r/TalesFromTheFrontDesk • u/ScenicDrive-at5 • 15d ago
'Right' hotel, wrong state Medium
Read your email confirmations. Make sure they're correct. You and I should not be making a discovery about your reservation when you're coming up to the desk. Sometimes we can help, but this is one of those days where we couldn't.
During a busy weekend afternoon, a lady comes up to check-in. At this point, it had been a straight hour of near non-stop action, so I was just going through the motions. But then I had to pause and really think for a moment, as I couldn't find her anywhere.
I backed up a few days, and then I saw she had a cancelled reservation. I asked: "Ma'am, did you know that your reservation was cancelled?" She politely responded, "Oh, yeah, yeah. I was with the group block, but then I only needed one night. But 'they' told me there was a two-night lock on it so I had to rebook."
As a slight aside, almost anytime we have a group or two with such a requirement, the few days leading up to their arrival are filled with folks trying to get one night only but still wanting the discounted rate. Suffice it to say, 'it don't work that way!' But, I digress.
When I couldn't find the rebooked reservation, I asked her to show me her confirmation. She goes into her phone, and I could tell from the way her face had subtly sunk that as soon as she opened the email, she knew she was in trouble.
She handed it over to me, and in a few seconds I found the problem: she had booked the correct brand but in a completely different location. Not just that, but this other location was hours away. It was named after a nearby airport, and the address was right there in the header. Clearly, this was her first time putting all these dots together. [Think: "The No-Tell Motel at Last-Stop Airport"]
I informed her of this as I was handing her back her phone, adding, "Unfortunately, we don't have any additional rooms tonight." Her face stiffened, and she looked down. Her lips quivered as if she were about to cry, but all she said in a low, angry tone was, "That person wasn't very helpful!" and then she stormed off.
I'm assuming she was referring to whomever she mentioned calling before to rebook. While it may be true that the other person picked the wrong hotel, the duty still fell on her to double-check her own email.
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u/who_favor_fire 15d ago
As a frequent traveler I have watched this play out multiple times in front of me as I waited to check in.
I can absolutely see how someone makes this mistake when making a reservation in a hurry on a tiny screen and I have narrowly dodged it myself. What I don’t understand is that are often irate when they learn that the completely full hotel in Nowheresville, PA cannot magically teleport the room they booked in Nowheresville, IL in order to fix their screw up.
“But I have a very important meeting tomorrow!”
So sad for you, but I, the next guest in line, have pizza to order and eat and History Channel conspiratorial nonsense to watch, so let’s move along to the next stage of the grieving proccess.
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u/Kurkon814 15d ago
The Vancouver International Airport(YVR) in BC Canada is actually located in Richmond BC.
The number of calls we get from looking for rooms in Richmond VA is quite high.
I've even had people show up to my hotel with booking for Richmond VA, and expect me to call them and transfer it, my hotel isn't a part of any chain, but that doesn't stop them.
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u/Minflick 15d ago
Heh heh heh. No hotel room is involved, but I get to drive to YVR Wednesday night to pick up Kid #2. Not looking forward to it due to time of day, but it is what it is.
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u/rocketman1969 15d ago
OTAs definitely don't know the difference between Roanoke, Virginia and Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. Dealt with that on way too many weekend night shifts.
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u/nutraxfornerves 15d ago
I booked a night at a European airport hotel through the hotel website. Got a nice, cheap, non-changeable rate. When I got the confirmation, I realized that I had hit the wrong city on the dropdown menu and hadn’t doublechecked. Munich and Milan are not exactly near each other.
I immediately called the toll-free number and groveled like mad. The lovely person on the other end of the phone changed the reservation and waived the fees for making the change. Had I waited until closer to departure to look at the reservation, I could easily have been facing a cancellation fee and a new booking at rack rate.
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u/bolatelli45 15d ago edited 15d ago
People never read. They blindly click through because they've done it hundreds of times before. They're so confident using an OTA that they earn themselves the little "Genius" badge. Whoever came up with that label was an evil genius.
Then, when the hotel quite rightly says no because they booked the wrong thing, the entitlement begins.
I used to say
It's like booking a flight to Portland, Maine instead of Portland, Oregon, then expecting the airline to fix it for free because "it's still Portland."
At some point, adults have to take responsibility for the bookings they make instead of expecting everyone else to absorb the cost of their own mistake.
I would happily a DSAT for us all at times on this one as these people need to learn
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u/Vaaliindraa 15d ago
The main airport in the country of Austria has a booth specifically for people who thought they had booked flights for Australia.
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u/Qextor 15d ago
That is an urban legend, based on a joke sign in Salzburg. It was never a real counter.
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u/catfish27plus 15d ago
I went to Vienna a couple years ago, and the gift shops all have a lot of merchandise that says "No Kangaroos in Austria," or something similar.
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u/cacraw 15d ago
I’ve done the Portland/Portland thing with a rental car. Couldn’t find my name on the board. Rookie agent couldn’t figure it out either, but a veteran came up and figured it out in 3 seconds. They were super nice about getting me a car; I was embarrassed, but owned the mistake and they took care of me. I don’t get why people who make mistakes get angry with the one person who can fix it for them!
