Guy Betsy

I had booked an award stay at the Park Inn London Heathrow on Tue. But had advised the front desk at 5am Wed morning that I had booked another night using Points plus Cash as I was going to Stockholm for the day. The front office person updated my room key and said that I can stay in the same room and that it wasn't a problem.

I came back to the hotel at 7pm that night. I had no problem accessing the room since my key had been updated. I had the door knock whilst I was on my computer and it was housekeeping. She opened the door and excused herself when she realised I was there.

I changed and went down to the restaurant for dinner. As they sometimes do when they ask for my room number, they said, 'Strange, there's no one in your room' . But I said, well, here is my key and I was just up there.

Anyway, I sat, had my meal, paid with cash (didn't sign to my room as I didn't leave a deposit with my cc) and went back to my room, put a DND on the doorknob, locked the door and double bolted it. I don't want housekeeping walking in when I'm meditating. I unplugged the phone (since no one would call anyway), and had a shower and laid on my bed with my headphones on listening to meditation tones...

That's where things got interesting...

Whilst lying there in my bliss ... I suddenly heard a loud BANG.. and the room door was flung open.. and there stood 4 burly guys. One of them said, 'We were concerned'..

And that was when I got angry..

I said, do you not see the DND? They said, we called and you did not answer. I said, that I always unplug the phone as no one would call me anyway. Besides if the front desk wants to get my attention, they would leave me a note. Usually slid under the door when a DND is on the doorknob.

Then one guy blurted out, 'You didn't answer' and then he blamed me for not checking out and then in again. To which I said, that is not my problem since the guy at reception who gave me the key didn't do that and was at fault. And when I wanted to pay he said, don't worry, you're a Gold member, you can pay at check out. Since my key card worked , I didn't think it was an issue.

The guy who spoke was 'security' and the other guy was the duty manager. I didn't like their body language and I felt honestly, traumatised, so much that I couldn't get back to sleep.

I asked if they wanted me to pay for the room there and then, and they said no. They kept insisting that they were 'concerned' to which I said that other hotels observed the DND, and were more subtle about it.

What do you guys think?

Jaimito Cartero

Seems like they grossly overreacted. I'd certainly expect the stay to be comped.

Guy Betsy

Yes. If it was a case of 'non payment' they can lock the door and usually then one would go to the front office to fix this. Besides, there was no note, nothing. I didn't even get my welcome drink/snack/whatever as a Gold CC guest either....

Its not as if I was not around.. housekeeping cleaned my room, and my things are strewn about....

None of the any other Radisson properties or any other hotels in London have done this sort of thing in my opinion...

I'm waiting to flee to the comforts of the BA lounge now even though my flight is 6 hours away.

Guy Betsy

Update situation -

Just tried to speak to the GM. First hotel operator is good. She said that she would try to contact him.

I rang and spoke to hotel operator number two who said that first operator is on a break. and that she knows of the situation. Why? I didn't tell anyone. But apparently news has gone round the hotel .. they think that I tried to commit suicide! She said that they were concerned that there might be fire.. ... ?????

I lost it...(or at least losing it now)

First they can see when I came in and out. When there is a DND on the door, that's when I expect it to be honored. Otherwise what is the point of it?

I had a case once when another hotel couldn't get hold of me... and they emailed me! This one takes the cake..

The GM is apparently not around. And the #2 is busy.

Legal action?

ROKNA

I've certainly seen some hotels in Europe have a policy that a member of staff must enter each room at least once a day.

If I wanted to have no calls I would advise front of house to not connect callers to me.

I've been on the other side of having to override a door to get in as the person in the room was not responsive, not something you want to do, but false alarm.

Fleck

The melodrama is getting viscous.

writerguyfl

In the future, you may want to consider having a "Do Not Disturb" placed on your room phone instead of unplugging it. Simply dial "0" and ask the hotel operator for help.

A "DND" on the phone will block normal calls but still allows contact in the event of an emergency.

In every hotel phone system I've seen, the "DND" is automatically canceled when you check out of the room. That means you can't inconvenience the next guest like you might if you forget to plug the phone back in before you leave.

MSPeconomist

Having the DND on the hotel phone usually only blocks incoming outside calls that would go through the hotel operator. Hotel staff should see it and not call, but they certainly can. More importantly, IME it doesn't block in house calls from other hotel rooms. At least I was unsuccessful when I tried to use it this way to block calls from a bunch of drunk hotel guests who thought they were being funny in the middle of the night. [The hotel can't trace such calls either and in my situation the room number where the call originated didn't show up as caller ID on my room's phone either.]

I don't think the OP stated the time at which the "forced entry" occurred, although it seems to have been after he returned from dinner in the hotel's restaurant.

If the restaurant had told me that my room was marked as unoccupied in the computer, my instinct would have been to phone or visit the front desk to check that everything was OK. I wouldn't want to risk another guest being given the key to my room or having housekeepers come in and pack up my belongings.

In this case, I wouldn't be pleased about hotel staff gossiping about what had happened. The operator should not be commenting to the OP that someone had assumed that he was suicidal or had a fire in the room. Plus, if everyone knew what had happened, why didn't the GM or the assistant manager on duty contact the OP?

BTW, any policy about entering once a day shouldn't apply here since the OP had two separate one day reservations and was apparently seen by a front desk agent in the middle.

writerguyfl

It depends on the phone system. Where I used to work, the "DND" blocked everything except emergency messages that were being sent to every room simultaneously.

Guy Betsy

Update :

I managed to get hold of management #2, just below the GM. Had a nice chat with her whilst she took some notes.

Finally she began to see the overall picture that it was clearly the hotel's fault - or rather the duty manager who didn't acknowledge that there was a DND sign on the door, and that protocols were not adhered to, eg leaves message via phone, or note slid under door and more importantly when the duty manager was accompanied by several other staff when they forced the door open it was at 11pm !

She also acknowledged that comments such as ' we wanted to make sure that there was no fire' was ridiculous as that was what the fire detection systems were for, but besides which, the operator was out of line since the situation did not involve her and that she assumed that based on rumours on this case.

She offered the following compensation for my inconvenience - the stay would be complimentary (but as I later learned, they didn't charge me for the cash portion but the hotel took the 5000 points anyway), and that she'd offer 40K Club Carlson points.. and she'd cover my lunch (should I decide to have it since I didn't get breakfast), and to contact her personally on my next stay.

All of which I accepted (except the next stay bit). And she again apologised for the goonish behaviour of her staff. I thanked her, had my free lunch (but tipped the waitress) and checked out at 2pm. By 7pm , 40K points had been deposited into my Club Carlson account.

tangey

I've never had a hotel tell me my hotel room was marked as un-occupied, I'd be checking why that was.

This turned out to be a wrong assumption. As you've found, the hotel might indeed want to speak with you, for things they *think* are urgent, and which will otherwise result in the door to be broken down. Rightly or wrongly, if you'd had the phone plugged in, this wouldn't have happened. Then again, you would imagine that before shouldering in the door, they would have pounded on it repeatedly in case someone was a heavy sleeper, if they did and you didn't hear, would you hear the phone ring ?

They knew someone was in the room (it's locked from the inside). They knew (or thought they knew) that the room was unallocated. They knew that the phone was not being answered.

The rest of your account, door be barged down, fake excuses etc seems like a totally weird over-reaction by the hotel.