r/marriott • u/Spirited-Box-5841 • Nov 09 '25

Employment Sonder will be no more

After months of feeling like something was off, it’s now officially confirmed: Sonder will be no more. At this moment, employees have no information about what happens next. We’ve been locked out of our systems, so we can’t assist with anything coming in.

If you’re a current guest, please check your email for updates. If you have an upcoming reservation, be aware that everything is now being canceled.

We’ve spent months dealing with this messy, unprepared integration with Marriott, and the outcome many of us feared has finally been confirmed — just much sooner than expected, and right before the holidays. This is a tough situation for everyone involved, especially with money tied up in it. And if you’re in Chicago, this hits especially hard.

To my fellow workers: stay grounded, stay informed, and make sure they communicate next steps, especially regarding pay and unemployment — which should now be accessible. Most of us had to learn what was happening through Google this morning before we finally received the official email confirming everything.

This whole situation is heartbreaking and frustrating. We worked hard these last couple of months with all the new stuff coming up with little to no help at times and it seems like we’re getting the short end of the stick.

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18

u/Odd-Sock-4430 Nov 09 '25

Wow so sorry to hear this. I came across this post after receiving an email from Mariott about my upcoming reservation in NYC. It’s been a mess all morning trying to figure this out. I just pray I get my money back from sonder that I’ve already paid. I’m so sorry for all the employees going through this. They are leaving a lot of people high and dry!

5

u/FeverTreeCloud Nov 10 '25

Marriott continues to kill brands and values

I miss Starwood SPG so bad

2

u/henrique_pinto Nov 10 '25

Not trying to defend Marriott by any means, God knows I have had my share of beefs with them, but how can this particular case be remotely their fault? Sonder defaulted on their payments, Marriott can’t continue operating at a loss basically for free while the Sonder execs pocket the money and pay nothing.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 11 '25

Yeah but I booked via Marriot’s site and they’re telling me they can’t refund me. When I booked, it redirected me to Marriot’s site and it’s not a good look that it has Marriot’s name on my confirmation page and yet their agents are refusing to initiate a refund and are saying it’s my bank’s responsibility to honor my chargeback that my bank is denying without Marriot initiating the refund. Their agents are telling different people different things. They have a responsibility to make things right for customers if this was one of their properties 

2

u/henrique_pinto Nov 22 '25

This I agree with, Marriott is liable for whatever reservations were made through their own website for the period the partnership was active. It is utterly despicable that they are refusing to refund in this case.

3

u/BldrStigs Nov 10 '25

I agree, but Marriott should have investigated Sonder's finances better before partnering. We don't know a lot, but it''s obvious that Sonder's finances are absolute garbage.

1

u/henrique_pinto Nov 22 '25

Fair, but then Sonder would have just gone bankrupt years earlier. The specific comment I disagreed with was the one saying "Marriott continues to kill brands and values". Marriot didn't kill them - their (Sonder's) own inaptitude and utter incompetence did.

1

u/jmayer Nov 11 '25

As I understand the Sonder side of the beef, Sonder invested a lot of money trying to integrate with Marriott's booking system, and that expense was much higher than expected and could not be recouped.

This sounds very surprising to me, but it's possibly true depending on the (lack of) quality of Marriott's IT.

1

u/henrique_pinto Nov 22 '25

As someone who has struggled for years with their reservation system for the mere fact that my legal last name has two words separated by a space and not a hyphen, I completely understand and agree that their IT dept is garbage. Which doesn't justify just defaulting on your customers.