Leaving Little Room For Negotiation
(When you book a hotel room with a third party you just book a room. Any requests for room type (two beds, single king, adjoining) are just that: requests. This occurs after nine pm on a very busy Saturday night.)
Guest: “I’d like to check in…”
(Everything proceeds as normal and I’m swiping his credit card when he suddenly interrupts me.)
Guest: “There’s two beds and a rollaway in there, right?”
(My heart sinks. He’s booked for a single king, literally the only rooms we have left, and all our rollaways have been given out already.)
Me: “Unfortunately, no. The room has a single king, and we are out of rollaways. I literally don’t have any other room—”
Guest: *interrupting me* “But I booked a double queen. It’s me and my wife and three boys.”
Me: “I understand that, and I’m sorry, but when you buy a reservation online you’re buying a room, subject to hotel availability.”
(We continue back and forth in this vein, until he finally decides to check in and put his boys on the floor.)
Me: “I’m really, really sorry. Here, let me buy you breakfast, all of you, and you and your wife a drink tonight from our bar.” *I give him about $70+ in food and beverage coupons; I really felt bad for the guy*
(The guest leaves my counter, grumpy BUT SMILING. Half an hour later the phone rings. It is the third party website rep, regarding this guest.)
Rep: “Hi my name is [Rep] from [Company] regarding [Guest]. He says you don’t have a room for him?”
Me: “That’s not entirely true. We do have a room but it’s not the type he requested.”
Rep: “Okay. He’d like to cancel the reservation.”
Me: “I can’t do that. He’s already checked in, and the reservation is 100% non-cancellable and non-refundable. That’s in the contract every hotel signs with third parties.”
Rep: “Okay but [Guest] is very unhappy with the situation and would like to find a different hotel.”
(I put her on hold and confer with my manager. He decides to cancel the reservation and reverse the charges because we are oversold and need the room. I tell housekeeping to go check it and make sure I can turn it around to resell. Twenty minutes later the phone rings.)
Rep: “Hi, this is [Name] from [Company] again. [Guest] would like to cancel that.”
Me: “I did. I checked him out and reversed the deposit.”
Rep: “No, he wants to stay in the room.”
Me: “I can’t do that. I’ve already reversed the deposit and need the room for someone else.”
(Again this went back and forth for a maddening five minutes. Finally, the rep decided to have the guest call me. He did so right when I got slammed at my counter and was by myself. I kept asking him to hold and he kept hanging up and calling back. Finally my manager returned and took his call. The thing that killed me was that we bent over backward so hard for this guy and he was still going to give us a s***ty review.)