I’ve been a Marriott guy for about ten years now. My boss at the time — a much more seasoned traveler than I was — suggested committing to the Bonvoy program for business travel, and I’ve been accruing points ever since. Loyalty programs always have a bit of give-and-take baked in. Yes, committing to a brand has its rewards, but it has its costs too. You may not always get the cheapest hotel or the most convenient location, but the brand rewards you over time for your loyalty. That’s the deal. I get it.
Springhill Suites Roswell
Today was also the day Pharaoh — my 2017 GS with a habit of finding new and creative ways to need attention — was finally getting fixed at Roswell BMW. I’d checked into Springhill Suites Roswell the night before, partly because they were the closest Marriott property to the dealership, and partly because I had points that weren’t going to spend themselves. Springhill Suites is the budget arm of the Marriott brand, but this particular property was new, clean, and turned out to be a genuinely good find in a well-to-do part of town.
From the moment I walked in, I felt welcome. The front desk agent greeted me with a warm smile, and we ended up laughing about a soggy ride up from Birmingham. She helped me figure out the right place to park the motorcycle — even knowing it was headed to the dealer in thirty minutes — and got me set up in a room that didn’t require hauling all my gear halfway across the property. Small things, but they added up.
Breakfast the next morning was legitimately good. The menu that morning was bacon, a feta and spinach frittata, fresh fruit, and oatmeal if you wanted something with fiber in it. I’ve come to really appreciate hotels that provide breakfast — it just makes starting the morning that much easier. On my way back to the room I caught the chef and thanked him. He came out with a warm smile and asked if I was staying an extra day, since the menu changes daily. I laughed and asked what was on tomorrow’s menu just to see if it was worth considering. Ham and cheese omelettes with chicken apple sausage. I told him if Roswell BMW was going to keep Pharaoh another day, I was genuinely in. The whole interaction left me smiling — you could tell the staff cared about what they did and who they were serving. Some of that is probably southern culture, and some of it is just understanding what hospitality actually means.
Roswell BMW and a Detour to Loganville
Eric, the service manager at Roswell BMW, delivered on his end too. I’d thrown a lot of curveballs at him — showing up from out of town on a tight timeline with a handful of complicated, related issues that all needed sorting. He took everything in stride and got Pharaoh done not only on time, but early. That bought me the afternoon.
Which is how I ended up in suburban Atlanta traffic at 3:30 p.m. heading to Loganville.
A few weeks earlier, Facebook had somehow intuited that a 1985 Honda Shadow advertised in Loganville would raise an eyebrow — and it wasn’t wrong. The problem was ninety minutes of Atlanta traffic with no freeways and plenty of stoplights standing between me and that bike. It was genuinely the tour de suburban, stoplight after stoplight offering me ample opportunity to take in the scenery. I wasn’t asking anyone to build an outer perimeter on my behalf, but that ride was rough.
I finally made it to the shop and saw the Shadow. It was exactly as described, which is always a relief. But more than the bike, I found myself genuinely enjoying the shop and its owner. Key was in his late sixties, with a lifetime of motorcycle stories ready to go and no shortage of willingness to share them. We talked about his racing career, suspension setups, what rebuilding BMW suspension looks like — good knowledge to have heading into the next thirty thousand miles on the GS. He talked about starting to take up scooters as the knees aren’t what they were at my age (lol). The walls had memorabilia from motocross riders I’d followed as a kid — a jersey signed by McGrath stopped me cold. He had dirt bikes from the seventies with that right balance of wear and restoration that tells you someone actually knew what they were doing.
He talked about the shop too. The website got stolen by a scammer years ago, but he’s always been overwhelmed with work and never really needed the website anyway. He’s starting to think about what comes next — he’s probably not going to do this forever, and the question of what happens to decades of built relationships and institutional knowledge is a real one. My mind went straight to business continuity planning, thinking Buehler… Buehler. I’m not sure I could run a motorcycle shop, but that conversation reminded me how much weight there is in a business that’s really just one person’s life’s work, and what it means to think about letting it go.
Courtyard by Marriott Covington
I pushed on to Covington that evening to make the ride into Savannah easier the next day. Marriott again — the choice was between a Courtyard by Marriott Covington and another Springhill Suites. The Courtyard was closer, so that was going to be it for the night.
From the moment I checked in, something was off.
The receptionist was cold in a way that was hard to miss. My bill wasn’t right, and when I started to ask about it, she let me know I had ten minutes because I was in a loading zone. I mentioned I wasn’t in the loading zone — I was off the pavement. She said she was new and the manager would look into correcting the bill.
I started unloading and moved Pharaoh under the awning. Rain was coming overnight and I just didn’t want a soaked seat for a full day’s ride to Savannah. As I was positioning the bike, the manager appeared and told me I couldn’t park there because it was a sidewalk. I gave her a quizzical look — the sidewalk was a good way away. She said I couldn’t park there. I told her I wanted to keep the bike out of the rain. She said she’d call maintenance to see if there was somewhere appropriate to park a motorcycle.
I can’t be the first person to ride into a rainy climate wanting to keep their bike dry overnight. A property manager should know their property well enough to have an answer for that without a call to maintenance. That call felt less like problem-solving and more like theater — something to make it look like she was trying to help rather than just exercising overt authority. I conceded and parked in the lot, hoping the rain would stay light.
By the time I got to the room I could feel a headache coming on. Not enough water all day, and I needed a real meal. I went down to the Bistro Café and the host greeted me with a smile — and I genuinely needed that smile, as a small reminder that hospitality still existed somewhere on the property. The guest next to me complained that his beer had fruit flies. When my burger arrived, the fruit flies followed. The burger itself tasted like it had been seasoned exclusively with salt — good for electrolytes after a long day in suburban traffic, I suppose. When I asked about breakfast I was told this hotel charges for it, but I was welcome to walk across the parking lot to a different hotel for the complimentary breakfast there.
I scratched my head trying to figure out why this property couldn’t just offer breakfast the way Roswell had.
The next morning as I was packing up Pharaoh, one of the maintenance guys from the hotel across the way walked over wanting to know how I liked the bike and whether I’d ever laid it down. I knocked on the side case and smiled. He wanted to get into motorcycling and asked how to get started — I mentioned the Georgia Motorcycle Safety Foundation course as a great way to find out if this is really something you want to do, with actual seat time built into the program. We exchanged smiles and laughs and he pointed me toward breakfast before we parted ways.
In a culture that genuinely prioritizes hospitality, when it’s not there you really notice the small details — and this guy, from the hotel next door, was a reminder of that.
On my way back from breakfast, cutting around the other property, I spotted two brand new Rivian chargers. Twenty-five cents a kilowatt. I was on a gas-powered motorcycle and didn’t need them — but the fact that they were there just further cemented that I was in the wrong hotel. 🤦
Talking it through with R that night, it became clear pretty quickly: this place hadn’t met the Marriott brand promise in any conceivable way. Same program. Same trip. Completely different experience.
That bothers me — not as a one-night complaint, but as a loyalty question. The deal I made with Bonvoy a decade ago was that committing to the brand meant the brand committed back. Springhill Suites Roswell understood that deal. Courtyard by Marriott Covington didn’t come close.
I’ve flagged it to Marriott. What they do with that feedback is a story for another post.
6/15/26: After interfacing with Bonvoy corporate support, they redirected me to the local hotel. I didn’t get any outreach from the local hotel, but they sent email confirmation of a refund my stay based on the experiences noted here.
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