Drop in hotel rate-hotel refuses to adjust
 

OK, at this point this is more of a theoretical question, since I have taken care of things on my own terms, but I thought I would bring it up here nonetheless.

Several weeks back, I made a reservation for the Concorde Hotel in Surfers Paradise, Australia at the rate of A$175 per night, via their own website. The reservation itself could be cancelled without penalty until 72 hours before the check-in date. Yesterday, I noticed that the exact same package I had reserved had dropped to A$140 per night, so I emailed the hotel asking if they could adjust the rate on my reservation.

This afternoon, I received the following response from the hotel:

Now, immediately after I received this email, I used my superior computing prowess to go back to their web site, make a new reservation at the A$140 rate, and cancel my old reservation without penalty.

Am I wrong in feeling that the hotel took an unnecessary hard-line stance on this? After all, there were still rooms available, and my old reservation was fully cancellable until three days out (my reservation is for mid-March). I would understand their reluctance to adjust my rate had they been fully sold out, or if my reservation was prepaid/not cancellable. Given my situation, however, it seems silly that, as a courtesy, they wouldn't just adjust my existing reservation.

Any thoughts?

(Edited for formatting issues)

[This message has been edited by EnhancedByCO (edited Mar 01, 2004).]

Yeah, I am thinking you should find another hotel to stay in. If this is how they treat you BEFORE you arrive, what can you expect once you are actually there?

Maybe there was a software issue involved. Maybe the front desk can't touch a reservation made via the Internet. Those reservations might be the domain of some other department or something. Sometimes a hotel front desk will say the hotel is sold out, but Internet bookings are still possible.

Still, the response was silly.

Well, the most amusing thing is that the internet bookings are reviewed by the same person whom sent the original email I quoted. After I cancelled and booked the new rate, I received a manual confirmation email from her (in addition to the automatic one generated by the web site). Strange.

I'm glad that you were able to get the better deal. It does seem silly that they couldn't adjust the price for you. Now, if it had been a superlow, prepaid, unrefundable rate, that would have been a different story.

Maybe not so "hard-line" as, well, dumb.

Lots of hotels do this, they won't or can't access the rates to change them.

I would have done the same thing you did, book a new room at the lower rate, then cancel the old one, I have done it many times. Make sure to do it in that order, if you cancel and try to book sometimes the new rate isn't available and you end up paying more.

I think I would also either have my traveling companion make the new reservation (so it's in a different name), or at least use initials instead of first name, or something, so the two reservations look different. I could see some colossal mixup happening otherwise.

I'd send a quick note to the GM's office about your treatment here. For me, "just the chance you take" should never be in the vocabulary of someone dealing with guests. If YOU knew you could cancel and rebook, one would think the Reservations Coordinator would have figured it out.
That's just crummy customer service.

What an idiotic and unprofessional response. Even if you WERE on a nonrefundable rate, the hotel staff shouldn't EVER fire off a blast like that in email.

In this case, you are obviously dealing with someone who is not very good at THINKING and applying logic to resolve a situation. (If the problem is bad IT development, the hotel response should have been "We can't edit the rate on an existing reservation, but you can cancel it and rebook a new record at the lower rate.")

Hopefully it's a one-off and the rest of your hotel stay will be just fine.

If so, they should have told him to make a new reservation and cancel the old one....
It looks tome me like a little "cheap" how the hotel handled the situation.

Same thing happened to me for a hotel in Rome. I should've expected it coming from a small-time hotel.