I Recently returned from a stay at the Sheraton Denver Tech Center…

After reading the posts on this group, I booked three club-level, atrium rooms for my team. These rooms, which feature larger atrium windows, are $10 over the club rate, but I wanted to take care of my team as this was going to be a working trip etc. While waiting to check in, I heard the clerk tell the guest ahead of me, “Sir, we have you upgraded to 1032, one of our atrium rooms on the club floor.” “Lucky him,” I thought.

When it was my turn, I gave the clerk my name and mentioned that we had reserved atrium rooms on the club floor. Her response was a curt, “I’m sorry, we usually only upgrade platinums to those rooms and anyway we are completely full up there.” After explaining that we had reserved these rooms weeks ago, I produced a copy of my reservation. Clerk looks at it, shaking her head disapprovingly, and says “This must be a mistake because we never sell these rooms, you must be a platinum to stay there”

Me: “Well, your website certainly sells these rooms”

Clerk: “What website, we do not have a website”

And so forth. Short story is that as a full fare paying guest I was downgraded against my wishes—a first in my travel experiences.

Other problems include:

• Even though the rooms were preauthorized on a corporate card, the card I presented for incidentals was authorized with a temporary hold for $700. When I complained, requesting that the hold be lifted so I had access to these funds, I was diverted repeatedly. After 6 calls to three different people, the matter finally appeared settled.

• Upon checkout, I found out that the above matter was certainly settled. In this case someone had apparently gone in to my portfolio and simply comped the room charges rather than actually fix the problem. While this would be okay in theory, I needed two of these nights as part of the stay 5/1 weekend night promo. So…

• I find myself holding up a line of guests, begging the front desk clerk to manually enter my room charges on the portfolio software, when she says “Let me help all of these people check out and then we’ll can see if we can do anything for you”

The entire flight home I kept pinching those around me to covinve myself I really hadn’t slipped into some sort of netherworld.