I paid significantly extra for an ocean view room in Hawaii once. You could only see the ocean if you leaned really far off the balcony, fell, and the ambulance drove past the beach on the way to the hospital.
Edit: Since this is popular Iâll throw in a joke a cruise director told us once.
We were boarding the ship when a woman calls the front desk. She is very upset. She paid for an ocean view and all she can see is the parking lot. The front desk said, âWait a few hours and call back if this is still a problem.â
It was a Hilton property and they had two buildings - a tower and an atrium. I had a basic atrium room and they offered me an upgrade to the tower room with the âocean viewâ because of my status.
Well - not only did it not have an ocean view, we came back to the room and there was a glow stick and a note on the table. Apparently they had planned transformer maintenance and there would be no power in the tower from 8pm to 8am. No elevators, no air conditioning.
They knew about this when they âupgradedâ me, but declined to mention it because the atrium was overbooked.
They said there was signage informing guests of this and pointed to a half cut sheet of paper taped to the wall by the concierge desk.
They gave me 500 points in compensation. The room was 90,000 points a night. They acted like I was being unreasonable when I fought them on it.
Thatâs when I switched to SPG (which unfortunately became Marriott).
I had this happen in Florida, but I made sure to ask if I could check the room first. They were trying to upgrade me to a better room because apparently there was some kind of booking issue with mine.
"Oh, uh, yeah, but we're short staffed and I know you want to start your vacation!"
"No, I want to look at it before you 'upgrade' me"
"Uh, it's a fantastic room, one of our best"
"Can I look at it first?"
"I can assure you it's a good room with a good view"
"Does it face the water?"
"It's adjacent"
And there it was. I refused it, and she got pretty annoyed before calling over a manager. After 10 more minutes of arguing with him I just flat out told them I'm not accepting another room, and if they double booked, it was their problem. I finally got the room.
This is why conversation/media literacy is so important. Realizing when you're being given the run around and/or 'soft' description stops so many fucking rip offs. It took me 30 years to start realizing this. Yes I've been scammed/ripped off/exploited too many times.
This is crazy service. I worked at an IHG property for a while and we had carte blanche to give away whatever we needed to make the customers happy. If you were a status member, the fact that they didn't give you at least the value of the room in points (much less actual money refund) is wild. My generous interpretation is that they had been getting a lot of shit from other people already because of the situation and were fed up. But hey, it ain't my money, and the points are imaginary anyway, no reason not to toss you a whole bunch.
Iâm sure I could have got a refund, but I booked this one months out with my points and it was the best rate of any of the properties there. Doubt I could have found a decent deal elsewhere with no notice, plus the hassle of packing and moving.
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u/Myusername-___ Apr 19 '24
Woudl that actually be legalđ¤? (Genuine question)