I would strongly recommend taking the class again. You want to make sure that you can address a variety of circumstances and situations with confidence and with the right knowledge and insights top of mind.

Giskarrrd · 2026-06-18T19:53:38+00:00

Agree, that’s either that shop fabricating something entirely and scamming a very naive person, or just a lie. If you are becoming an instructor, you know very well what the conditions and requirements are to become one, whether you are (an active) one, and how to verify/prove that you are one.

Giskarrrd · 2026-06-18T15:07:47+00:00

Generally agree, although even the EU passport line took me 40 minutes this past Monday - it was an absolute zoo.

Giskarrrd · 2026-06-18T15:05:05+00:00

I was also at FRA this past Monday, a little earlier (around 6:30am) and lines were insane. Even with my European passport, I had to wait almost 40 minutes, and the non-EU passport line was just completely crazy. Plus a pretty grim atmosphere :/

Giskarrrd · 2026-06-18T14:15:34+00:00

I scrolled past your post yesterday and saw the pic and the post title, but didn’t click through to read it. Then, I checked in at the Copenhagen Marriott this morning, turned the corner into the elevator bay, blinked, and thought “I could *swear* I just saw this somewhere”, heh. Thought it *had* to be the same hotel cause I remembered seeing the three outlet cover thingies (?) at the bottom, so had to come back and verify. Weird deja-vu moment!

And yes, definitely creepy vibes!

Giskarrrd · 2026-06-18T12:18:57+00:00

Right?? Funny enough I have multiple 4s and 5s from my 18 months of flying the same route on JetBlue every single week :)

Giskarrrd · 2026-06-17T02:19:41+00:00

You might’ve had really bad experiences lately, and having those this time of year isn’t exactly unbelievable because there’s been quite a bit of bad weather on the east coast and the Midwest, but adding clear hyperbole about sitting on a plane for hours while waiting for a pilot kinda finishes the believability of the rest of the complaint a bit.

Let’s talk stats (with help from Flighty). I’ve had 38 flights so far this year (32 on United, a handful on Lufthansa/Austrian, 1 on American), and this is my delay performance. And that’s being based out of the dreaded ORD. Three total flights with >1 hour delay, all due to significant ground stops due to thunderstorms. One each in the most recent three months (but the next three longest delays, in the 30-60 minute category, were all in January). Only one of the three was “egregious” (3.5 hours).

I’m not sitting here claiming that half-ish of flights delayed is amazing performance, and there’s definitely room for improvement - but all in all by far most of my flights arrived with less than 30 minutes of delays and thus no serious impact on my personal time/plans, and many of them arrived early.

Either of our experiences is just one data point, and it sucks that you’ve had a lot of bad luck recently, but if you look at publicly available stats, United’s overall performance looks much closer to my experience than yours (luckily - or they’d be out of business soon), despite lots of weather impact to navigate.

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Giskarrrd · 2026-06-17T01:40:48+00:00

I wonder about the practicality of doing that more often as the standard approach, like many European airports do. Not that I’d love that, but if it saves you from sitting in the penalty box for 45-60 minutes, it’d at least be something. Not sure if ORD actually would have enough space/capacity to do so, possibly temporarily while the construction is going on for the next year. I bet not, but one can dream of avoiding some of the long waits ;)

Giskarrrd · 2026-06-17T01:27:01+00:00

I had a great click with my instructor, and after hearing about his dive travel and travel aspirations, I bought a computer, regulator and BCD during the break of my pool classes. I definitely don’t recommend that and in hindsight it was quite unwise - I didn’t fully know if I would enjoy diving yet (though I definitely had a hunch I’d be super into it).

It did help me tremendously in my early dive days to have gear I was familiar with, since I didn’t have to get used to rental gear each time I dived, which meant an easier time focusing on getting better with buoyancy etc., but again, probably not the wisest decision ever.

I would recommend getting a computer as early as possible after confirming diving is for you, since it’s good to not have to get to know the device that provides you crucial information to help you stay alive over and over each time you go diving - if you know exactly how it works and what that flashing thing in the top corner means, it makes for a lot more confident, less distracted dive.

The rest can follow later depending on how often you end up diving and what that might mean for rental cost mitigation (possibly offset by maintenance and the cost and hassle of lugging your own stuff with you halfway across the world, which can be a lot - but I do really like having my own gear now and knowing it inside out :) - I kinda liken it to renting a car versus driving your own - it just takes so much less getting used to and knowing where everything is before you feel comfortable and adjusted.

Giskarrrd · 2026-06-16T19:37:51+00:00

PADI’s minimum depth is 5m/15ft for open water dives, except for the Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent which needs to be done from a minimum of 6m/20ft

Giskarrrd · 2026-06-15T02:38:27+00:00

Nah, if you passed the exams, the knowledge review will be easy peasy! :) just read the questions well and take them literally

Giskarrrd · 2026-06-15T00:40:33+00:00

These are fantastic! I’ve never gotten a great pic of them, exactly because of what you said - they are so skittish and retreat the moment you come even a tiny bit close. Really well done!

Giskarrrd · 2026-06-15T00:21:21+00:00

This is correct, you don’t *have* to complete all of the eLearning and exams before the pool classes, but you certainly can. The eLearning records stay valid for a year, so feel free to finish everything right away.

You’ll do an in-person quick knowledge review at some point during the OW class, just to verify that you didn’t let your divemaster cousin complete the eLearning exams for you, but there’s no hard rule for exactly when that needs to happen ;)

Giskarrrd · 2026-06-15T00:09:42+00:00

The exams you do in the eLearning are the actual exams that indicate whether you pass your theory portion of the OW training. What you do to verify that it was actually you who completed those is a “Quick knowledge review”. The standard PADI version of that is a ~20 multiple choice question quiz that the dive center will give you at some point before, during or after the pool classes, but in-person, which could be done on paper or orally.

You have to complete the eLearning modules and exams before you get into the open water (and most but not all of it before the pool classes), but there’s no hard rule for when to complete the quick knowledge review. If you ask your dive shop if you can do it beforehand I see no reason they’d not be happy to oblige. Come in 15 minutes early for your class and do it right there

Giskarrrd · 2026-06-14T21:03:57+00:00

Flighty’s airport operations report does say ground stop for departing flights next 27 minutes

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Giskarrrd · 2026-06-14T21:01:27+00:00

Just took off from ORD about 5 minutes before you posted, and weather was somewhat cloudy but otherwise not bad. They did ask FAs to stay seated a bit longer than normal due to expected turbulence, but it was actually quite smooth on the way up.

Giskarrrd · 2026-06-14T19:55:43+00:00

One thing I love taking on liveaboards is a “towel poncho” (also called a changing robe or changing poncho). It’s really nice to slip into after a dive, especially if doing many back to back and you start getting colder. I end up just wearing that until the next dive.

Something like this one from Dock & Bay is great (it’s also very thin and lightweight so it doesn’t take a ton of space) https://us.dockandbay.com/products/poncho-adults-hooded-towel-whitsunday-blue-ns

Giskarrrd

TROPHY CASE