DJ_Iceman

I agree with those are basically saying this is terrible luck but just one of those things in life we deal with and move on. Asking for additional compensation from the hotel seems greedy and unnecessary.

AlwaysFlyStar

Were there no empty rooms on other floors that they could have given you to let you at least sleep or something? I mean, some things are hotel's fault and some things aren't. While the fire may or may not have been their responsibility, the way they responded certainly was.

GlobeTrekker

I'm not sure how this is a design flaw of the hotel. A guest started a fire and the hotel's alarm functioned as intended. The open stairwell and/or HVAC system cleared the smoke in 30 minutes. What else did you expect the front desk agent to do at that time of night, besides perhaps offer rooms on other floors?

Travelbug97

Wow! No bugs here.

The hotel's plan for dealing with smoke on the top floor was to open a door at the ground level and wait for it to clear. That is what made the process take so long. No windows in the entire hotel open. Someone asked them if they could break a window, but no one could get ahold of the GM to see if it was okay. The hotel contributed to the length of time we were unable to use the room.

I never said I was asking for the entire amount, but I thought the 1,000 seemed low.

Travelbug97

The total process was around 90 minutes from the first alarm. Our floor was the last cleared to go back. And the smell was still bad. We just had no choice but to sleep in it at that point.

Rasmus3s

These situations really suck, cos as others have said, you can't really blame the hotel. They might have been able to clear the smoke faster, but how much would that have changed. A truly service oriented hotel would have comped the night for all the affected guests, but since this one didn't I wouldn't ask for anything more than what was offered, and just accept the 1000 points. We have to accept that some hotels go beyond what can be expected of them and that some don't.

Just accept the situation and stay somewhere else next time.

If you really want compensation go after the person who started the damn fire.

jeffandnicole

This seems to be a pattern for you. I don't recall any situation where you don't believe you should be given anything less than what you paid.

jerry a. laska

If the fire department was on scene then the hotel will not be in charge of clearing the smoke the fire department will. The firefighters will also be checking each floor for CO levels and will only allow people back in when the CO levels are at safe levels. As for clearing the smoke and CO, using the stairwells is a common way for firefighters to clear smoke for a multiple floor commercial structure. Smoke rises and concentrates on the upper floors. You open the stairwell door at the ground level and then you clear each floor one at a time by opening the stairwell door for each floor and one window or other egress on each floor or the roof hatch or access in the other stairway. For a cooking fire contained to the stovetop the fire department may use an electric fan that would be placed in front of the door to create positive pressure (an electric fan is preferable in this situation, but a gas fan can be used although it will add some CO to the building, which will then require a little more airing out once you turn the fan off).

It sucks if you are the person woken up by the alarm due to some other guest's negligence or lack of attention. But you are wrong to think that there is some magic design element that will clear smoke and more importantly CO immediately after a building has become smoke charged. That said, if the hotel was going to offer something I think 1000 points is a little on the low side.

StayingHomeIsBetter

Forget the arcane issues related to hotel design and smoke venting.

I would be a lot more concerned about what appears to be too glib a response from the front desk.

Or, for that matter, why the alarm stopped alarming the first time, if there was enough smoke exiting the room to be visible in the hallway.

sannmann

The inability to vent smoke out is one shortcoming of many commercial buildings in the United States. Blame insurance costs and the unusual crazies that threaten to jump out of windows for this architectural shortcoming.

xtremeski2001

In my 734 nights at a Marriott I've been exposed to several fire alarms during my stays. Most of the time I didn't even receive acknowledgement from management - no apology. The one time I did get a note under my door I wasn't offered any points. For what it's worth, I've had it happen once at a Hilton, too (to stay on topic).

I've accepted it as part of travel, but it sure would be nice to get some points.

I'm not sure which was worse. 2am alarm in the middle of winter and outside for 15 minutes in New England or a 6pm alarm at the end of my day that last for just over 2 hours (they couldn't find someone to fix the defective detector).

Pjh104

Happened quite often at the Caledonian in Edinburgh when I first started staying there in 2007 or so. Seeing Sean Connery looking disheveled and grumpy wearing a plaid dressing gown was compensation enough.

Eujeanie

There is a BIG difference between a false alarm and an actual fire. We all just chock up random alarms to "oh well" once we know everything is ok, what happened to the OP was quite different, having to not only deal with being displaced from his room but also having to deal with the smell of smoke for the rest of his stay.

kimikoftokyo

Oh you are dealing with Hilton. Typical. I remember when Starwood gave me all my points back because the room was dirty and they had no other rooms. You should atleast gotten half back. You did so much staying/flying to earn them. It was a huge inconvenience. How about free room service ? Anything but a 1000 no way.

Amicus

I lived at an upscale Hilton resort property for about 10 months (last year). In those ten months . . . life happened!!!

Maybe ten nights (average here: once a month), the fire alarm went off. Sometimes, it took an hour to get the "all clear."

Maybe twenty nights, we had no hot water whatsoever. Maybe ten nights, we had no running water at all. NONE.

Maybe ten nights, we had no electricity, said power outage lasting perhaps two hours or more each incident.

Several times, we had very noisy neighbors in adjacent rooms that kept us awake till the wee hours of the morning.

In all of those ten months, NOT ONCE did we ask, nor did we expect, to be "compensated" for the inconveniences listed above.

Stuff happens. That's it. Boilers break, and so on.

At no time did we think Hilton was somehow negligent or at fault for not properly maintaining their property, because we were constantly aware of the employees' presence in the hotel.

Ever since our experience in living in the same Hilton for 10 months, my perspective has completely shifted . . . to sum up, life happens and why do some folks always feel entitled to compensation for every little thing.