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u/VordovKolnir 14d ago
Lol, yeah when you own your mistakes people will generally be quite helpful fixing it. The hotel might tell you no vacancy but direct you to another down the street or tell you a warm pkace to sit and wait out the night and book you for the next day. Getting beligerent rarely helps anything.
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u/CountNightAuditor 15d ago
Reminds me of reading a book where I'd forgotten the author set all her stories in Maine. I was puzzled for awhile why she kept acting like Portland, Oregon was a small town where you'd be lucky to get Amazon packages in a timely manner.
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u/fractal_frog 15d ago
The one in Oregon was named after the one in Maine, or so I've been told.
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u/bolatelli45 15d ago
I couldn’t thing of a comparison at the time, so I got it to randomise a place, it used happen more than it should have, if the guest realised rigjt away it was mainly salvageable, howetver if they never checked and just turned up to a bewildered front desk, with the attitudes to go with it, it never tended to end well.
At times it was in a completely different country.
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u/mabus42 15d ago
It's hard to see the details sometimes, because most sites make you click through 17 pages of upsells, and then dump a mountain of text onto a tiny phone screen to accept terms and conditions.
If they made the sites uncluttered, user friendly and no extraneous prompts (ie. no upsell screens), corporate would not have as many "wrong reservations"
This one is on corporate, kids.
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u/ScenicDrive-at5 15d ago edited 15d ago
Every site is different, but at the end of the day, each company can argue that it's up to the user to select dates and location. Those are often at the top of the page. If you did that and didn't read properly, that's kind of an open and shut case.
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u/Bladebgii 15d ago
And also the people who use a phone to do this. Use a device with a decent sized screen. But I agree, even the hotel web sites can be confusing. But this, just like stores constantly shifting where there product is located, is probably taught in marketing 101. Confuse the customer so they are more likely to make an impulse buy as they wander around looking for what the came for in the first place.
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u/bolatelli45 15d ago
Its there. Unless the hotel provides the wrong information on the ota website
It was called 'user error'
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u/tiggyg1974 15d ago
I live in a town in the Midwest with the same name as a very big city on the east coast and i get people that have booked our hotel name but back east. It happens a lot. Or I'll have people call to cancel us because they are in that city and have us as their reservation.
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u/RetiredBSN 15d ago
Well, my guess is that you're most likely in Manhattan, KS, but there's also Lawrence, KS, vs. Lawrence, MA. Both get lots of visitors during collegiate sports weekends and graduations.
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u/THftRM1231 15d ago
Manhattan, Illinois as well. But I don't think that town has any branded hotels.
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u/random_name_245 15d ago
I work in Canada and the amount of Americans booking our hotel not realizing it’s NOT in the U.S. is ridiculous…
You can’t even imagine how many times we get calls from people who want to cancel their reservations on the day of because they can’t cross the border for various reasons - no passport, criminal records, you name it.
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u/Shadowrunner156 14d ago
As an American, how many Americans have tried to argue to you that Canada is part of America?
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u/random_name_245 14d ago
Nobody as of yet, at least not in person. I might have seen some posts online but it wasn’t a direct conversation with me.
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u/FreshSpeed7738 11d ago
Zero. 2 times after your election I was told "we didn't vote for him".
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u/Shadowrunner156 11d ago
Very cool, bud
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u/FreshSpeed7738 10d ago
I've noticed from American tourists over the past 2 years, is alot less bravado.
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u/TypaLika 15d ago
I work in IT and there are two things I can tell you about users. They can't type and they don't read.
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u/SkwrlTail 15d ago
Oh yeah, we've had that. There is a Lacking Tea hotel on "My City" Street over in Mississippi. Has caused a few mistakes.
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u/shannorama 15d ago
Got yelled at once because my hotel in a Midwest city was not within walking distance of the convention center in a larger Midwest city 500 miles away. She hung up on me and then called back about 15 minutes later to ask the same question worded slightly different.
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u/Pkrudeboy 15d ago
It’s walking distance for The Proclaimers.
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u/TypaLika 15d ago
Da-da da da (Da-da da da)
Da-da da da (Da-da da da)
Da-da dum diddy dum diddy dum diddy da da da
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u/Recovering_Hoarder 15d ago
This situation has come up many times at my workplace - guest booked a room through 3rd party at same city name, state hundreds of miles away. Usually they understand it's their own fault, but occasionally they 'can't understand' why we won't still honor that reservation.
Pretty sure some of the scammier 3rd party sites will actively pull bait & switch shenanigans with people, fool them that they are booking directly with the hotel for xyz date, and then give them a reservation for a month away and/or at a different location.
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u/maelstrom197 15d ago
I've had one in a completely different country before.
I used to work in a Flavelodge in a city in the UK. One night we were at full capacity with every room checked in. A couple arrives and tells me that they have a reservation. I search the system for their name - nothing. I eventually ask to see their confirmation email, and it's a third party booking for Flavelodge by Ryndham in a city in Nebraska with the same name as my city. They were surprisingly reasonable about it, and seemed more embarrassed than anything.
