So, four months ago I booked a room with two queen beds in a Comfort Suites. My confiramtion clearly says two queen beds. This is needed because my daughter is coming in a few days, and her husband a few days later. The king bed I got does not do the trick. I showed the desk clerk my reservations which clearly stated two queens. He said that he had me down as a king, and although there were two rooms with two queens which had not been claimed, he could do nothing for me. My attitude was I am here, they are not, give me the room. Nothing doing. I will be talking to the manager tomorrow. What is the best way to negotiate. Clearly, if I had been told two queens were not available originally, I would have found the correct accomodations. If he can’t come up with the proper room by Monday, what should I do? Suggest he find me the accomodations I was promised, elsewhere if neccessary, but at the same or lesser price? A free second room for my daughter and her husband? What is the best way to negotiate to get what I was promised? Are there any secret words to say that will grease the way?
I’d stress that the mixup is the hotel’s fault; your reservation wasn’t honored. It’s up to the hotel to make good.
Let them suggest how to do it.
I don’t know for sure why that would happen. Any hotel should be able to move someone from one room to another. There might be a price difference, but since you are charged at checkout in most hotels, that wouldn’t be a problem. I think if you make it clear to the manager that you had reservations for quite sometime, but that you were given something different, and that you are rather upset about that. Explaining the situation, plus threatening to leave, most managers will be okay with helping you. Also, IME, hotels do not need all the customers to stay in business, mostly because they make a large profit, so I don’t know that losing a customer for two-three nights is a big deal, but I know that most hotels will try hard to keep you at almost any cost. Yeah, they probably won’t give you a second room, they might offer a free rollaway bed or something, but they won’t want you to leave.
The words “Better Business Bureau” might help, since it seems somewhat bait-and-switch-ish, except I don’t know if the price has changed, but if they have the rooms open they should honor the reservation you had made.
The only possibility is (this happened in our hotel several times) that the two open rooms are booked for one of the days later in your trip. If you are staying 5 days, and there are certain rooms open for 2 or 3 days but then all of that type is booked for the next 2 or 3 days, the computer won’t let you change over the person to the other room. It’s to prevent overbooking, but usually you can work that out with a manager or a resourceful desk worker.
Good luck.
Brendon
I’ve never stayed at a hotel that guarantees the bed type. I mean, I’ve actually always gotten what I wanted, but the reservations are always quite clear that your choice will be taken into consideration, but is based entirely upon availability at check in.
Now, if the rooms are available and they aren’t giving them to you. . . they are jerks. Ask to speak to a higher up?
Being polite and clear is much more effective than being nasty, in my experience.
I have never had a hotel refuse a bed request if that type of room was available when I checked in. (FTR for the last 15 years I spent over 100 days a year in hotel rooms)
I would be polite but ask the manager as to why you were not given the room with two queens, when there were two available when you checked in.
Explain the pickle you are in, and ask him for help.
Why the heck did the clerk tell you there were queen rooms available? If he/she wasn’t going to give them to you, he/she should have kept mum.
The best negotiation you can do is to take your business elsewhere. Is there another hotel around? Having your room empty is not going to make the hotel happy - convincing you to stay by giving you what you need, and thus you paying for more dates, will.
I, too, thought it peculiar that the clerk would mention that he had two rooms that I had requested available and unoccupied, but that I could not have them. I pointed out that I was here first, and he would have the same problem later, so give them to me. He said no. He also had quite a difficult time checking in the guy in front of me who inexplicably forgot his credit card but did have a debit card. The guy was going to have to have his wife fax him some form and the credit card number. I am sure someone more resourceful could have worked it out in a quicker and more convenient manner.
I will talk to the assistant manager in the morning. I will emphasize that a) I did not book in the more conveninet and more expensinve, and honestly, nicer hotel the conference that I am attending is being held at because it did not have two queens. b) that I have an email confirmation that explicitely says it is a two queen room and ask what he will do about it. I see only a couple possible solutions since I don’t really care about price, since this is an expense account thing. He can get me a room with two queens (or doubles, I am not really that picky), he can give me two rooms for the price of one, or he can go to the work of finding me my two queens at another hotel and quaranteeing I will not pay more than the rate of this one.
