Starwood Preferred Guest - Hotel lost a package UPSed to me

So I had a package overnighted to me, and it was signed for by the hotel, I asked for it they had no idea where it was. I had to go to Europe. I asked to forward it to me in Athens, and contact me.... I even called the next day. Never got it, I went back a couple times weeks later.. I am told it was returned to sender. Finally a manager calls me and says that they sent it to Athens, and it was there and he would retrive it. I have yet to hear back from him. It has been a month. I have had to spend a substantial amount of money because of this.... No one seems to know the situaion or what to say. I am a regular here.... Any advice? Should I escalate to the GM? I purposely stopped in that city and burnt points to stay there to get my package with no avail. Any advice here?

Any advice here?

Why don't you use Fedex? :D

More seriously, I've walked several times passed UPS bins that had been left alone on a sidewalk by a UPS delivery person while he/she was making deliveries in a building.
I could have just reached into the bin and picked up packages for myself. Never seen it happen with other carriers though.

I know it's not what you asked, but maybe another carrier would have made sure you got the package in hands.

Any advice here?

They received the package and signed for it. In an increasing number of Starwood hotels, they would have even charged you a fee for the pleasure, had they not lost it.

I would deal straight with the GM of the property, and firmly but politely insist that he needs to take responsibility for his people's actions and reimburse my out-of-pocket expenses. Depending upon the magnitude of the inconvenience, I would also tell him or her that I expect some number of Starpoints for the hassle.

Who gave UPS permission to hand this package over to a hotel employee? This guy is neither your proxy nor did he/she have p.o.a. to sign for it. Assumingly not "the" hotel signed for it, but "a" somebody. And I do not want "a" somebody to have my deliveries.

. . . I do not want "a" somebody to have my deliveries.

Maybe I'm missing something here -- isn't that the nature of the beast when you have something shipped to you at a hotel? They sign for it and either deliver it to you or hold it for your arrival?

I've never had UPS or Fedex attempt to track me down at a hotel.

I had something similar happened to me. UPS tracker said it was signed for by a "Tom" at the hotel, and they could not find the package. Since I stay at the hotel week after week, I checked with them every week and finally someone took the time to go to the back and came back with it. It took about 3 weeks after it was initially signed for that I got the package. Oh, and the hotel said they won't charge me for the trouble I went through.

It is regrettable that in the first instance the hotel misplaced your package the moment you wanted it. There are examples of small service failures every day. Many of these find their way to FT with some demand of compensation.:rolleyes:

Having the package forwarded to another address was inviting trouble. Changing one's schedule to intercept a package (doing the work of hundred of thousands of UPS, DHL and FedEx employees who work with sophisticated systems) was simply foolish.

Last week I had two packages delivered via UPS from the same shipper to the 4Points Washington DC. They arrived the day before my arrival, and were signed for by the manager. The next day when I checked in, they could only find one. When I got up to my room, I tracked the package which was missing, and according to UPS it was refused by the recipient the day of my arrival. Now I am not sure who is at fault, most likely it just sat in the wrong pile, and was picked up by ups.

My problem comes with the Manager who I spoke to. I told him, I really didn't care what happened or why it did, but I just wanted to ensure that if UPS delivered it again, they would accept it. He wouldn't leave the idea of laying blame on UPS alone, and actually got very confrontational. The fact that he was about 8 inches and 100 pounds larger than me didn't help, but I actually thought I was going to be thrown across the lobby.

When that pleasant experience was over, UPS said when the shipper (Zazzle.com) received the package back, they would forward it to wherever in the world I wanted it to go, at UPS's expense. When I let the shipper know of UPS's plans, they went ahead and reprinted my order and sent it out at their own expense to Canada.

Bottom line, someone somewhere made a mistake. It was definitely not the shipper, could have been the hotel or UPS, but everyone but the hotel went out of their way to rectify the situation.

FTR the 4Points Washington DC does not charge for package reception, whether you get your package or not.

Just this week I had a replacement cell phone next day’d to me from the US via UPS... It was held up in customs (according to the ups tracking status) for 2 days before finally being released - I had since left the property and was at another starwood property about 40 miles away... I left my info with the front desk and then when UPS attempted delivery - they said "Mr. TD_IN_TRAINING has relocated to hotel X" the UPS driver was like "hey no problem! we'll redirect the package there"

The package goes back into the truck, and the next thing I see on the status tracking on UPS.com is "Customer will pickup package at UPS facility within 5 days"

ahhh, no?

I contacted UPS and they said they can’t reroute, so I told them to deliver to the hotel as planned, and called the hotel and asked them to receive the package and re-ship it to me.

The package was fedex'd next day and arrived at the hotel I'm currently at yesterday morning.

I'm very grateful for the front desk lady who saw the whole thing play out... she really owned the issue start to finish and I'll certainly send some feedback to the GM of the property.

All in all I’m very happy the hotel worked as my proxy, proactively, even though it delayed my receipt of the shipment… I can certainly understand the OP’s frustration, but if the hotel wasn’t there to sign, how on earth would we receive our packages?