writerguyfl

Points in lieu of a monetary refund is standard operating procedure for hotels with many business travelers. Refunding the money benefits the company paying the bill, not the traveler who experienced the problem.

mahasamatman

I don't think you do get that. You have thousands of properties to choose from.

Often1

The first thing is for OP to post the name of the property. There may be other experiences with that property by others and OP may find that it routinely gives 10K to those who whine to a manager.

So, post the name and then have the discussion.

tfong007

I would expect 10,000 points at a minimum. The hot water is really the main argument.

lilpisher

Agree with the others, that 7k (one free night) seems like a very reasonable response to the issues described. Unless the property has a repeated history of faulty water heaters, you need to chalk it up to stuff happens. If they have a repeated history, and its clear that they are avoiding the expense in fixing the water heater, then something more punitive may be called for.

John Aldeborgh

Keyser

7k points sounds reasonable....sounds like a typical airport sheraton....i've come across such problems at multiple old airport properties....just take the points & move on....

r415

Really? A full refund worth of points just for not having hot water? I'd say you're lucky you got that much. It's really not the hotel's fault you were late for your meeting-- you knew what time it was when you chose to wait for the water, and the professional thing to do for a business meeting would be to just suck it up and take a cold shower once it was clear you had no time left to wait. That part is really on you. Sure, the hotel might toss in a few points for the cold shower, but you're lucky they even gave you a full night.

tfong007

If I am paying 200 a night for a hotel room. I would expect the hotel to have hot water. This has nothing to do with sucking it up.

Whowouldanewman

I agree that the 7k seems like reasonable compensation here. Maybe refund the difference in price for the pre-paid breakfast. But, if it was me, I'm not sure how much time I'd spend pushing for that. I'd probably take the 7k and move on.

PointWeasel

I find your response a bit surprising. Hot water should is an expectation in a Sheraton, period.

Your response reminds me of a recent email chain with the FDM of the Sheraton Chihuahua, who thanked me for my loyalty and after 3 back and forth emails, offered 500 Starpoints for my inconvenience.

Needless to say, I opened a CCS file to have the issue addressed and some retraining. The property never bothered to reply even to Starwood and as a result...5K Starpoints charged to the property as compensation plus a little more thrown in my the Starwood Plat Supervisor. I would have been fine with 2K Starpoints, but the property played games and was stingy so...

Oxon Flyer

Well yes, hot water Is a basic expectation at a hotel but it can fail, irrespective of the cost of the room.

We’re discusing what is reasonable recompense when it does fail.

It’s not quite clear to me how or why the lack of hot water caused the OP to miss their breakfast and also be late for their business meeting, so thats an open discussion point too.

Spent_All_My_Miles

Huh? OP was being strung along by the hotel as to the timing of the hot water returning.
I would have cut my losses and simply moved along or sucked it up with the cold water.
But still, hot water should work. Not working and the hotel not having its act together to provide an explanation ... 7K points seems reasonable.

yosithezet

r415

Presumably, you should be able to determine the latest possible time at which you can still eat breakfast and make your meeting on time. One would think a rational actor would, regardless of how many times the hotel said 5 more minutes, stop waiting and go eat breakfast at said time (and/or take a cold shower), so you would not be late for your meeting. If you need to leave by 6:30, it really doesn't matter the hotel says hot water will be ready at 6:35, even though it's only five minutes later, you still must leave by 6:30 to make it on time. If you choose not to, then you shouldn't be surprised that you are going to be late. The cold water is the hotel's fault, but your failure to leave when you're supposed to is certainly not. It's not like the hotel tricked you and reset all the clocks to be five minutes slow.

If you want to get really crazy, you could actually go eat breakfast while you are waiting for the water to be fixed...

Don't get me wrong, the lack of hot water is annoying/not what you paid for and there should be some compensation, but in what universe is it fair to blame the hotel for you being late for your meeting, because you chose not to leave on time? This reminds me of those drivers you see in Los Angeles who think it's perfectly acceptable to, from the right hand turn lane, get all the way into the intersection, stop in the intersection, and then suddenly decide they have to turn LEFT across four lanes of traffic, rather than just going around the block like a normal person, because they don't want to accept responsibility for not getting in the correct lane to start with.