SPG Customer Support - Shooting at hotel - how to handle such situation?
 

My family and I had planned a long-term vacation in San Diego from Nov 7th - Dec 2nd (25 days) at the Four Points by Sheraton San Diego. I had business matters to take care of down here, so we decided to make it a trip with all of us. There were 4 of us total (2 small children). Everything was fine the first day. We had a nice dinner at a restaurant up the street.

How quickly things changed...

We're only 1 night in to the reservation, and the next morning we are awaken to gun shots in the room a couple doors down. Long story short, we were less than 25 feet away from a murder suicide. You can read about it here.

Police wound up closing off the entire wing. The hotel wound up evacuating everybody in our wing from their rooms, and offered everybody replacement rooms. Since we were going to be gone all day, we chose to just leave.

As you can imagine, the situation was pretty traumatizing. We actually wound up checking in to a Hilton down the street. It is now the 22nd and we still haven't been back to the hotel. I filed a report with SPG customer service, and the hotel wound up calling me a few days later apologizing and saying they would give me 5,000 Starpoints. I was pretty offended they only offered me 5,000 Starpoints, given that I had a 25-day reservation and spent thousands of dollars with them, my kids were with me, I checked in to another hotel, etc. I was heading in to a business meeting, so I didn't really have the time to express that to the hotel rep on the phone, so I took the 5,000 Starpoints.

I contacted SPG directly over the phone the next day and expressed how I felt that was not reasonable. 5,000 Starpoints would only get me 1 free night at the hotel. They asked me how much I feel I should get, and I responded, "a substantial amount". They said they would contact me within a week, but it's been a week now and I haven't heard anything back yet. It is now the 22nd and I have wasted 15 days now.

And while I don't blame the hotel directly for what happened, I do expect them to have great customer support when dealing with stuff like this.

Right now I am a gold member, and was hoping to reach Platinum with this stay because I have extensive traveling planned in 2016. I would like to avoid receiving a refund because I need most of these nights to qualify (even though one was never offered).

For those with more experience than me, is 5,000 Starpoints warranted? Is that offensive? What should I do in this situation? I feel like I didn't handle it correctly by accepting the 5,000 Starpoints the first time because I was in such a rush to get off the phone. This guy apparently got 10,000 Starpoints for being cursed at. And while I definitely don't condone that, I feel my situation is MUCH worse. Not to mention I was told I would be hearing back within a week, and nobody has got in contact with me yet.

What should I do? Thanks for any and all suggestions.

Well here we go with the "action news" posting. [I guess this is a break from the Marriott Merger discussion]

Welcome and expect a wide array of responses!

To start things out when you called SPG, what did you expect to happen and what did you ask for? Those are two very distinct things.

Did you speak with the hotel MANAGEMENT instead of SPG? If you did, you do not mention that here. To me, this is a hotel issue, not an SPG (loyalty program) issue/situation.

You're asking us if it's "offensive"? Various people have different levels of "tolerance" so asking here in my opinion, is moot point.

Considering this is a murder-suicide, be blessed that you and your family were not injured or worse and move on.

Honestly I don't think the hotel necessarily has to do anything more. They did not cause this unfortunate event and still did something to compensate for it. If you think the compensation is not enough, then tell them what you think is sufficient and establish a timeframe for resolution.

"Being cursed at" is not comparable since that was the hotel's fault.

I would simply expect the hotel to relocate me and then move on, the hotel did nothing wrong.

To be honest, I was expecting 25,000 Starpoints or more. Is that too high to expect for a situation like this?

I did mention the hotel called me. You highlighted this in red yourself. I'm fairly new to the program, so I didn't know I should be dealing directly with the hotel and not SPG. So you're saying to just deal with the hotel, and not SPG?

We are very blessed to still be alive. It was just super traumatic.

What happened with the 25 days booking? you paid up for the one night and that was that?

I don't think the hotel owed you anything. They didn't cause the incident. I think the 5k StarPoints was a nice gesture. I agree that it is time to move on.

I'm sure it was traumatic, but they didn't cause it.

I've paid for the 25-day booking already - it was a pre-paid rate. They never offered a refund (assuming, because of it being pre-paid).

SPG is a loyalty program. That property is owned and managed by another party, Pinnacle Hotels.

This happened in a hotel and not the fault of the hotel (it's employees or management) or the loyalty program, so to answer your question - YES, you should have dealt directly with the hotel.

You say the hotel called you AFTER you contacted SPG, correct? I would have dealt with the hotel, first. Honest question, what does the loyalty program have to do with this?

Did you ask for a refund?

When you spoke to the hotel what did you ask for?

Based on follow up questions/comments. It appears you expected a lot without having clear and effective communication of your wants and needs with the hotel.

Are you still checked in at the hotel?

Are you planning to have the fact that you are still 'spending' 25 nights at the hotel provide for your Platinum status?

Assuming you didn't check out and are still paying for the prepaid nights, you will get whatever points you should upon checkout.

If you aren't interested in the points and status associated with the long stay... I'd have spoken to the hotel about the trauma and worked out with them a refund of the unused nights.

I'd only have turned to Starwood Customer Care if I was unhappy with the resolution over the prepaid nights.

I think you're entitled to a refund for unused nights and incidental relocation costs.

It may also be reasonable to ask for a small goodwill gesture of starpoints and/or achievement of the status you would have earned with the stay.

I agree with w2f. If you get your prepay $$ back, they have made you whole.

Since the incident is over, I'm not sure why you can't go back. I can understand wanting to be away for a day or two, perhaps, but it's not the hotel's fault this happened. I assure you, it's the last thing they want to happen.

Take the points offered and move on.
 

I think the hotel, which wasn't responsible for what upset you, has already been more than fair.

Cheers,

refund / zero cancellation penalty - not points

talk to hotel management, if no success with GM, then talk to starwood corporate, not SPG
KENNECTED mentioned the franchise manager and owner of hotel

after refund, you can status run elsewhere

Simple question - Did you, or did you not, approach the front desk to discuss cancelling the remainder of your stay when you elected (and quite rightly so) to move to another property, and by necessity, the refund of the remaining portion of the pre-paid reservation?

The question of 1. whether you requested a refund, and 2. whether the hotel accepted/refused, are very important background facts in beginning to discuss whether the hotel is being reasonable.

For the record, I personally don't believe the hotel doesn't "owe you" anything for the fact that the shooting occurred. They might provide assistance in finding an alternative property and/or provide gestures of goodwill, but the hotel would have had to played a role in the incident in order for me to expect anything from them.

+1

The hotel management should have arranged for a full refund of your stay, especially since you only stayed 1 night if I understand correctly. IMHO, you are not due any Starpoints compensation as other have mentioned.

Keep us posted, very curious to see if the hotel figures out that your pre-paid a lengthy stay.