Hilton HHonors - San Antonio Six Flags Hampton - bad experience

Well, this hotel managed to make my "worst hotel experience yet" list tonight.

I'm comfortably sitting in a Residence Inn instead of a Hilton/Hampton property.

I had a guaranteed reservation at the San Antonio Six Flags Hampton for tonight. I arrived around 9 PM, the desk clerk ("Mike") had a bit of a chip on his shoulder for some reason. Asked for my driver license right off - I asked why, as I don't have that issue at other properties. He pointed to a sign on the wall that said "Credit card will be required as identification at this hotel, and we will not rent a room without your credit card". After I pointed out the language of the sign, he changed his tune and said "Well it's State Law that you have to show a driver license, and I won't accept a fine for the likes of you".

Since I've stayed in a number of Texas hotels - including another Hampton and a Hilton Garden Inn in SA - without presenting my identity card, I asked him to kindly provide the section number of the law so I could research it. That set him off. He went off for about 5 minutes, really being nasty to me, then presented me with a printout that he alleged supported his case.

(Side note: I've had my identity stolen twice by hotel desk clerks that demanded ID and promptly stole the information - costing me hundreds of hours, and AmEx $30,000, so I resist when ID is demanded).

I presented my passport, he took a bit of exception to that because it had no address. When I protested that it WAS legal ID, and it met the printout he gave me, he relented and asked for my credit card. I asked if it were in the record, he said he had to have it (I'm not usually asked for my credit card at the other Hampton here, nor the HGI). Fine, I gave it to him, he swiped it. I then asked ('cause I'm curious) why he didn't have it in the record, and the other hotels do... offering a very speedy check-in.

At that point, he looked at me and said growled "You're not staying here tonight". I asked if he were walking me, and he said "No, I'm canceling your reservation, get out of my hotel and go elsewhere". I asked him to help find an alternate property, and he refused. He refused to give the managers name. I ended up calling Hilton Reservations (who said that Customer Care was closed), and they could not locate another reasonable alternate hotel in either price or room configuration.

Marriott, on the other hand, quickly found me a nearby RI that had rooms at only $10 more for the night. Check-in was efficient and trouble-free, and they were quite glad to have me as a guest.

The HI stay was supposed to be the last stay I needed to requalify as Gold.

I'll be contacting HHonors tomorrow, but rest assured that I'll not stay at that hotel again.

(In the true spirit of FT, do they owe me compensation? ;) )

EDIT:

Upon further research, there is NO Texas State Law requiring ID. There is a San Antonio Municipal Code that requires EITHER photo ID OR guaranteed payment using a valid and verified credit card. ERGO, the desk clerk was being a jerk, was horribly misinformed, and clearly couldn't even read.

I found the municipal code online:


Sec. 15-83. Guest registration.
(a) No person registering in a hotel shall do so or attempt to do so under any false name or identity. No person registering in a hotel shall present for the purpose of registration, false identification or any identification which misrepresents or fails to disclose the registrant's true identity.
(b) It shall be the duty of the owner or operator of any hotel as defined in this chapter to keep, in a format chosen by the hotel sufficient to comply with the record keeping requirements set out in this ordinance, a register, of persons accommodated in such establishment for the purpose of verifying registrants' identities. Such register shall include, for all guest rooms and guest stays, either:
(1) The name of the registrant, the type of official photo identification presented and any personal identification number contained thereupon, the registrant's address, and the expected duration of the registrant's stay in such establishment; or, in the alternative,
(2) Documentation that the person guaranteed payment using a valid credit card issued in the name of the registrant as provided by the registrant, which at the time of registration, was verified through the hotel's customary credit card verification procedures.
No such owner or operator, or his employee, agent or representative shall knowingly write, cause to be written or permit to be written, in any register in any such hotel any other or different name or designation than the true name of the person so registered therein, or the name by which such person is generally known.
(c) Such record or register shall be available at all times for inspection by any officer of the police department of the city, and maintained for a period of two (2) years.
(d) Any person who shall violate any provision of this section shall be guilty of a class C misdemeanor and shall, upon conviction, be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars ($500.00).
(Code 1950, § 29-6; Ord. No. 22111, § 1, 1-5-56; Code 1959, § 18-64; Ord. No. 99517, § 1, 7-29-04)


While I do object to the police powers, it is clear that photo ID in NOT required.

