Still Waiting For Marriott eGiftCards?

Marriott launched an offer the other Monday (read more here) to get some much-needed cash by selling electronic Gift Cards at a discount for 7-days that ended on Sunday.

Members were able to buy an unlimited number (only per purchase limit) at 20% off that can be used for all expenses at hotels (cannot be used towards prepaid reservations). Despite the original promise to deliver in 1 - 3 business days, I still haven't received mine.

You can access Marriott's page for buying gift cards here.

I was in touch with Marriott spokesperson, who confirmed that they have a new estimated delivery of up to NINE business days (mine us up a week from now) to reduce fraudulent transactions.

Here's what we wrote earlier:

NEWOLD

Loaded the cart with 5 $1,000 gift cards:

Completed the payment:

Website order confirmation:

Received an email:

The email shows the authorization code from the bank, and the transaction shows as pending on the credit card.

The Marriott's web page stated that these gift cards are sent within 1 to 3 days of purchase that was later changed to 1 - 7, and can now be up to 9.

I get it that Marriott wants to ensure that there are no fraudulent purchases, but it really shouldn't take two weeks to vet the transactions, and you can never prevent some losses anyway.

Had I known that the purchase process was this complicated, I may have decided not to make the $5K purchase ($4K charge when the discount is factored in) that has already posted to my credit card days ago.

Marriott should have better processes in place to ensure that purchased gift cards are delivered promptly while minimizing potentially bad purchases.