Mr. Vker

There's another recent thread where a hotel was offering confirmed rates of $1/night. I think they were new or opening after major overhaul. So, this rate is not impossible-though highly improbable.

Star_Guy

Tanic

You mean this wasn't their Welcome to bonvOy rate?

Repooc17

On the same night, there is a Fairfield property in Manhattan with lowest member prepay rate at $881. More than Chatwal, and not much less than SR.

mahasamatman

The FTC and common sense both say yes.

joeags

You get 24 hours to cancel a reservation that you've made without any fees or penalties.

And really classy putting all of the personal information up for that individual.

Star_Guy

porciuscato

You can also tell him he writes a decent opera! ;-) That couldn't be his real name, could it?

yeunganson

Under common law used in North American courts, there is a reasonableness test. Will a reasonable person seeing $3 per night in New York consider it a mistaken fare. If it is more likely than not, a reasonable person thinks it is a mistaken fare, then I think one can get out of the deal. Just like if a night of hotel of a regular room shown to be 9999 instead of 99.99 and you thought it was 99.99 and booked it, the hotel more likely than not cannot hold you to the reservation.

There are situations where the hotel will need to accept the deal. W New York when launched had a botched nightly rate of like sub $100. It's low enough that people believe it is a possible promotion but high enough that a reasonable person can't say it is obviously a mistaken nightly rate. So the hotel ended up honoring all reservations. At that time, lots of SPG flyertalkers flew to New York just for the hotel grand opening week and had a blast/short vacation.

I think if the rate was say $30 instead of $3, the Marriott Time Square probably would have had to honor it.

mikebor

Exactly. And I asked the GM of the current hotel I am staying at tonight about this situation. She told me that hotel SHOULD honor the rate and she would as a GM if her property had published a rate in error. I tend to agree actually and that email from the AC General Manager was conveniently sent AFTER I left that voicemail for him. He probably received my voice message, realized they didn't communicate anything to all the people who booked the $2.00 rate and quickly created that email. I received that email around 6 pm EST and I left him a voicemail at 5 pm EST. He never called me back though.

Obviously there isn't really much I can do other than to try and convince him that they should do the right thing and honor this rate. The GM at my current hotel brought up an interesting analogy on the other side. She said, what if the hotel had mistakenly put a higher rate that evening of $699? And let's say 10 people booked it. Would they cancel their reservation like they did ours and say they couldn't honor it? I highly doubt it. This AC GM needs to do the right thing and honor that rate for the 1 night in error. That's my opinion at least.

KRSW

What a missed opportunity for the hotel! Charge it to marketing and call it a day... or at least come back with a deep discount and see if you can expose new customers to your property.

Repooc17

Most of you would have needed to position (and re-position) + incidentals = additional costs. Benefits: 1 night of credit and very little in points. Plus, NYC gets crazy that time of the year. Worth it? I am not sure.

MSPeconomist

fotoflyer88

Happy

Marketing for what? The locust who decent on the error rate? They may be better off not to have this kind of customers to "discover" their hotel. From its root (a Spanish chain) it has never been known for being generous just by how they meticulously distinguish their rooms down to whether the coffee/tea making pots are available depending on the rates booked... for those who are unwashed and think this is just another low end brand of the big Marriott "family".