SkiAdcock

Yeah, there are 3 potential scenarios, which I mentioned above (now formatted to make it easier reading).

* Did you already have your luggage at the hotel & they wouldn't give it back to you unless you paid for the booking? That would certainly be an issue.
* Did you want to briefly leave your luggage there even though you canceled the booking? Not fun if they said no, but understandable & not unique to the property.
* Did they hold to the formal cancellation policy (ie, charge you) even though your flight was impacted by the emergency in your country? That's within their rights/T&C, even if not empathetic.

The OP is presumably on a flight & we might not hear back until tomorrow or so. I also agree that the difficulty understanding the original post probably has a lot to do w/ English being the 2nd language.

Cheers.

jimrpa

I think one of the earlier posters hit it on the head - the OP is a native Spanish speaker (duh) and his English isn't as polished as some might like (goodness knows my spoken and written Spanish are awful). I've read the post a few times from that perspective and from the perspective of someone who is away from their home while their home is going through a natural disaster (for the Americans from the Northeast, think about "superstorm" (I hate that word) Sandy). What I'm reading is that essentially, the guy was simply asking the hotel to cut him a break on a pre-paid stay and they refused. Seems pretty hard-hearted from my perspective, but then, I wasn't there and I didn't see how the case was presented. Anyway, the OP is doing what any number of us would do after what we would think is a bad customer experience - going to a forum and posting about it.

SingaporeDon

OP had asked someone to leave a parcel for him st the hotel, now the hotel would not release the parcel unless he paid up for the stay.

The

travelswithmyself

Yep. This is my reading of the situation too.

OP booked a flight to Thailand through Amsterdam because he needed to pickup something in Amsterdam. From the way it's written I'm guessing it was something to be delivered to the hotel.

He couldn't make it on the date booked due to the reasons given, and he communicated this to the hotel prior to arrival through his Ambassador.

The hotel refused to release his "belongings" unless he paid for the room.


I'd like to know:
. did he tell the hotel that even though he was not coming, that a parcel or item was going to be delivered to the hotel in his name?
. did the hotel respond to this and how did they respond? Did they already state at that point that charges were due, and that it would not be a simple handling fee but a one-night charge?
. and if they did say charges were due, did he negotiate beforehand or did he just show up and hope that they would waive the fees?

Also:
. did he try to cancel the delivery of that item, or redirect it, and was that not possible
. and how big was the item - if it was a simple letter I'd have expected the hotel to be a bit more accomodating but if it was a huge carton then...


Personally, I'd have explained the situation to the hotel, tell them I still needed the item, and then negotiated a once-off handling fee. Of course I'd have hoped that Plat 100 status would have gotten me a waiver of any fees, as a once-off of course, due to extenuating circumstances. But it would have been up to the hotel.

eefor jfp

I'm also confused. How do you book a non-refundable stay but not pre-pay for it. In other words, how does the hotel force you into paying a rate by withholding your property) that should have already been paid? Or am I missing something?
I also sympathize with the OP facing (either in person or vicariously through family and friends) a natural disaster in his home country, and wonder if the hotel might be more accommodating (while at the same time noting that rules are rules and they don't have to be).

UKTraveller4Fun

Have to say I was wondering the same thing!

While very hard to judge due to the understandable language barrier but the fact the Op posted a picture of someone to the thread does make me wonder how he was during the conversation with the hotel.

Did the OP ask his Ambassador in a nice way to approach the hotel about cancelling and not being charged or just cancel online and then expect the hotel to not charge/refund. If it is the latter I must say I tend to side with the hotel, to just expect rather than approach the hotel saying you realise it is a favour and above and beyond is not the right way to do things.

itsaboutthejourney

Exactly. And why not let his Ambassador handle this?

Sheraton AMS is one of my favorite hotels and they have been very accommodating with my travel disruptions in the past.

mahasamatman

Non-refundable and prepaid are not the same thing. Some prepaid rates are refundable, and some non-refundable rates are not prepaid. I've had many non-refundable rates that were not settled until after the stay (which can be annoying with currency fluctuations).

SkiAdcock

Agree.

On a dif note & just curious (legit question) - are Ambassadors available 24/7? If the OP's situation happened when the Ambassador wasn't available it would have to be handled after the fact, which probably wouldn't help at time of situation even if ultimately resolved way after the fact.

Cheers.

cruiser9999

A disaster in another country is not the problem of the hotel. The hotel is fully within its rights to ask for payment and this I am confused about as was a credit card not used to guarantee the reservation (and as such there should be no issue re the hotel being paid). Now most credit cards these days have cancellation insurance so why would trhis person not go back to their credit card to get reimbursed? (I have done this in the past and have always been reimbursed... now I needed to provide substantiating documentation as to why but this should not be difficult). There are some parts of this story that don't make sense.

estnet

And you know this is true for credit cards issued in Peru - How?

joakgarp

Standard global terms.

Out of my Element

For those interested in helping the OP, do note that:


Last Activity: Mar 20, 17 8:10 am

S/He posted and hasn't come back to read any help, etc. Sure, s/he could have come back without being logged in, but if s/he was looking for help s/he'd have replied in the 6 days since posting.

IMHO this was just a rant, hopefully s/he's feeling better now and things are going better for him/her

Keyser

i agree....i would be surprised to see the op back here....

craigthemif

The owners of FT should set up a sister website called FlyerRant for all of the one-and-done posters who are looking for empathy / a place to complain.

A complaint from a long-time FT member can be quite useful but most of the time I just look at the post count before offering anything to the thread.