shukris

Right on!

my 2c: The FT spirit is to take advantage of deals. That's why we're here. People who have problems with that shouldn't be on here at all.

karenkay

welcome to flyer talk.

maclover

OMG

I just saw on another thread about the guy how booked a full 4 months at the Conrad in Bangkok on the mistake rate.

I really do hope you'll never happen to drop your wallet on the ground while looking for your keys in the pocket... Because if I grab it first it's mine
it was lying on the floor after all, right?

Me, as person, do mistakes quite often. On work as on personal life. I really do hope not to encounter any of you on my way while I do a mistake or please, let me have at least funeral not circiling over my corpse as vultures willing to have any left piece.

I always appreciated FT help and the ability to share opinions and different points of view. I thought it was populated by person how enjoy travelling.
I'm looking forward to read on Hilton forum people start complaining about lack of upgrades at Conrad BKK because all of the suites are taken...
What's the spirit of a frequent flyer/guest community acting like this?

This is of course my point of view, but I can't really find myself to fit in the FT "format" after reading many of the above posts. And I don't kmow which type of consideration is getting this community in the eye of the travel industry.

maclover

edited to add: I hope I was clear in expressing my POV. Excuse me but I'm not a native speaker

FatManInNYC

I seem to have missed that post - I even tried a few searches. Can someone give me a pointer or a post range?

I see a lot of hand wringing about multiple booking and months-and-months of booking, but is there any proof or any Hans-type admissions?

stc

I'm getting the impression that this forum (and the equivalent Airline Forum) are different. I've only been subscribed for a couple of weeks, but I think I'm going to unsubscribe from these.

There is a lot of good information in other forums on FT about how to work within the system and get the most for yourself. Please don't give up on FT.

holtju2

Conrad Bangkok doesn't give any meaningful upgrades to Hilton Diamonds. For me meaningful upgrade is a suite.

vicarious_MR'er

Deleted my text because it posted twice for some reason.

vicarious_MR'er

I think here is the thread you're looking for. Disregard the first listing of who.what/when and look at he ensuing posts. Some of it is truly embarassing. The four-month booker is in there, as well as numerous others.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...8&page=1&pp=15

I have been surfing this topic since it began, and I must say I agree that it is destroying the FT spirit. It's one thing when a store/hotel/airline misprices something and you get a good deal on an item. It's the kind of thing that makes you smile and enjoy the item that much more. It's another thing entirely to seize on it and then play the entitlement game. Businesses in general are far more likely to honor the deals and give us that reason to smile if we behave responsibly, too. It's not unlike some stories lately about people being "banned" from shopping in certain stores because they either return 2/3s of what they buy or because they scour the store LOOKING for things to take advantage of. That's a whole different ball game than finding what you want to buy and being pleasantly surprised by a pricing mistake.

Sometimes I think people rush to book some of these totally random deals without ever truly having an intention to use them. That makes it much less likely that someone who truly WANTS it can have it, and also booking large numbers of rooms and cancelling them near the deadline screws the hotel even more than us actually taking the room at the error price.

In the Bangkok Prez Suite case, it being booked for four nearly straight months by an FT'er has likely sent some other far more lucrative customers (probably the type that also book many rooms for their entourage) to find lodging elsewhere. If the FT'er cancels even half of those bookings later on, then the hotel is doubly screwed: no high-paying customers AND no low-paying customers; just an empty room!

People need to stop making WEEKS and MONTHS of bookings for these things "just to keep their options open" and then cancelling. It reflects poorly on all of us. A little bit more decency on our side would go a long way.

Also -- just think, in some of these cases, the losses for the airlines/hotel could be so bad that someone might be losing thier job over an honest error. Is that what we're after? I don't think that it is. Think of the karma; it could come back in a big way.

ingy

When I spoke to the Nice Lady at Laquinta to confirm my one 3 day stay, she was very apologetic (sp) about the mistake and the cancelling of my one day add on. I in turn apologized for the behavior of some of my fellow FT'ers in hopes she'd let me in on what really happened. She was amazed and ashamed of the behavior of some people. Would only give one example of bookings in the 80's for number of room nites by one individual. Now, I got that second hand as I never saw the list, but the disgust in her voice and disappointment in our human behavior was clearly evident to me.

