GUWonder

Service recovery points can be billed to the hotel property if Corp/HQ wants it. Whether it happens or not in this particular situation is an open question. I’m pretty sure that Hyatt has eaten the expense at times instead of charging the property for goodwill gesture points given by Corp/HQ, but it can go the other way too.

SamOF

I'm confused by this. I don't think the OP said he was a prince—he said that he booked a hotel through a chain where he had contractually defined status benefits, and those benefits weren't delivered.

When I'm traveling, I will often choose a Hyatt for 4pm *guaranteed* late check out, and that's often because I have a video call for work or somesuch from 3-3:30pm. It's not about being important, it's about driving $$ to Hyatt properties in exchange for the benefits they must then provide.

It would have been extremely easy for the hotel under the same ownership to provide those benefits, when they were the ones who messed this up.

MarkOK

I think for the most part, everyone is quite in agreement that -in the end- the OP ended up being treated quite alright -- The OP has made this clear as well.


The pertinent thing( worthy of 5 pages (so far)) is this - Is this particular hotel a bad actor in that they are walking guests to a hotel they own while STILL charging guests. Not everyone is buying the system glitch excuse (I don't buy it, but sure, that is a speculative argument right now). Regardless of the possible intentions/errors, none of that excuses the fact that this hotel owner was seeking to charge walked guests. Labor shortage, system glitches, post pandemic travel surge -- none of that excuses that behavior. I am not going to be understandable regarding the owner's problems of having a full hotel (and possible problems of getting employees accepting their wages) and agree to pay for a night at the hotel I was walked to.

I also think there are issues with the customer being globalists -- If you buy the glitch argument and this hotel was just overwhelmed, then it isn't as relevant to this case, I accept that, and maybe we should be clear to discuss that as an external argument to this particular case. I do think globalists have every reason to think they should be given some reasonable protection from walks. We should expect and get the rooms we reserved (or an upgrade we accept) and arrive however late we get there and still have that room ready for us. Hotel loyalty is still a two way street. If I am always staying at Hyatts, even if that means driving out of the way, paying slightly more, accepting something less, etc., I do indeed think that I should be given some high consideration when a hotel is filling up their last rooms.

((Imagine if American Airlines gave no consideration to their ExecPlats when a plane is oversold, or a group of passengers needed rebooked, or they are clearing an standby list etc. They'd just clear whoever showed up at the gate first. There were bloggers complaining just last week about clearing standby lists -one hour- early for low-occupancy flights because it may mean an Exec Plat has less of a chance to walk up at the last minute and be cleared into a choice seat ahead of the riff-raff. I've said it before and I'd say it again, I've always found FT to be rather peculiar -- There is a small but to me quite noticeable disparity in how much the top elites on airlines both expect and often get in hard and soft benefits vs the riff-raff -- those threads are often tens of pages long of people up in arms about relatively odd ball issues --- while complaints by hotel top elites are often much more cautious to begin with, and don't take long before there are people who make arguments to "expect and accept less" because stuff happens, the industry is hurting, you aren't that important, etc.))


Last thing, regarding the 'other people's money' comment -- If I don't show up to a hotel, my employer will not under any excuse pay for a hotel night I didn't use.

sethb

That was a little before my time. (I'm not older than dirt, though I did used to babysit his older brother.)

sethb

I don't understand. I show up at the Hyatt. I get walked to the Hilton. I don't pay either hotel. How does the owner make a profit?

Now, if 90% of the people walked pay one hotel or the other, then I see how the owner makes a profit on them, enough to cover those of us who know the requirements.

GUWonder

The owner may still improve the owner’s aggregate financial position by doing so, for there are opportunities to do so between the tax situation for the owner and the debt convenants applicable to a property’s financing.

GrayAnderson

There's also room to profit if the walked-to hotel sells breakfast (which would have probably run me $15 or a bit more...the breakfast sandwich was $7 and any drinks were more), wifi, etc. but the walked-from hotel doesn't. Some folks will stumble into that sort of thing.

But the key calculation is "How many people will care and chase the issue. If it's like 10%, it can be worth it. If it's like 50%...not so much.

Edit: And of course, there are also possible differences in franchise agreements and tax effects from profits/losses.

(I had lunch...a cup of she crab soup, salad+salmon, and sweet tea ran me about $30 after tip...but the soup was some of the smoothest she crab I've ever had. I won't say it was totally worth it, but the meal wasn't a horrid deal on balance.)

CIT85

If I read the OP initial post correctly, the front desk at HP walked him to the Hilton and said Hilton will honor the quoted rate, meaning OP was expected to pay the Hilton for the night. Owner makes profit when guest pays at the Hilton.

A non status guest may consider the Hilton (Curio) to be a higher end property and he/she is only paying the HP rate, if they did not insist HP pay for the night.

jayer

A few more from my former days of near-constant business travel, all but living in the same small handful of four-star airport hotels. (Meaning I was on a very first-name basis with with everyone from FDC's to GM's, and got to hear a whole lot about what was going on at the properties).

1. There are Globalists Light who are barely over the qualification line (my current situation). There are run-of-the-mill Globalists. There are Ultra-Globablists (who are on an operative but unstated higher rung just by sheer number of nights), even if there is not an "official" category for them. Then there are the hotel-specific most-frequent guests (which I was). If the room inventory collapses, then some Globalists (Diamonds at that time) are more equal than others. (Usually working my example backwards).