I think that sounds reasonable, and I will be quite polite, but firm. Rather than the BBB I will mention Comfort Suites Corporate. And throw in the fact that I had only one bar of soap when I came to my room.
At least it has internet access.
There are a few hotels around. This is a big conference, which will hinder me, but although it is off season for Durham, NC there is surely one with the correct sleeping accomodations. I really think the assistant manager should both do the work and assure no increase in price though. This was booked long in advance, and I could have done it myself if I had not been promised exactly what I wanted.
Out of curiousity, why did you not ask to see a manager right then and there? Usually the flunky at the desk isn’t the only person around; some night manager will be present somewhere. Management is the only way to go when you want something done; flunkies don’t know how to handle customers.
I’m a hotel manager(20+ years) and registered just to address this question.
A few points:
As mentioned before, almost no hotels guarantee a specific room type, however every effort should be made to satisfy a request.
The BIG question here is HOW you made your reservation. If you made it with a third party (expedia, travelocity, etc…) you may be out of luck. I have seen COUNTLESS times where people make reservations via third party and are told by third party that they will get a certain accomodations, but transmit the wrong information to the hotel. In this case your beef would be with the third party. This is tough on hotels, as they can only book what they’re asked to book, but guests have a hard time understanding this. This is the same as in years past when a travel agent would “make a mistake” and book something other than what their client thought they were getting. If you made your reservation directly with Choice Hotels (franchisor of your hotel) you have more of a leg to stand on)
With that said, I would’ve wanted my desk clerk to give you the room you wanted. My philosophy on this is: I KNOW I have a guest problem now, there’s a possibility that I might not have a problem even if I give someone elses “requested” room type away. Many times people just pick a particular “bedding” not even really caring. There could be a few exceptions to this tho. If I needed your bed type to satisfy a VIP, very frequent guest, or a group or family, I would support my desk clerk not giving it away.
As far as you complaining:
Whatever you do, don’t say “I’ll never stay here again”, or the like. When I hear that I sometimes lose all motivation to solve the issue at hand.
Don’t bother with the Assistant Manager…go directly with the General Manager, even if you have to wait til Monday…if you can wait til he comes in.
Be polite. We General Managers so rarely see people complain “politly”, and, at least for me, If someone is very polite, I’ll will do whatever is humanly possible to fix it.
If you dont get anywhere with the General Manager, Choice Hotels has a complaint line you can call. If you take this route, they will take your complaint and issue it to the GM in a few hours. The GM has to respond or the hotel will get penalized. (this however doesn’t mean he’ll respond the way you want him to). If you made your reservations with the Choice Hotels 800# or on their web site, sometimes THEY will compensate you (as opposed to the hotel itself). But they still can’t MAKE the hotel give you what you want.
I hope some of this helps.
DSY, I disagree with your generalization that “flunkies” at the front desk don’t know how to handle issues. Of course, sometimes wrong decisions are made at the front desk, but I believe, overall, front desk agents are empowered to solve problems if possible. Believe me, If a front desk agent can "make a mad guest ‘go away’ " , by solving a problem, they will. You sound like the type of guest that I would not be so inclined to satisfy. Believe it or not, the hotel is not always at fault. It never ceases to amaze me that just because a guest is told something that they dont want to hear, they see that as unprofessional and rude. btw, If I am faced with a guest complaint, and realize that our hotel made a mistake, I will fix it, no mater what.
First, the guy at the front desk was obviously new at his job, and just trying to do things by the book. I had a feeling he didn’t even know how to change the rooms around as I had requested. As you pointed out, he knew he had a problem with me. Making that go away may or may not have caused a second problem.
I made the reservation on line with Comfort Inns. My confirmations was from them.
There was no one higher then the desk clerk available at 2100 on a Saturday. Today I spoke to a manager or assistant manager. He had no problem fixing me up, and I am typing this in a room with two queens beds. I think the first guy was just new and scared.
I thanked the man who took care of my problem so simply. I was very polite at all times, as was he.