griffingrowl

I'm curious to see what others would do. Stayed at St. Regis Bangkok and had dinner with two friends at Jojo Italian Restaurant.

My friend was doing the wine selection in the $40-50 price range. She asked about three different bottles and was told they were out of each one.

So she asked for some suggestions and settled on one.

Unwittingly she had selected a $120 bottle.

Big surprise when we got the bill.

mahasamatman

I suggest taking responsibility for your actions. You (collectively) chose the wine, you pay what they charge. Next time perhaps you'll check the price before blindly ordering.

controller1

Your question is "what would you do?".

Well, it appears a bottle of wine was ordered without asking about the price. Buyer beware!

I remember ordering a bottle of wine several years ago. All four of us remarked how good the bottle was, so I ordered a second bottle. When the check came I was shocked when each bottle was priced at $210. I asked to have the wine menu brought back to me. I looked at the menu and guess what...I thought I had ordered two $85 bottles of wine from Bin 210. You know what happened!

I paid the bill with no argument and it's a great story now.

KENNECTED

What is the question? Based on what has been written, sounds like the person who requested the bottle didn't inquire about the price.

Other than this happening at a St. Regis, what does this have to SPG program or Starwood?

griffingrowl

I did take responsibility (what a peculiar choice of words you made).

griffingrowl

Indeed, and I of course paid the bill. The issue for me is that we asked for a recommendation in the $40-50 range and because we didn't think to double check that the recommendation met every one of our criteria we got something unexpected.

I was more curious. I think we can end this topic here. There have already been a couple of snarky replies (not yours). FlyerTalk used to be such a helpful and friendly community.

KENNECTED

Flyertalk is still a great community, but it appears you want answer to a question, that wasn't asked. When posting to internet community forums, you'll get varying replies. Some you'll agree with some you wont. Many you'll learn from, may will add no value.

In addition, a better place for this "question" might have been FlyerTalks DiningBuzz forum.

3Cforme

That may be true.

I'm going to side with the OP on this one: it was bad form for the sommelier to suggest a $120 bottle (without mentioning the price) when he had initially received requests for bottles in the $40-$50 range.

mahasamatman

Which you neglected to mention in the OP.

The way you phrased your question, it appeared you didn't feel you should have to pay, and my response was to that interpretation. You obviously came here for some sort of vindication that the water did something wrong, and I'm sorry, you're just not going to get that here. You can only expect help if you don't have a preconceived notion as to what kind of response you want.

It all depends on how the question was asked. Just because the first choices were in that range doesn't mean the customer is limiting themselves.

PTahCha

Yes it's bad form, but they are also there to upsell where possible. A well-trained wine professional would have mentioned the price to avoid any sticker shock, particularly if it's off the list. However, it seemed that the OP's friend still had the wine list in hand, so she should have checked as well.

Buyers beware.

jibi

No offense to others who are posting about "buyer beware," but hotels overcharge for wine by hundreds of percents. In my experience, a $12-15 bottle of wine usually has a $35-50 price tag at a hotel. As a customer, if I asked for wine recommendations from the waiter AND specified my specific price range to him/her, the recommendations should have been in that price range. If he/she mistakenly provided a recommendation well above that price range (although realistically in that price range), the restaurant should take some measures to either point out their poor recommendation before pouring the wine or reduce the charge for the wine on the final bill (or after if I disputed it).

To the OP, I would look at it from a financial margins perspective and ask for the bill to be corrected. They will not lose any money from the sale short of a 100% (or more) profit. I would even look up the wine and vintage (as sold in that area) to ensure you point this out to them when asking for your compensation. Explain the situation in detail to them and I'm pretty sure they will make things right. While you could have prevented this by looking up the wine on the wine list to validate they are telling you the truth, the simple reality of that kind of situation does not allow this to happen. If I ask for a recommendation and set my parameters, including price, I am usually in the process of handing the menu back to the waiter and accepting their recommendation. This is part of the service industry that should transcend a normal goods market (and this is the primary reason you'll pay 200-300% extra for a bottle of wine ... poor recommendation = poor service = crappy reason to even think they deserve that extra 200-300% markup).

Some of you are a bit on the light side when it comes to accountability... while I'm not a DYKWIA kind of person (I'm actually quite timid), I believe that people, companies, and company representatives should be held accountable at their jobs.

If I was not accountable in my job, my company could potentially lose millions of dollars each hour and millions of people could be affected. If a medical professional was not accountable in their job, people could potentially lose their lives. If a hotel restaurant waiter is not accountable in his/her job, they should be allowed to sell a $120 bottle of wine to a customer when they asked for a recommendation three times less than that? Yes, that makes a lot of sense.

Land-of-Miles

If the OP asked for a wine within a price range and received a recommendation that was more than double the top of that range then he has cause to gripe. Personally had that been me I would have kicked up a fuss (or had a quiet word) when the bill arrived.

After the event your leverage (i.e. refusing to pay more than $50) is gone. The ideal solution for the OP here was to pay $50 and he should have insisted on doing so, this would still have given the hotel a profit. I would also have withheld any element of tip for the wine cost (why reward the waiter for his duplicity?).

After the event you can only hope for a goodwill gesture if flagging it up. I still think it is worth pursuing though to ensure that perhaps the staff responsible receive appropriate feedback.

3Cforme

It is ridiculous to suggest a customer should hunt for the price on the wine list (the depth of which the OP does not identify) to confirm the suggested bottle was consistent with the choices that were out of stock.

If a guest is nothing but a subject to be fleeced, the sommelier offers no value. There are norms of commercial conduct - although I'm certainly going to watch my wallet the next time I'm in Vancouver.

Land-of-Miles

The added nuance here is that in Bangkok wine prices can be absolutely crazy so you can easily find a fairly mediocre bottle of plonk costing quite a lot of money. Careful selection is really important. It isn't like say somewhere else ordering a Cotes du Rhone and being offered say a Chateauneuf du Pape. Wine ordering is always a tricky business in Bangkok even when half the wine list isn't missing

Often1

There is no reason to hunt for anything. The Sommelier was apparently standing right there. When he said, "I recommend the XXX" you ask the price. If it fits what you are pleased to pay, you order it. If it doesn't, you repeat that you are looking in the $40-50 range and ask again for a recommendation.

Ordering wine at a restaurant is a game. The customer wants the best wine he can get for the budget he has and the establishment wants to upsell and is betting that most people don't have the guts to ask the price.