Letter to Hilton is in the works....

You deserve an apology, compensation, and a promise that they will either retrain or fire "Mike." They need to make sure that front desk agents cannot pull this crap on a guest.

That the clerk swiped your credit card and then promptly booted you out .... given all the other nastiness encountered it would not surprise me if you had another $30K "close encounter of the worst kind". Good luck and sorry to hear of your experience there.

Agree with both of the above! Let us know how Hilton responds, and hopefully you won't have to contest another 30K.

Cheers.

Wow. That guy deserves a punch in the mouth.

Wow. That guy deserves a punch in the mouth.

My immediate thoughts too - only plural...

I stopped staying at this property last year. During my last stay, the wireless internet didn't work the entire night. Calls to the front desk resulted in a "sorry, we know about the problem, nothing we can do." During the night, I could hear the toilet on the floor above me flush every time it was used and hear the water travel down the wall that the head of the bed was up against. In the morning, I went into the bathroom and there was no shower curtain. Called down and they couldn't get me into another room quickly. They said they would bring up a shower curtain right away. After 30 minutes, nobody came. I bid good riddance to the dump and never looked back.

Last week I stayed at the Hyatt Place off I-10 and Huebner. Staff fell over themselves trying to serve the customers. Will take my business there from now on.
drnp

I agree...stay away from this one...stayed there once, never again...much nicer hotels in the area for the same price.

And still no response to my complaint - other than an obligatory "we're forwarding this to the corporate office, you'll hear from them in 3 days" from customer relations. It's now been 4 days since I got that - and 6 days from the complaint.

My guess is that neither Hilton nor HHonors cares.

Time to escalate, methinks.

And still no response to my complaint - other than an obligatory "we're forwarding this to the corporate office, you'll hear from them in 3 days" from customer relations. It's now been 4 days since I got that - and 6 days from the complaint.

My guess is that neither Hilton nor HHonors cares.

Time to escalate, methinks.

I would suggest calling in to Guest Services (call HHonors and ask to be transferred)...although even then, you should probably not expect much. I had a recent situation where the property was not responding, went through the crud you listed above and finally had Guest Services offer a "be our guest" cert to replace the bad stay. About a week a later I get an email from the same guest services rep stating he will now not be sending the cert, but no explanation why. Call in again, talk to two different people who have no idea why the resolution changed and asked the original rep to contact me, which never occurred of course. It appears guest services new tactic is to delay and dishonor promises as long as possible hoping the customer will eventually go away.

I'll post the emails later.

Basically, the hotel claims that they didn't walk me, that they let me go at my request (which is an outright lie). They likewise don't acknowledge that their policies don't conform to their posted policies, nor do they acknowledge ignoring the HHonors "Expeditied Check-In". They're putting the employee on an "action plan".

No compensation (not even the customary covering of costs for walking me) other than an offer of a "discounted rate" at the same hotel if I stay there again. They think it's good enough to just not charge me for the night, despite the fact that I couldn't match the rate or room type elsewhere.

In other words, Hilton and HHonors is worthless.

Next steps? My choices are ignoring it, concentrating my business in Marriott and Starwood - dropping Hilton, filing a fraud complaint with the local district attorney, or pulling together & distributing via internet a Powerpoint (ala "You have a very bad hotel" that was done when someone got screwed at the Doubletree Houston a few years ago....)

Portions of the post that previously appeared in this space have been deleted. I would provide you with a reason why, but doing so would likely be against the TOS.