arbitrage man

I am an SPG Platinum Member. Yesterday I called up the Platinum customer service line to book a room at a hotel for that night. The CS rep pulled up my account, then curtly informed me that there were no available rooms at that hotel for the night. I then inquired about a nearby hotel. He told me they were all sold out, too. Same for a third hotel. He then told me all hotels in the area were booked solid.

At this point I was suspicious. Every single hotel in the area showed availability for that night. When I asked him about it, he told me the online system was behind and had old information, and that there were actually no rooms available.

I asked him what would happen if I booked a room online and he said it wouldn't work since there was no availability it would be canceled.

The whole situation smelled wrong. I thanked him, hung up, and redialed. Then next rep to answer looked up the hotel and confirmed availability. I asked her to book three rooms. No problem. Out of curiosity, I asked about the other hotels. Every single one had availability - no shortages in the area at all.

I have booked over 200 nights at SPG hotels. Pretty much every time the Platinum Reps have been courteous, professional and friendly. This is the first time I have experienced such behavior.

Lurkers - what can be done about this? I don't know the name of the person who answered my first call, but I can send my account details and the exact time of my calls. Can you see who pulled up my account? I was told by the second CSR that all calls are recorded, so perhaps the call can be reviewed?

Has anyone else had a similar situation? How would you handle it?

Oxon Flyer

May or may not be relevant in this case, but we have had similar reports before :

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/starw...available.html

HHonors OUTSIDER

Probably Russian hackers trying to affect the outcome of your booking. I have seen this happen many times when booking on the app or laptop where temporarily zero availability in all locations. So that is probably what the agent was seeing on his end.

Starwood Lurker IV

Hi Arbitrage,

Thanks for reaching out. If you wish to send us an email, we look into this matter and share your concerns with the supervisor team for review.

Kind regards,

Alexandra Baker
Specialist, Social Media
Starwood Hotels and Resorts

[email protected]

cruiser9999

There is something funny going on here and it has to do with Marriott. I have seen this message come up a number of times in the last few weeks saying that there are ZERO HOTELS where I am looking BUT then a screen appears and suggests booking on MARRIOTT instead as they apparently do have hotels in the location that I am searching for. Seems a bit suspicious! Maybe the Lurkers can further look into this issue as it is more encompassing than originally reported.

KENNECTED

This issue was known prior to the merger or do you have something that proves Marriott is the culprit? Please see the Web issues thread for further info.

I'm surprised this thread was not folded into that thread.

Oxon Flyer

There's two sepatate issues in play, so we need to take care not to confuse them :
1) spg.com is reporting that there are no hotels in the searched location, and suggests Marriott instead. This has already been noted in the website problems thread.
2) In this thread the OPs reported issue is that, when phoned, the Plat Concierge was saying there were no rooms at the requested hotel(s), and that the agent was not courteous, professional and friendly.

deadinabsentia

Same in Vancouver the other day.. everything full... even hundreds of miles away...Called local hotel direct.. they had rooms. SPG.com just hadn't loaded them.

margarita girl

I would have done a BRG.

(Of course, that doesn't work for same night reservation.)

Kagehitokiri

also couldve been mistake by rep
(there are amusing stories on this)

TerryK

Sabotaging seems to be a melodramatic title for either a system glitch or ignorant phone rep misreading information.

Out of my Element

I used to have a phone number one digit off from a Hilton hotel AND one digit off from a Marriott (it ended in 000). When I got calls for reservations I always told them we were fully booked. I was not always courteous or professional, but I'd like to think I was friendly about it.

mikeyyz

LOL

Dr. HFH

Agreed. FTers see conspiracies everywhere, when most or at least many problems are innocent/inadvertent errors.

TravelinSperry

If you are online and see availability why would you call to have someone book it for you rather than click "book" and do it yourself? You simply open yourself up to human error that way. No need for it unless its some sort of special or complicated ressie.