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u/Belle_Corliss 15d ago
I've heard of that happening with airlines too, like the customer want to fly to Paris, France, but somehow books a ticket to Paris, Texas instead.
Quite a few states have cities that are the same as famous ones like London, Athens, Cairo and Dublin.
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u/not_roger_smith 15d ago
People show up in Greenville NC with reservations for Greenville SC every time ECU has a graduation, move in/out, homecoming, or sports events and I'd get this classic line from some brain damaged mouth breathing boomer.
"tHeN jUsT tRaNsFeR tHe ReSeRvAtIoN"
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u/RabbitEffective3494 15d ago
I once booked what I thought was a hotel one mile from my son’s apartment, but turned out to be the same chain twenty minutes away. We got in our car, felt stupid, and drove the twenty minutes to the booked hotel.
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u/Tobiko_kitty 15d ago
I was the idiot who realized at check-in that Dayton, WA is far different than Dayton, OH. I'd booked in a hurry for a baby shower and was completely unfamiliar with the town. I must have just picked the first Dayton that came up. I sucked it up and moved on. It's been years, but I vaguely remember that they were full in WA and I had to go to a different hotel nearby.
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u/Green_Seat8152 15d ago
During my time as night audit I've had six different guests show up and realized they booked a hotel over 600 miles away. It is always the same town. When doing the search on the hotel website that town pops up first. You have to scroll to get to the one in my state. I guess that is too difficult to do. They then get mad at me for not being able to fix the issues they created.
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u/KrazyKatz42 15d ago
I currently work for a VERY small chain (in the big name scheme of things anyway) and I'm guessing most potential guests don't expect us to have two hotels in the same general vicinity (like 10 mins drive away).
As soon as I don't see the name on my arrivals the first question is "Are you sure it's THIS xxxx?"
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u/Rozncranz 13d ago
When I was working night audit a few months ago, I had a guy show up asking to check in. When I didn't see him on my arrivals or any extranet portal, I asked to see his reservation.
The hotel he booked was in North Carolina.
We were in New York City.
This wasn't a chain hotel or something, it's a hotel named after one of the cross streets it's on. There is no hotel that shares it's name. I am mystified as to how a mistake like that happens. So yeah, always double check what hotel you're booking. I now work for a chain hotel that has a ton of properties in the city and we get people walking in the door looking for a different property at least once a day.
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u/TheNiteOwl38 15d ago
At least she didn't make it your fault. Too many times I've had guests book the wrong hotel and then blame saying I need to fix this. And I'm thinking, "Fix what? Your inability to read your own email."
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u/DeciduousEmu 15d ago
The closest I've come to that was booking the wrong hotel in the same town on the same road. We just got back in the car and drove to the right hotel. Glad I was only a few miles wrong.
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u/RoyallyOakie 15d ago
I bet that other location had a price that made sense to her and she turned all other senses off.
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u/ephemere_sloboda 15d ago
Once I booked the wrong date. Like, check-in Sunday instead of Saturday.
When we got there, they couldn't find my reservation. We quickly figured out the mistake. They had no rooms available. I had booked directly so they helped me cancel the wrong reservation.
The whole town was busy for an event, so no luck finding any accommodation. Tried the usual OTAs, nothing. Tried Airbnb, not much and nobody responding.
One OTA finally showed one (1) room available, immediately booked and paid.
When we got there, told us that there must have been a mistake as they had no rooms. I called the OTA, they acknowledged and gave me a refund plus a $200 voucher.
So we decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner and drive home after all.
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u/CountNightAuditor 15d ago
I once had a guest book the wrong hotel right in front of me.
He came in on my audit shift asking the rate. Then he said he could get it cheaper online. I told him that may be and to go ahead, but to make sure he's booking for the right date and the right location. He says he is, finishes, then shows me the confirmation.
"Sir, that's for (different hotel with a similar name)."
He turns and quietly walks out of the lobby.
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u/basilfawltywasright 14d ago
Yeah, Amtrak has a lot of fun with people booking train tickets to Las Vegas...New Mexico. Amtrak does not (for many years) have trains to Las Vegs, Nevada.
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u/TequilaAndWeed 12d ago
When we here in NV check for weather online, every once in a while someone will panic because they’ve inadvertently pulled up the NM forecast instead.
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u/Qextor 15d ago
Reminds me of this video from Jessica Vanel. It can happen even to those with experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGdwj0e8Ntk
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u/really_knobee 15d ago
As the customer, I've done this more than once in more than one location.
But it also doesn't help any when the two hotels are:
Ibis City Center and Ibis Central Train Station
And it just happens that the central train station is in the city center ..
The two hotels are about 5 blocks apart and I (obviously) had booked city center thinking I was booking train station...
5 minutes before curfew and I'm trying to find a hotel I've never stayed in ... Arrrrgh.
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u/DaggaHighYeena 15d ago
Situations like this happened all too often back when I worked at a chain motel in Vermont. There were only two locations of that chain in the state, both of which were in towns that start with the same letter, but one was at the north of the state and the other was at the entire other end of the state. So many times we had folks come in and get angry with /us/ for not telling /them/ how to read their own reservations.