No Hotel Room For You!!!

Now this is the story all about how my life almost got flipped, turned upside down, and I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there, and I'll tell you how I almost got fired this week....

You see part of my job working as a junior loan officer is being an assistant to a senior loan officer. 90% of the time my assistance involves mortgage work. However, 10% of the time I need to help her with things in her personal life. Think Meryl Streep in Devils Wears Prada. Earlier this week, my boss learned about a death in the family and had to go to a funeral, at the very last minute. I was asked to book her a hotel room for that night. After checking Orbitz to see which hotels were in the area, I went to the Marriott website to book a room for that night.

At 10pm, I get a frantic call from my boss telling me that when she arrived at the hotel, she was told that the hotel was sold-out and they did not have a room for her. The Marriott employee told her that they had been sold out for a conference most of the week and they had no idea how she was able to book a room. However, the good news is that they had booked her a room at a comparable hotel down the road.

When she arrived at this "golf resort" hotel: the first thing she noticed was that she was the only woman at the hotel. The next thing she noticed was that the hotel was directly out of a Mad Men episode. The hotel seemed not to have been updated since the 1950s, shiny curtains, gold and green fabric walls and ash trays everywhere. 

After hearing my boss' story, I started to wonder, what rights do people who book rooms, but arrive to oversold hotels?

The answer is a none. Not a single right. Unlike the airline industry, who, by law, have to compensate you for denying you boarding due to overselling,  no laws govern hotel overbooking. Each hotel chain has its own policy about helping customers in this situation.

My research turned up that very few hotel chains have policies regarding oversold customers. Worse, finding those policies on individual chain's websites turned into a needle in a hay stake hunt.

The easiest to find was Hyatt. In Hyatt's Reservation FAQ, we find this little gem:

What is Hyatt's reservation guarantee?

If you book a room on Hyatt.com and prepay with a credit card, Hyatt will have a room reserved for you when you arrive, or will provide, at no cost to you:

·                  A free night at a comparable hotel

·                  Free transportation to and from that hotel

·                  One free telephone call to advise your family where you can be reached

Now, Starwood was a little more difficult to find, but this little paragraph was present before making hitting submit on a reservation:

 For reservations guaranteed with a form of payment at time of booking, rooms are held until hotel check-out time the day following arrival. For reservations not guaranteed with a form of payment at time of booking, rooms are held until set cancellation time per the rules of the reservation. In the event more guests arrive than can be accommodated due to hotel overbooking or an unforeseen circumstance, and hotel is unable to hold rooms consistent with this room hold policy, hotel will attempt to accommodate guests, at its expense, at a comparable hotel in the area for the oversold night(s), and will pay for transportation to that hotel.

Marriott has a whole page devoted towards reservation guarantees. However, the page makes it seem that these guarantees are only for people with Gold or Platinum Status. For example, you have Platinum status and arrive at a JW Marriott to find no room available for you with a reservation, this pages says $200 and 2 Room Certificates should be coming your way. What about a person like my boss with no status?

I spent time on Hilton's , Kimpton and Choice Hotel's websites and found no mention of what might happen to a customer arriving to a sold-out hotel with a reservation. So, I decided to call each reservation line to see what I could find out:

Choice Hotels: I was told that it is up to each local hotel to decided how to handle customer in oversold hotels.

Kimpton Hotels: The general policy is to find you a hotel nearby at the expense of the hotel.

Hilton Hotels: This was like pulling teeth. My first call, I was told that this would never happen, we do not oversell our hotels. My second call, I was told that the oversold hotel would direct me to call the 1-800 number to be rebooked. My third call, the agent told me that I should arrive early to the hotel to avoid this from happening. Very reassuring!

It is sad that there are no protections for hotel consumers like there is with airlines. Yes, I understand that hotels have an interest to have full hotels, but they do so without any risk. There is not penalty for there overselling actions. Worse, many of these hotels leave it up to the individual hotels to make the call of what the customer should received. Can you imagine getting off a plane at midnight, taking the airport shuttle to the oversold hotel only to find a desk agent unwilling to help you because he/she is having a bad day? I bet it happens more often than not.

Hotel chains need to have written policies on how to handle these situations. It should not be left to local hotel employees to decided what to give oversold customers. That will only lead to inconsistencies and even worse very unhappy customers. And I know this is probably going to far, these policies should be posted on their websites. Customers should have the comfort of knowing that a reservation will result in a room at the hotel, but on the slim chance a room is not available, you will be taken care of.

In the end, I still have a job, but a disgruntle boss. But at least she did not ask me to get her the new Harry Potter book by COB.


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