It may well cause severe financial distress for someone to have a $2000 mistake not corrected; it si

Faith James likes to think of herself as a pretty savvy traveler but when she planned to attend the presidential inauguration in Washington next month, she couldn t have foreseen the trouble with the Capitol Hill Hotel Washington D.C.
I ve been combing hotel and airline websites for weeks to get the best deals, she says. Location of a hotel is, of course, key since getting around the district will be tricky. I lived in DC for a few years, so I know it will be madness.
Her congressman s office recommended the Capitol Hill Hotel Washington D.C. , an all-suite property on C Street, which is reasonably close to everything. She checked the rates for the inauguration, but they were out of her price range.
I took about 30 minutes to call my Mom to get her okay on the hotel, check TripAdvisor to make sure the hotel had good customer reviews, and even combed the hotel website to see what the layout ata airline reservations of the room would be and what amenities they offer. I even emailed my congressman s office and a couple of friends to tell them about the great rate.
Now, $114 a night is a very good rate for an all-suite hotel in Washington any time, let alone during the inauguration. Too good to be true? No, $14 a night would have been too good to be true an obvious rate error due to a missed decimal point.
James found the rate through a legitimate source, too, and her motives were right. Had she picked ata airline reservations up this rate on Flyertalk or one of those bottom-feeding mileage blogs, and then booked ata airline reservations a block of several rooms and waved her elite card in the hotel s face if it refused to honor it, then I would have politely turned down her request ata airline reservations for help.
I went immediately to airline websites and booked ata airline reservations travel for Jan 18 – 22. We had originally planned to travel from Jan 19 – 22, but for this great hotel rate at a 4-night minimum we decided to travel one day earlier.
In a very accusatory tone he said that I had slipped in and gotten a rate that was being uploaded onto the site for a promotion. He said that the rate was only up for 5 seconds, and that he was cancelling my reservation.
James and the hotel exchanged several messages, including another email from the hotel to her confirming the erroneous rate. The bottom line is that James now has airline tickets to fly from Dallas to Washington, but no accommodations.
Am I correct in insisting that the hotel honor the rate for which I paid in full? she wonders. I did everything required of me as the consumer, yet the hotel wants to now say they should ata airline reservations not have made the offer. Should they now be allowed to rescind the offer that has already been accepted?
I can certainly see her point of view and the hotel s. A check of the Capitol Hill s rates during the inauguration finds room rates start at $599 a night, so honoring the rate will mean a significant loss of revenue. Yet the $114-a-night rate wasn t an obvious mistake, either, and this guest didn t go looking for a rate error, which are both important considerations.
Should the hotel honor the rate? I think that if it cancels on James, it can t just leave her without a room. It needs to offer her something. I also thought the way in which it handled her cancellation left something to be desired. You don t call a guest and treat them like criminals; ata airline reservations it s just not good hospitality. Or good customer service.
Agreed. As she said, the rate didn t allow her to cancel so why should the hotel be allowed to? This wasn t a fat finger ata airline reservations rate error or a misplaced decimal point (which would have made it $11.40/night or $1140/night.) As for the hotel s argument that it was in the middle of a rate change, if their system is so messed up to allow an incorrect amount, based on the conversation it sounds like $114/night was never a valid rate, to show up at any time, they deserve what they get when it messes up.
Unless and until every travel company has a clear policy refunding customers who make a clear mistake (name issues, booking a day early or late or the wrong month/year), I have zero sympathy for their supposed mistakes , which they have much more ability to put checks in their systems to prevent.
Even if a customer finds and takes advantage of a true mistake fare , how is that different than a customer who accidentally double books flights for the same day, realizes and calls to fix it right away, yet the airline claims they can t/won t refund even though it s a clear, obvious mistake?
It may well cause severe financial distress for someone to have a $2000 mistake not corrected; it simply won t cause the same for a hotel to have to honor a couple of rooms at a rate lower than they might have otherwise been able to gouge people for. If they don t want that to happen, add a line to their rate-entry person s system saying you are putting in a rate lower than X% below the average; are you sure? Supervisor approval required .
I had the same type of issue with Days Inn during Homecoming at my college this past fall. It took lots of complaining and hours of time on the phone to get them to honor my reservation. Except in my case they tried to cancell 9 months after the reservation was made. The hotel owner wanted a higher ata airline reservations rate and longer stay.
