GoCanes
Oct 28, 08, 8:35 pm
I booked several months ago a 2 night / 3rd night free promotion with SPG for my honeymoon in Italy at the Hotel Eden in Rome for a Deluxe non-smoking King room (all fully prepaid). Today for some reason, the reservation was changed to a deluxe smoking room with a queen bed.
I called reservations and an agent told me he could fix it. He successfully changed the room type but managed to lose our promotional rate and the price increased almost 500 euros for our three night stay. I immediately called back to reservations who told me I had to contact the hotel, which was not a problem, but also said that unfortunately this was now at the full discretion of the hotel. I asked what that meant and I was told that the hotel could "reject" the change and I would be on the hook for the new increased cost reservation even though I already paid for the previous room in full.
I requested that SPG provide a guarantee that I would have my correct room rate regardless. I was told that reservations could not make that, but corporate customer care could. After a couple supervisors and unsuccesful transfers, I finally got a customer care representative who began the phone call with a major attitude and began the conversation "I understand you have made numerous changes to an unchangeable reservation and now you want us to force the hotel to honor a 2 night / 3rd night free promotion!" I was completely baffled by this initial response and that it was completely wrong.
After trying to bring this representative up to speed (the correct version), she told me that customer care would not take responsibility or guarantee the room rate that the reservation agent changed because I requested the change to a non-smoking room. I explained that the original reservation was non-smoking and the hotel obviously changed it and then the reservation agent just messed it up completely. But she did not seem to care and told me this is solely between me and hotel and that customer care can do nothing to force them to honor the original reservation that got changed by the reservations agent. How can this be? Am I going to get completely worked over for this?
We are leaving next week for our this trip, our honeymoon, and I am not budgeted to pick-up an additional 500 euros for our hotel in Rome. Any suggestions on what to do please let me know. I have an email in to the hotel so hopefully it will be rectified by the hotel, but if not, it seems like corporate customer care wants to leave me high and dry!
I called reservations and an agent told me he could fix it. He successfully changed the room type but managed to lose our promotional rate and the price increased almost 500 euros for our three night stay. I immediately called back to reservations who told me I had to contact the hotel, which was not a problem, but also said that unfortunately this was now at the full discretion of the hotel. I asked what that meant and I was told that the hotel could "reject" the change and I would be on the hook for the new increased cost reservation even though I already paid for the previous room in full.
I requested that SPG provide a guarantee that I would have my correct room rate regardless. I was told that reservations could not make that, but corporate customer care could. After a couple supervisors and unsuccesful transfers, I finally got a customer care representative who began the phone call with a major attitude and began the conversation "I understand you have made numerous changes to an unchangeable reservation and now you want us to force the hotel to honor a 2 night / 3rd night free promotion!" I was completely baffled by this initial response and that it was completely wrong.
After trying to bring this representative up to speed (the correct version), she told me that customer care would not take responsibility or guarantee the room rate that the reservation agent changed because I requested the change to a non-smoking room. I explained that the original reservation was non-smoking and the hotel obviously changed it and then the reservation agent just messed it up completely. But she did not seem to care and told me this is solely between me and hotel and that customer care can do nothing to force them to honor the original reservation that got changed by the reservations agent. How can this be? Am I going to get completely worked over for this?
We are leaving next week for our this trip, our honeymoon, and I am not budgeted to pick-up an additional 500 euros for our hotel in Rome. Any suggestions on what to do please let me know. I have an email in to the hotel so hopefully it will be rectified by the hotel, but if not, it seems like corporate customer care wants to leave me high and dry!