SBT

Two months ago, I booked a four night stay, October 31-November 4 at the Holiday Inn, Long Island City, NY using points. Wanted to make another reservation for December and the web site showed no availability. Called IHG and was told the hotel is now closed due to the Corona Virus. Had I not checked, I could have shown up with luggage only to find a hotel locked doors. Question, does IHG every notify guests with a confirmed reservation that the hotel is now closed?

Often1

In ordinary times, it seems prudent to check reservations once in a while. Now, with perhaps 75% of the properties closed, I would presume that a property is closed unless I can expressly verify that it is open with a call to the front desk (not a reservations center.

Joe Flyer

I just had a stay booked for a Crowne Plaza that was closed. I booked it maybe 2 weeks prior? When I called after arriving and seeing the entire front was boarded up, they rebooked me into an Even Hotel nearby. Got there and that was closed too! An hour and two customer service reps later, I was finally able to check in at a Kimpton. I just made another booking and called before hitting the final button. Sure enough, they are closed too. Called my second choice, another Kimpton, and thankfully they are open. IHG needs to do better! Even their own employees can't keep track of what's closed and their website obviously isn't updated. It shouldn't fall on the customer to do the legwork on something like this.

flyertalker28120

Your guesstimate is waaay off. It's 5% of IHG hotels that are closed as of the end of July, not 75%.

Breakdown: 3% in the Americas, 16% in EMEAA, and 1% in Greater China are closed.

sdsearch

Just because it's that percentage in some general area doesn't prove that there isn't any "clumping", ie, many more closures in some specific areas than the overall average.

Just an example, in some hotel programs (I dunno if IHG), in Orange County CA in many areas hotels are open but with Disneyland closed down (along with the Anaheim Convention Center closed down) tons of hotels that mostly serve Disneyland guests and/or Anaheim Convention Center visitors are closed down for months until some of those things open to some degree. (For example Hilton is taking online reservations for the HGI and Hampton there, but they're closed, and your reservations are rerouted to the open Homewood. But at least in that case at Hilton the reservations for close hotels are rerouted automatically; that's one thing IHG could consider doing with closed hotels.)

So someone looking at hotels in the Disneyland area might see a might higher percentage of closed hotels than someone looking at wider area.

And if you look at Joe Flyer's post 3 just above, it seems he ran into about 75% closed whereever that was.

sdsearch

Do you mind mentioning where this was? Obviously, that's a higher percentage of closed hotels than average, wherever this was.

Thanks.

flyertalker28120

Alternative facts? Why come up with some subjective numbers when IHG published objective statistics less than a week ago?

The OP was about a hotel in LIC. Most IHG properties in NYC are open. Most IHG properties in NY state are open. Most IHG properties on the East Coast are open. Most IHG properties in the USA are open. Most IHG properties in the Americas are open.

So what are you implying? Is anecdotal evidence from a single guest supposed to be more insightful than official statistics?

With Disneyland closed, I'd conjecture few people are looking for an hotel in Anaheim. Crazy?

Joe Flyer

My experience was in NYC actually. At a quick glance on their website (which obviously isn't accurate per my experience and the IHG rep's experience trying to find my replacement hotel), I see 14 open and 7 closed. When I booked my upcoming room, it is for DC. Their website showed the hotel I was first interested in as open but alas when I called, they were closed (and still no reply via the email on the recorded message).

flyertalker28120

Two out of three open is consistent with my statement "most IHG properties in NYC are open", don't you think?

And that 14 out of 21 open is below the national average. Not so surprising. I'm hearing Manhattan is pretty much a ghost town. Many offices are still closed. And tourism is way down due to entry restrictions for international travellers and quarantine requirements for domestic travellers from many states.

stimpy

Both IC's in New York are currently closed.

u600213

Report: Dozens of homeless men relocated to Downtown Brooklyn's
https://nypost.com/2020/08/21/de-bla...e-hotel-rooms/

From the NY Post article:
"Friday afternoon, The Post observed four yellow buses drop off more than 40 vagrants with their belongings in trash bags at the Hotel Indigo on Duffield Street, where a sign on the front door read that it “cannot accommodate reservations” for guests and redirected those with reservations to a nearby Sheraton hotel."

NY Post is not my preferred source of News but whatever.

Nothing on the Hotel website:
https://www.ihg.com/hotelindigo/hote...id/hoteldetail

ehallison

This is happening all across America. You can do a web search on the Mark Hopkins IC in San Francisco (try "Mark Hopkins Homeless") for a high profile case in CA. Even in tiny Couer D'Alene ID, I'm pretty sure that the Staybridge Suites is providing housing to homeless veterans - what's unusual about the CdA case is that the hotel is also open to paying guests.

stimpy

That is a shame. That was one of my favorite hotels in SF. Now I can never go there again. But I probably will never go to SF again anyways.

Faethepit

Have a booking at a hotel in Milan in early September.

E-mailed hotel on 17th August to find out if hotel open– no response.

Checked IHG website and it appears that hotel is closed and does not open up for business until the day after I arrive in Milan.

Filled in IHG Customer Care form on 20th August – no response.

Phoned IHG Customer Care on 24th August and was advised that I could cancel and re-book to another hotel however I would have to pay for new hotel and refund for original hotel would be in vouchers which is no use to me. After discussion I agreed that I would contact the hotel (IHG Customer Care gave me same e-mail address to contact hotel as used before) on basis that I could book another hotel in Milan for one night and then check into the original hotel a day later and sort out refund on site for night not stayed.

E-mailed hotel today to confirm if they were open the day after I arrive in Milan – no response.

Called hotel 4 times on Skype and once on Mobile Phone today. No answer and disconnected on each occasion.

What would the readers on this forum do?

mymyles

i have a reservation at a Holiday Inn Express IHG hotel in durango for october. it was supposed to open labor day weekend (Sept), but when i checked the site (and called) it says it wont open til November 15 now. My online reservation is still on my IHG account when i login though, like nothing is wrong, as if the hotel will be open - although clearly it wont be..smh.

NO notification at all from IHG that this hotel won't be open when I get there. I have proactively reserved another hotel, but if I had not checked on my own, I would have no idea that "oops, we're not open yet" when i get there, based on the communication from IHG. Pretty poor service.