Is it ethically acceptable ?
 

Starting point:
not sure if this forum is the right place, if not sorry and please remove or close it.

Question.
If for business reason you have a good possibility (50-60%) to spend a period (2-3 weeks) in a new location far from home and you can choose between two or three hotels, how in advance do you book a room ? And do you book ONLY a room at a single hotel or at multiple places (i.e. booking a room at more than one property (yes, overlapping)) so to decide only later on where to stay ? Do you feel guilty 'burning ' with a low but refundable rate the availability of a low rate so that someone could end paying more in a place even if it's the one you will later on discharge ?

The involved period is 'relevant' (not just one night, 'who cares' style) and you want to be sure to have a good stay and why not, also take advantage of any promotion (present or future).

How do you behave ? And how do you feel about it ?

Thanks


I chosed the Hilton forum because it's my actual preferred hotel chain and no big surprise for anyone, I have a few reservation with them.

you do what you have to do....

I don't look down at the sidewalk with every step, trying not to crush the ants. There are consequences of every action. I could spend all day beating myself up or cursing others whose actions I feel have cost me.

But, then I wouldn't be very happy, would I?

I don't see any problem with booking two rooms in the same city for the same time frame.

My last visit to San Francisco I booked the Hyatt Embarcadero and the Omni. If I didn't get upgraded at the Omni I planned to bail and go back to the Hyatt (closer to where I needed to be). I checked in mid-afternoon at the Omni, received my upgrade and promptly went online and canceled my Hyatt reservation.

What would Jesus do?

Although Hilton HHonors is the preferred frequent guest program of choice for Volvic, this thread is more general in nature and is not specific to Hilton Hotels.

A better place for this thread is where it is now — its new home in the TravelBuzz! forum — so that FlyerTalk members of other frequent guest programs can weigh in on this topic.

I also changed the title of this thread slightly to give other FlyerTalk members a better idea of what is the topic.

Regards,

Canarsie
Co-Moderator, Hilton forum

book both mangers
 

Clearly, He would have booked both mangers, then taken the better in the end, shorting the other...

So is life...

Just think of how many times 'we' are at the 'other' end of such situations...

survival of the economically fittest (not jesus, but DARWIN)

Christian (I had to sign off, lest I offend anyone otherwise! :))

If there's no cancellation policy, then go for it. You are following the rules that the hotels setup.

When we vacationed in Maui last April, I had three hotel rooms booked at one time and two rental cars.

As I narrowed down my preferences, I canceled them.

Of course, the key is to take good notes because you don't want to forget to cancel the unused reservations within the mandated time.

Hmmm....this week, I had three sets of 4 award seats on hold for flights from MCI to Puerto Vallarta. For one of the itin's, I had the PVR Marriott booked as a paid stay, for the 2nd itin, I had the Westin booked as an award stay, and for the 3rd itin, I had the Westin booked as a paid stay.

When we figured out which dates worked best for us, we canceled all of the other stuff.

Right now, I have a bunch of overlapping hotel rooms booked for 2 upcoming trips to Seattle. Trying to figure out what to do...lots of hotel promotions out there right now.

To make sure I don't forget anything, whenever I'm overlapping things I make sure to leave the confirmation emails in my inbox. I don't move them out of sight (to a travel folder) until any conflicts have been resolved. That way, every morning I'm reminded that I still have to select some reservations and cancel others.

There is nothing ethically wrong with it: it's the rules of the game that the hotels have set up. Besides, I'm paying quite a bit for the privilege of playing the game. There are other structures (e.g., Priceline) for people who don't want to do this and would rather not pay rates nearly as high as what I will on these upcoming stays.

From the hotel's point of view, No Big Deal
 

I actually work in the hotel industry, and the way that we would view this is that we would have an opportunity to sell that cancelled room at a much higher rack rate.
The advantage of seeing advance purchase rooms on the books is that it helps with forecasts and labor, but the revenue is much lower. Walk in customers push the ADR (Average Daily Rate) much higher, so like I said, "No big deal" Just remember to keep the cancel policy in mind, because we do charge!

Do you see ? Double or triple reservations are OK from an hotel point of view, but basically doing so I force an other guy to pay more. This point was the base of my question. Smart vs Dumb.

Well, it'd be rare that your individual double/triple-booked room would ever cause the other guy to actually pay more. If someone were doing this large-scale - like a corporate event planner booking 100 rooms in each of three smallish hotels while he/she hashed out the catering details - then yeah, I'd say that's an issue...

If you're only booking one room at each of two or three hotels, you're still barely having an effect on the supply of hotel rooms in a destination. Thus it's really not a big deal; what other travelers pay is much more likely to be affected by how far in advance they can book, what promotions/programs they are a part of, etc.