I want to be able to give out good information to some of my hotel guests in the future...
Last night, one of my guests took a private sedan from the hotel down to the airport for a flight. He left 3 hours prior to his flight (a 45 minute drive, so 2 hours for airport procedures, possible traffic). Well, there was a tanker truck accident (with subsequent truck on fire) that shut down the highway for hours. All traffic was stuck - it was in a canyon and no exits or way to turn around (the East lanes are set higher up on the hillside than the West lanes). Traffic was back up for over 5 miles. His father asked me if there was anything we could do. I told him to right away call Delta and say the son was stuck and to ask about the "flat tire rule" and get him rescheduled for today. He did that - after being on the famous "no status" phone line for over an hour. Agent said "sorry, not our problem, your fault." I told him to HUCA - he did and this time (after another hour of wait time), was told the son MIGHT be able to get partial credit to use for a flight tomorrow, but then the phone call was dropped. He called again (after another wait) and was now told that, since the son has now missed boarding time, he was out of luck. I had the dad tell the son to get on Twitter and contact @
Delta for help. I'll find out when I get to work today how it turned out.
For future times, what is the best thing I can tell a guest if something beyond their control is going to cause them to miss their flight? What good "official" verbiage can they invoke to help their situation? It's hard for some when they are away from home and feel just lost.
thanks in advance for any suggestions.