That much travel was depressing, but it was nice walking in out of the rain off a very late airplane and being treated like returning royalty. It was fun getting called to the front of the line by name, while they tried to find arrangements for oversells and displaced passengers.

2. There are certain surprise guests, like stranded aircrews, that have contractual "must accommodate" priority.

Finally, thanks to writerguyfl for posting from experience. Several of the staffers I referred to became my friends and treated me well. IF they knew you and trusted you they would vent about feeling caught in the middle when they could not pull another room, let alone an upgrade, out of their hat.

hotturnip

Why did you say in your original post that you paid the same rate at the other hotel? You got me all outraged for no reason.

So the Hyatt Place DID perform the walk correctly. In that case, you got lucky with the extra compensation.

A couple of things: I don't know where people are getting this idea that there was some "glitch" in the Hyatt reservations system that caused this, and thus the hotel was not at fault. FAR more likely is that the revenue manager at the hotel just forgot or neglected to cut off availability. Somebody actually has to do that, you know. Also, being a Globalist is irrelevant. The hotel will not hold a room for the potential arrival of a Globalist later on when there's another guest standing at the desk waiting to check in. It's first-come, first-served.

Except . . . when I worked for Hyatt, they had Courtesy Card holders. These were personal friends of the Pritzkers. There were only a few hundred of them. You had to give them a room no matter what. We were told that you were supposed to eject another guest if necessary (which was illegal in the state I worked in), but fortunately it never came to that. The CC holders I met were super professional and easy-going, and always booked well in advance.

sethb

That is what the hotel wanted. But for those of us who know the rules (e.g. Amex Guaranteed Reservation), the situation I suggested (no payment from the customer to either hotel) applies. So I guess it mostly depends on what percentage that group is.

GrayAnderson

The walk was ultimately performed correctly. I do not believe the hotel is the one that did so. What has ultimately happened has been correct (the posted "cost" of 2500 points has fallen off [those points are back in my account] and a no-cost/no-qualifying-night stay has posted), but it isn't what the front desk clerk said was going to happen. Mind you, he might simply have been assuming I'd booked with Hotwire or something (I know OTAs can get into inventory "glitches" like this because the systems aren't synced).

I had another brief call with an agent tonight (the night posted with $0 spent [fine] and no night credit [not what I was told that night], so I wanted to chase on that...I won't be bothering further [they're doing a check given how things shook out], but Iwanted to at least touch on that question]) and they went to great pains to check and make sure that I wasn't billed. My read, based on the front desk clerk's comments that night, is that the hotel was planning to simply "reallocate" my night between hotels and Corporate intervened pretty hard both to cut off inventory (the person on staff that night said he couldn't do so) and to get them to knock off the rest of the (apparent) nonsense. Note the "We're out of space" call I got after I'd checked in at the other hotel. The fact that Corporate didn't say "No, he misspoke" and was quite...borderline livid but fully in control, if I read their tone...does suggest that there were some real issues beyond a bungled inventory entry (they noted that, and I paraphrase, retraining was going to be needed) and that the call between our two calls was not terribly pleasant. Then again, I also got that from the call I got from the hotel, too...

(Also, I think they still have the Courtesy Card...but it is mostly for hotel owners and some super-big spenders at this point.)

LondonElite

I’m not judging, but there is no way I would have spent more than five minutes of my life on this. I got a bed, I slept, and I moved on. Two months later I wouldn’t have even remembered the event.

writerguyfl

You're welcome. I was in charge the Front Desk of a "flagship" chain hotel at night for several years. There were quite a few frequent guests that we all very fond of because they treated us with respect. That leads me to this...

Not all of our very frequent guests were members of the loyalty program. Many people simply didn't care. Our #1 repeat guest stayed with us 4 nights every week about 46 weeks every year. He did that for a little over 2 years. He never joined the program, no matter how many times we suggested it.

He would win any match up against a top-level elite level guest in terms of upgrades or getting the last room.

I've also disclosed this on other threads: If the choice was to walk an elite level guest or someone visiting our top corporate client, the elite guest would get relocated. (We always paid the penalties as described in the program terms without the guest having to ask.) That corporate client provided between 35 and 40% of our annual room nights. Keeping them happy was critical.

GrayAnderson

quietly makes a note of these two comments taken together as to part of why the hotel probably still had space showing as available three to four hours after they sold out

Honestly, in certain respects I see that as "part of the problem" (the initial call to Corporate did take more than five minutes). Mind you, I don't think there's a universe I don't complain when I'm (dismissively) walked at a chain where I have more than "baseline" status (i.e. Hyatt Discoverist, Marriott Silver, etc.) and I've booked through their system. As I said earlier, a situation where the clerk was apologetic and there was a compensation offer in place probably averts the call to Corporate...but even that doesn't totally dodge the issue if the website is still showing space (since that is an issue, though whether it's an GIGO problem, a system hiccup, or something else is not my problem), though in such a case I am far more likely to tell the guy at the front desk (and only call if they're apparently uninterested or say they can't fix it).

Edit: Also, I'd like to shout out to writerguyfl for his nuggets here. They've actually been quite enlightening...and truth be told, they all make perfect sense.