Jon Maiman

I agree if it wasn't just the hotel that lost power, then no compensation is due. Furthermore even if it was just the hotel, if some major piece of power equipment failed, it would still depend. If the hotel has been doing proper maintenance including periodic preventative maintenance on all of their equipment and systems, I would write it off to stuff happens. E.g. even with the best of efforts sometimes things fail or go wrong.

On the other hand, if the hotel is poorly maintained and this failure would have been preventable with proper maintenance, then compensation is indeed due. It will be very hard to impossible to tell if the property is truly doing proper maintenance. So only thing you can fallback to is your impression of the general upkeep of the property. If it is decent, I would give them the benefit of the doubt and not ask for compensation. If the place is poorly maintained in general (e.g. run down, dirty, etc.), then continue to push for compensation.

Finally, regardless of if the failure was within the hotels control, they certainly should have apologized. Also some small token gesture to recognize the inconvenience the guests experienced would be appropriate. It sounds like your initial interaction with the staff was sympathetic but the manager reversed course and didn't follow through. That is unfortunate. Manager should have been at least apologetic. One nit, perhaps you could have worded your request to the manager differently. E.g. The nighttime staff indicated hotel management would take care of us for the inconvenience caused by the power loss. What did you have in mind?

--Jon