Originally Posted by
DistrictOfColumbia
Booked, via BAAH, a Marriott Property (prepaid) two weeks in advance in New Orleans (Le Meridien). I called the hotel to confirm reservation and provided BAAH reference number, my name, check-in dates, email, etc. and the hotel could not find my reservation.
Cut to several separate phone calls into and from BAAH and they have yet to resolve the booking issue. Based on conversations with the reps I have spoken to, there is some sort of liaison desk that interfaces with properties? and or Marriott and that desk is less than responsive for the reps. Should I have arrived at the hotel late night tomorrow as planned and not had checked with the hotel in advance, it would have been quite a bit of trouble trying to figure out accommodation.
Word to the wise - get a hotel/chain-specific confirmation number and/or call into the hotel ahead of arrive and make sure your reservation is valid.
In the end, everything ended up ok. The stay required
at least 10 calls into/from the AA Hotels Help Desk in the days leading up to the stay. On the day of arrival, the hotel still couldn't find the reservation using the booking codes provided by AA Hotels and one of their booking technology partners HotelBeds (more on that below). Ultimlately, the Hotel's local sales team had to call into both AA Hotels and HotelBeds to get everything sorted out. It made for a difficult reservation/stay.
AA Hotel bookings will sometimes will be driven through AA Hotel's partnership with HotelBeds (HotelBeds, based on their website, seems to allow local hotels and their sales teams to provide direct pricing to websites like AA Hotels).
I will avoid those types of reservations in the future.- Calls into Marriott and the Le Meridien ahead of travel were unsuccessful with regard to getting a confirmation of my stay.
- That prompted several call into AA Hotels by both me and the the Hotel trying to figure out the reservation that was placed via HotelBeds for AA Hotels.
- AA Hotels will then dial into HotelBeds help desk. In turn, HotelBeds then would eventually get around to making contact with the Hotel's local sales team (if there are not any representatives available at any point in this call chain, it will definitely result in delayed check-ins while they figure out the reservation).
- Given language barriers with AA Hotels help desk and the phone tree, I don't see how a reservation could be quick and easy.
- Should AA Hotels not be able to provide you with a recognized specific confirmations from the chain/hotel, cancel and rebook.
- AA Hotels will try and pass HotelBeds confirmation numbers (see notquiteaff post about that above) but the front desk staff (at least at Marriott and Le Meridien) didn't have access to the system? or what they referred (we tried looking up the three or four different codes via Agoda, Booking.com, etc. without success - they were specific to HotelBeds system is my guess).
- If something goes wrong day-of-travel and outside of local hotels' sales hours, this would be a pain (for cancelable reservations, I would call in post-reservation and as AA Hotels if the reservation was booked via HotelBeds internally).
How do you discern a hotelbeds reservation? I should have noticed a junk-fee charge that was included in the reservation confirmation (a $100 cleaning). Again no data points on this but it may be an indicator, when taking into account with a reservation at a major hotel chain, that AA Hotels is booking via HotelBeds technology. Upon check out that $100+taxes was on my folio and showed as a "wholesale agent booking fee". Not a sure if this is a 100% reliable tip-off. I personally will never book hotels that indicate this type of charge as to avoid Hotelbeds.