I am a HHonors member, and stay with the properties somewhat frequently. I had booked seven (7) rooms for this past weekend for a bachelor party in New Orleans. We stayed at the Waldorf Astoria (WA) / Roosevelt on Barrone St.

I had made these reservations in May with the group sales department, who basically knocked $15 off each rooms (not very much). The total due for all rooms was approximately $5,100. This amount was to be paid upon check-in.

When I signed the group sales contract, I wrote (and had the sales rep initial) that I would pay for all rooms and tax, but that each room would need to put their own credit card on file for incidentals (which was $300 per room). This was also confirmed to me in email from the rep. Unfortunately, this note was not followed, and became a huge point of stress and aggravation :

When the first room checked in, WA took one guy's card for the $300. They also charged my debit card $300. Because I used a debit card (instead of credit card), the $300 was actually taken from my balance, and was not a simple authorization.

To compensate for the WA error, I asked them to simply charge me $300 less on one of the remaining six (6) rooms. Instead, they charged my $300 MORE on one room, then realized the mistake, did not void it, and then charged be $300 less TWICE. Basically, I was sitting with an extra $1,200 missing from my checking account.

For some ridiculous reason, three (3) WA front desk employees could not understand the mistakes and how to reverse them. After literally 3 1/2 hours, from 5:30AM-9:00AM on Friday morning, and after putting WA on the phone with my bank, they finally fixed the problem. For all of Thursday night, I had to embarrassingly borrow money, as I did not get paid until the following week.

WA eventually offered me 10,000 points for the mistake, which they claim will post in 4-6 weeks. My question is whether this was a fair compensation. Did I receive too much or too little? Not only was I extremely embarrassed, but after a 5 hour airport delay, this was the last thing I needed.