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#Post#: 171--------------------------------------------------
Why I'm Not Staying At Your Hotel...
By: Generic Date: August 7, 2023, 4:51 pm
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Went to book a hotel for late October for our trip. Hotel is
number 37 of 55 hotels in this famous city in the Basque region,
but the price was good, the quality seemed good and the location
seemed great.
In case you don't realize it, when you are looking for a place
where you can stay and walk to everything, the fact that there
is a parking fee is a good indicator that people walk... free
parking means that you are way in the suburbs and everything is
accessible only by car.
Anyway, went to the website, 10% off for joining their club.
Fill in the forms, it won't accept my email address, says that
I'm already a member of the club. Don't know how, don't know
why, but okay, let's get my password from the "lost password"
and see if I'm actually in the club or not. And I get an error
message. So I get an error message trying to reserve saying that
I'm in the club and need to log in, but when I try to get to the
club it says that the gateway is disconnected and it can't give
me the password. I capture the screen, send it to the hotel and
later on, when they don't reply, to head office technical
support email. Support email replies, it's working now, you can
make your reservation...
Problem is, between when I was trying to reserve and now, the
price has changed by about €40. I ask if they will honour it. IT
says we can't help, that's hotel matter and sends it to hotel
who answers a day later that they will honour it, I just have to
give them a CC to guarantee it, as it's a pay at hotel rate.
(Which is what we wanted... not a prepaid rate).
I ask the hotel how can I send them a CC number securely. I
offer them three options...
[list type=decimal]
[li]Secure email, but I will need a mobile phone number, since
Google will text them the 6 digit code[/li]
[li]Protected word document, but they will have to open it in
Word to get my CC number[/li]
[li]Google Drive, secure URL that only they will be able to
access[/li]
[/list]
They reject all of them. Tell me that I can call (Spain, on an
entirely different time zone and of course, per minute calling
in a foreign language) or they can send me a URL.
You can send me a URL? WTF didn't you send that immediately?
So they send me the URL... it's not a URL to capture the card...
it's a URL to charge me the whole charge, in Euro! And so I send
back that the rate is pay later, not now, why send me a URL to
pay it now? They tell me I have a few hours to process or it's
cancelled. Well, 5PM their time is 11AM our time and they send
me a note it's cancelled.
We are now happily booked for a few €uro more at the number 9
hotel in the city.
My customer service experience in the industry tells me a few
things about this hotel.... the service is mediocre. They answer
emails once per day. I use email tracking, I know that the only
reason the hotel answered was because it was forwarded by IT,
they hadn't answered my first email at all. I would have sent a
link to put in a secure CC in the first email, not relied on
asking someone to call. Frankly, the last thing I want is for
someone to call, it takes more time. And finally, you have the
reservation... don't lose it! Those reservations pay your
salary... don't let it fall through the cracks. They did. I'm
now staying elsewhere, spending more money and HAPPIER about it.
#Post#: 172--------------------------------------------------
Re: Why I'm Not Staying At Your Hotel...
By: Thebeachhouse Date: August 8, 2023, 10:22 am
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You lasted longer than I would have.
#Post#: 173--------------------------------------------------
Re: Why I'm Not Staying At Your Hotel...
By: Generic Date: August 8, 2023, 1:40 pm
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I mean, geniuses that they are, they could have just told me to
make a new reservation and they would adjust the rate.... and it
would have been done.
But sometimes karma just means that you are going to end up
elsewhere and maybe it's a better place.
Now... I'm still trying to decide if I'm curious enough to see
what a Spanish CostClub looks like. They have one in that town.
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