Originally Posted by
Baze
I have turned down an upgrade. Was Hilton at London Heathrow. Traveling with my sister we booked a room with 2 queens. When we were checking in they smiled and said we have upgraded you to an executive room with 1 King. I politely said thank you but that won't work. My sister and I don't want to share a bed. Took them about an hour to get us back to a 2 queen room and they apologized.
I can confirm that I have had exactly the same experience - for me it was in Hilton La Romana, an All-Inclusive Adult Only Resort, and it was also an award booking. Of course I had noted down our preferences as part of my reservation and also emailed the hotel in advance, however why read emails ... When we arrived (around 9pm), they wanted to "surprise" us with an upgrade, which of course did not work, so I politely but firmly told them to sort it out. The room type we had originally booked was fully sold out for this night, so they offered us to stay for free in the "upgraded" room for just one night (they would have credited back the points to my account) and then they could move us to what we had originally booked for the rest of the stay - which I turned down as well. To the hotel's credit, they recovered from this brilliantly - they had a room that was an upgrade of three categories above what we had booked and had just been vacated a couple of hours ago (6pm late checkout), so they called back some of the cleaning staff, made the room look like new in no time, a supervisor inspected it and it was ours for the entire stay of 3 weeks. The whole thing took roughly 1.5 hours, which we spend in the lounge - I could not have been happier with the outcome, and of course rewarded the staff appropriately.
I have also had cases turning down upgrades in other geographies without even having to provide reasons (e.g. Dubai), so I fail to be convinced why your situation is so different ...
Originally Posted by
shimps1
I don't mean to be xenophobic, and I'm sure it's my problem, but when trying to explain a situation like this to an AI in Mexico, I don't think it would work out. I can speak a little spanish and typically am very patient, but I don't think I could explain why I don't want this "upgrade" very clearly over the phone. The language barrier can be significant.
You are not painting a very positive picture of yourself with this to be honest ... In a destination like this, which is as touristic and as international as it could get, invoking the language barrier as an excuse is not serious. I mean, even in France, where they refuse to speak English, even though they fully understand what you are saying, I have had no issues managing much more complex issues than an undesired room upgrade. After all, if you are that risk averse and cannot resolve the situation to your complete satisfaction, just cancel the booking and choose an alternative hotel to stay in.