The gotten ata airline reservations a rate that was being uploaded onto the site for a promotion sounds like BS. No web application in the world would accidentally ata airline reservations give one rate to someone else unless it was fat-fingered. It wasn t a technical glitch ; it was operator error.
But if it was never supposed to be there and the hotel didn t realize it until she made the booking, my sympathy goes away. It seems to me that the hotel has a responsibility to make sure that what they re offering potential customers is actually what s posted in their ads or on their websites. When they don t follow through on the rates they post, blaming the customer is bad business.
The hotel had ample chance to back out of the rate and they didn t do it. Additionally, their comments about the promotional rate being up only seconds doesn t really hold water. Why was it still there when she called the hotel?
Although it might be a $2000 revenue loss for the hotel, in my opinion it has little to do with the cost of the room and a lot to do with how much they think they can extort from people during a popular event, so I don t feel sorry for them.
but nothing happened!!?? Anyway, ata airline reservations I think the hotel (any, for that matter) should honor a confirmed rate even though they later claim it was an error. Glad to hear that the hotel came through for the James s.
I think it s quite interesting the way the agent on the phone reacted. Sounds to me like they didn t know that rate was out there until the OP called to confirm it. Then they tried to backpedal their way out of it.
And I agree with everyone who thinks that if hotels, airlines, ata airline reservations etc. want to be able to cancel reservations when the rate was an error, then customers should be allowed to cancel or change reservations when they make an honest mistake.
I had an issue with a rate once. I was willing to pay $20 extra to get a toss-in gift certificate. I thought the terms seemed a little bit odd (required a two night stay even though I booked a single night) but a call to the hotel directly and the clerk said I was set. When I checked ata airline reservations in, the manager ata airline reservations was on duty and said there was a mistake with the corporate reservations system, which shouldn t have displayed the rate for a one night stay. He didn t kick me out and actually reduced the rate to the last minute rate I would have chosen.
Heck I ve also experienced some weird things. Once a corporate hotel operator offered an $8 special for a $20 dining ata airline reservations certificate at the hotel s restaurant. I thought it made sense and accepted. When I arrived, the clerk said she couldn t give it to me for $8 it cost $20 which made no sense to agree to it since I could otherwise pay in cash. I m not sure what the deal was (maybe she couldn t enter it as an $8 charge) so she handed me the certificate gratis.
However, I ve never had a hotel reservation unilaterally cancelled on me by the hotel, ata airline reservations with the exception being a force majeure situation. Unless I m confusing the definition, I d think a hurricane counts.
They re basically fleecing their guests like some hotels in prime cities jack up their rates for New Year s Eve. I ve heard of a Motel 6 in a certain place went from its standard $40/night to about $500 for New Year s Eve.
Here s their special. Right now the lowest they re offering is $799/night for a junior suite, 4 days prepaid and non-refundable. However, they don t seem to have a resort fee, Wi-Fi is included, and they ve got a continental breakfast. ;-)
I checked their rates for the following week (25th-29th) and they ve got a Great Rate for booking at least three nights, at $164.90 a night and it looks like it s not prepaid. It s actually less than their prepaid rate ($224). Frankly $114 didn t seem all that farfetched. If I were the hotel manager I would have just eaten the opportunity to get more to avoid the bad publicity. It wasn t that they tried to back out of the reservation (not surprising) ata airline reservations but that the manager was rude to a customer in that way.
Frankly looking at their website ata airline reservations the thing is a mess. For that week I checked, it s still coming up as an inauguration special even though those dates are the week after. The Best Available Rate is more than the Great Rate that I saw. None of it makes any sense, which is why I d think Ms. James wasn t sure what to make of it and booked in good faith after calling up the hotel.
My issue isn t with the rate. As far as I m concerned, she booked, got confirmation not once, but twice honor the damn rate. It s the right thing to do. Their revpar is not going into the toilet over the room anyway, it s ONE room with a reduced rate and big friggin deal, there s probably at least half the hotel with much lower or comped rooms, for those DC bigwigs that are calling in every favor they re owed around the area. For promotional purposes, you know. *eyeroll*
What I take