Looking at the Prez Do list in the community forum, Most people took a reasonable number of nights and a one time shot at this mistake fare.

But as always, there are a few "bad apples" that spoil the barrel and make us all look greedy.

When it comes down to it, "reasonable" and being able to live with oneself, it appears our group is mostly together.

I just wish we were ALL together.

tcook052

Let's leave the "ethics" debate for other threads. But back to the reasonable part; you're saying if I book one night that I know I will use I'm as greedy as someone who books months at a time, perhaps without any intention of using any of the nights booked? I beg to differ. Greedy is knowingly blocking large timeframes on a hotel rate mistake in the hope the management will offer some incentive or goodwill gesture to ensure something was gained from nothing. I'm with the OP on that kind of conduct being contrary to the spirit of FT.

tcook052

Further proof from a recent arrival that this board has changed much since I joined.

maclover

mostly you can notice that by lot of people posting just here or in the mistake airfare threads....
Most of them are long time registered users (some 4+ years!) and very little posts count (<50).
I guess their contributions to the community was just "how can I sue?" when a mistake was not honoured.

Being smart and knowing how the "system" works to get the best out of it, is in any way close to be sneaky.
I'm Randy and all the persons involved in the FT project, have a whole different idea on how this community should be (and act).

Happy sunday
maclover

karenkay

i was hoping someone who'd been here longer than i would say it better than i could--and you did, thanks. ^

having just seen in the other thread that someone did in fact book four MONTHS at the conrad, i'm embarrassed for us. it's one of those things where you are judged by the company you keep, and that doesn't make the rest of us look very good, i'm afraid.

i suppose you could argue, as some posters are, that anyone who takes advantage of a deal at all is unethical, but i think there are shades of gray. there's taking advantage of a deal and there's taking advantage. perhaps that's just because it's convenient in my case personally, but i think there's a world of difference. i was looking for a hotel in bkk for a few nights anyway, and was trying to find a good deal. i did. i'm going to be in thailand for almost a month, and suppose i could have booked the entire month there due to the great deal on the room, but that didn't seem right to me.

i live in houston. if there was a mistake rate at some fabulous hotel here, i might book a long weekend and spend it with my husband just for fun, which is something we would do anyway. ditto in some place we might want to visit. i would not book a month--or four--just to have maid service or whatever because i don't think it would be right. maybe the guy who booked four months in bkk would ordinarily be spending those nights in a hotel anyway, (he hasn't posted so we don't know) but i'm guessing he wouldn't. i know that i might spend a few extra nights in a cheaper hotel, but spending months there--when i'd NEVER ordinarily do that--seems greedy and just plain tacky, not to mention wrong.

derpelikan

i dont think that there is a difference.
we did book a deal which was a mistake , and even if you only book one night it is not the right thing to do.
anyway, it is human to assume that one night would not hurt the hotel as much as a + month booking.
on the other hand, this guy is staying for a long period, and he is paying each day after one month. the cost involved to him for staying in the hotel is much cheaper for the hotel than having 10 persons over a one month period in the hotel. the admistrative costs, complete cleaning of the suite if a guest checks out, in the end this guy is cheaper for the hotel.

and the longer you stay, the more money you are spending. i talked to him and he told me that he is using the different hotels services each day.
he is a LH HON and was staying in a hotel anyway for 6 month, so he was just lucky.

anyway, what about making a sticky , where we can sign up, something like FT booking rules for mistaken rates etc. something similar to the CC guide ?

1.) do not book more than 4 bookings
2.) do not make bookings which are longer than 7 days..

etc?

i would sign up for this and i am sure many others will.

dp

grayland

?????? Let me get this correct. You join 1 month ago and have a precise definition of "FT spirit"? You make a comment that long time members who disagree with you "shoudn't be on here at all"??

A very pathetic start.