Modifying a reservation - prevent a rate change - help please
 

Hi everyone... I am mostly a lurker here on FT, but am posting today because I'm hoping to get some help and/or advice. (maybe from HHonors Representative ?

Booked a reservation at Doubletree Suites in Austin, TX many months ago for this coming week, Sept 17-21. A few weeks ago, I realized my travel plans for this week might change, shorting my stay. I'd only need the room from Sept 18-20. I called the regular reservation line, was helped by a very friendly associate and she confirmed there would be no rate change if I made the reservation.

I was very careful to make sure she saw the hotel was virtually completely booked and any new reservations were priced at $375+ per night. (My original rate is $200 per night). It is a big college football weekend in Austin and most hotels are at or near capacity. She confirmed with me several times if I had to change dates and shorten my stay, there would be no rate change.

So last night I got confirmation that my travel plans were changing and I had to modify my reservation. Called up reservations, first agent said a rate change would be applicable. I asked him to check again, he put me on hold, 3 minutes later we were disconnected.

I called back, spoke with another agent, he said the same thing. I asked to me transferred to a supervisor, talked with him and got the same story. They all offered to put me in a "nearby" hotel (over a mile away, which isn't convenient because I do need to be in downtown Austin).

With both agents and the supervisor, I clearly explained my previous call a few weeks ago and they could not explain why that original agent told me a rate change would be applicable.

So... any thoughts my friends? Am I out of luck? If I cannot get the reservation modified without a rate change, I'll likely just cancel the whole thing and book a place on AirBNB. Lots of availability in the downtown area around $200/night.

Is this an issue worth emailing [email protected] for?

Thanks in advance for help and feedback!

Go for it. The Doubletree will readily and happily find somebody else to pay the $375/night rate over the football weekend that you find challenging.

This is what happens when reservations get modified - plane tickets, rental cars, and hotel stays get repriced.

Call the hotel directly and talk to the front desk, see what they can do.

Neil

Call the property directly.

Ask for the front desk and make sure you are not referred to the general Hilton reservation call center which cannot make such changes (without repricing). Basically, the call center can not do anything that you could not do online yourself so pretty useless in this situation, whereas the property can and most likely will remove the nights without a reprice.

Thank you SK AAR and missamo80! Calling the hotel directly worked. The staff member who answered the phone fixed my reservation in less than 30 seconds without any issue. Kinda embarrassed I didn't think of this solution myself, haha.

The bolded items are the reason for the change in response. Hotel availability and rates change dynamically. I'd bet that when you called a few weeks ago, there was no problem changing your reservation. But, things changed and last night that was no longer true.

Hotel availability and rates (aka revenue management) are hotel-level decisions. As others wrote, the only way to get help is to contact the hotel directly. Wait until "normal" business hours and call the hotel: 512-478-7000. Ask for someone in the on-site Reservations office.

Since the original reservation was for 4 nights there very well could be a rate change over the 4 nights. Shortening the stay could raise the AVERAGE rate but not the absolute rate each night. In this case the Hilton and the OP could come away with completely different understandings of "no rate change".

Front desk is always the way to go for stuff like this, especially when you're nice to them. Glad it worked out!

Neil

Now, the Front Desk agent who said "no problem, I'll change it for you" will get an earful from Revenue Management when they see that ;) I've worked both sides of that equation and there are two different mindsets at work. The FDA just goes into the reservation and changes the number of days or dates and clicks through, ignoring any boxes about rate changes. In Revenue Management and in-house reservations, we ALWAYS re-shopped the rate and that was what you would now be charged for adding/deleting/shifting a stay. Monday mornings I hear plenty of swearing in Revenue Management over things that Front Desk did over the weekend.

You lucked out this time. But, you were correct to contact the hotel directly. Since it is their bottom line, they will be the the ones who feel the loss/gain of that action.

Sadly, you are mistaken. Here is the pudding: I have booked a stay at an Embassy Suites for 9 nights on an AAA rate. Lets say, for simplicity, from the 1st to the 10th of a month.

Price (1 night x 149.00) 149.00
Price (1 night x 204.00) 204.00
Price (7 nights x 193.80) 1,356.60

That makes a total of 1709.60, and an average price of 189.96 per night.

I try to remove the very last night (staying from the 1st to the 9th). I'm being told that there are no rooms available.

When I remove the last night AND the first two nights (staying from the 3rd to the 9th), it works. However, the price PER NIGHT goes up to $355. For six nights, that makes a total of $2130!

As you can see, the nine nights stay is 50% longer, includes three more mornings with hot breakfast buffet, yet the TOTAL price is 20% less.

Now I wonder what happens if I arrive on the 1st, leave on the 9th and call on the morning of the 10th to "check out".

This happened to me at the Palmer House in CHI - I booked Sun-Fri at a great rate something like $169 a night on the EXE floor. I later realized that my flight Fri left at 0500 from ORD and decided to cancel 1 night at the Palmer and stay at the ORD Hilton instead. I called HHonors, no go the rate went from $169 a night to something like $350 + they said no rooms were available, same thing on the internet. I just went to the front desk when it was quiet on the 1st day of my stay and they changed it in 2 seconds.