Sonder and Marriott: Lessons from the Hotel Collapse

I was likely not the only person with travel industry experience who was disturbed to read about the treatment of travelers who had booked Sonder-branded accommodations only to be forced from their rooms with no recourse when Sonder declared bankruptcy.

According to the August 2024 report in TMR, Sonder Holdings was established in 2014 and had expanded its long-term-stay apartment and boutique hotels properties across North America, Europe, and the Middle East. Marriott International then entered a licensing agreement with Sonder to add some 200 hotels and apartment buildings, eventually comprising more than 10,500 rooms, to Marriott’s portfolio branded as the Sonder by Marriott Bonvoy collection.

The article noted that Marriott Bonvoy members were expected to be able to earn and redeem points at Sonder hotels starting later in 2024, with full integration of Sonder’s properties into the Marriott app and website in 2025.

The optimism involved in the plan was over-stated. On November 10, 2025, Marriott ended the licensing agreement with Sonder that Marriott’s booking capabilities were no longer available for booking Sonder properties. While Marriott reportedly was taking steps to assist travelers staying at, or with pending reservations for, Sonder properties, there were news reports that some guests were forced to vacate their rooms on less than 24-hours notice. Some were separated from their luggage.

The next day TMR elaborated on the situation, stating that “Sonder now expects to wind down all operations and enter Chapter 7 liquidation.” The reports indicated that Sonder had stated that the collapse of the Marriott relationship, leading to Sonder’s financial insolvency, resulted from “significant, unanticipated integration costs, as well as a sharp decline in revenue.”

No outsider can reliably assess the explanations offered by Marriott and Sonder for the unexpected collapse of the relationship. However, according to another report, there was no warning to consumers who had booked Sonder facilities, directly or through Marriott:

Sonder properties typically do not have full-time staff; guests access their rooms using an electronic door code. When the company shut down, many of those codes were instantly disabled, locking guests out mid-stay. Some were able to regain entry, others had their belongings packed by the property owner and left outside, and others were locked out completely.

Details of travelers being denied access to their luggage appeared on various social media sites.

This is, I suggest, unacceptable practice. It is certainly true that financial and administrative problems can spiral out of control relatively quickly, but sophisticated companies like Marriott should use every resource available to protect consumers, and their travel advisors, from the consequences of those issues. The argument for this is particularly strong when new technology is involved.

The lack of full-time Sonder staff and the use of electronic door codes, while not entirely unique, create conditions in which problems can spin out of control. New approaches to managing hotel properties are doubtless going to spread, particularly as artificial intelligence is introduced to the traveler-hotel interface. It seems highly likely that new AI-based technologies are going to create new challenges that require new thinking and creative advance planning for the unexpected.

Every commercial relationship typically involves an agreement related to startup, execution of the agreed processes, but should also include consideration of how the end of the relationship will be handled, at least in broad terms. The spread of stories like those emerging from the Sonder situation have consequences in the minds of future travelers beyond the immediate adverse effect on the affected travelers. And while it is always helpful to have booked through a professional travel advisor, there are limits to what an advisor can do when the principal parties have not prepared properly for the end of the relationship.

A good case can be made that a supplier with the types of relationships that Marriott apparently had with Sonder should be obligated to disclose the additional risks of booking with them so that consumers and the advisors helping them are fully aware of what they may face. More specifically, if the possibility exists that a consumer could be booted out of their booked room on little or no notice, that risk should be fully disclosed in the initial booking process. Such disclosure, properly framed, would go a long way toward preparing the parties for what might go wrong and provide instructions for how to proceed in the rare case where such disruptions occur.