I disagree. While you might think that absolving you of your responsibility under the contract of a guaranteed reservation is "customer service," I think otherwise. A hotel which gets people like you wanting to be let out of their contract will inevitably start to worry about those 3am reservations it is holding, and will soon start to conclude that it may be honoring its commitment to just someone else who will not show and then beg forgiveness. I want a hotel to know that my reservation is meant to be held, and honored, no matter what time I get in.

I wonder, if you had arrived and the hotel had given away your room, whether you would have accepted just a handshake and best wishes as you were walking out the door to find another place to stay, or whether you would be expecting the hotel to pay for your room elsewhere (which is the deal it makes with you when it accepts your reservation), or, even better, demand additional "compensation" for its failure. The rest of the traveling public is hurt when obligations are not met.

Maybe I was the guy who couldn't get a room at the hotel, and who was obliged to look elsewhere, just so you could not show up.

I prefer for entities I do business with to look on me as rock-solid, and I them. It gets me when people describe a hotel (airline, car-rental, etc) which rolls over and allows them to destroy the mutual trust and responsibility as giving "customer service." Give me honest, relaible and upright, without excuses, any day. I don't want to pay for your mistake.