Wyndham completely messed it up but refuses to do anything. What should I do?
 

Dear friends,

I've never thought about experiencing any hotel issues which warrants a thread on Flyertalk asking for what I should do...

But this comes true. And I need your advise and suggestions.

I am infuriated, really.:mad::mad::mad:

Okay. The story is super simple. I am a Wyndham Rewards member. I made a reservation directly on wyndhamhotels.com in August for a one-night stay at a Super 8 during my business trip. (I did NOT prepay.) They had problems delivering my confirmation email but that was eventually (after rounds of talks) solved. I'll skip it.

The stay was uneventful. Upon check-out, they printed out a folio that shows:

Room Rate $0.00 Tax and Fees $0.00 Credit Card: ($xx.xx)

So my business office asked me why I paid them $xx.xx when the room was free. I said of course that was not free and $xx.xx was indeed the total charge. They said okay then show us a folio with the correct amounts.

I contacted Super 8, they said it was an internet reservation and they could only print out what the system has. They wanted me to contact Wyndham.

I contacted Wyndham and received some standard response like the "we regret that we did not meet your expectation" nonsense. And following that was their super useful excuse for doing nothing: "the property is independently owned and operated and we believe the best resolution is to contact the property directly."

I turned back to that Super 8 and told them how Wyndham responded. The Super 8 people told me whatever Wyndham said did not change the fact that they (the Super 8) couldn't change what the Wyndham system showed. The system showed the wrong amount, they had to print out the wrong amount.

The Super 8 people said the error could be due to a special rate. But I didn't use any promo code, discount code, voucher, etc. It wasn't even a corporate rate, special event rate, or whatsoever. I just simply went on to their OFFICIAL website and made the reservation. Nothing special in any sense.

Following communication with Wyndham ended up with the EXACTLY SAME response, leading me to think whether they really have a human being responding my complaint. "The property is independently owned and operated and we believe the best resolution is to contact the property directly" crap. Always.

I decided to take this further. I filed a complaint with BBB. Guess what? Same response, AGAIN.

I certainly didn't accept their response. And then, BBB told me that the case WAS CLOSED.

End of story.

I'm just fed up with it. The only thing I requested for is a folio showing the correct amount I paid. Why the hell is that difficult?:mad:

So. What do you think I should do?

Kind regards

Updates:
1. My accounting department approved my reimbursement. I don't feel that they should have done that a month earlier, as some suggested. Because as I mentioned, my confirmation email (which arrived two weeks later) only showed the room rate. My folio, as well as my CC statement, showed the total charge. Our accounting folks had no way to know if the difference (total charge - room rate) was really the tax or not, because nothing showed that different was indeed a tax. They chose to believe me (or they chose to avoid further chaos), and I (somehow) appreciate it.
2. I checked my CC statement. I did NOT prepay. I was charged upon checkout. Maybe I accidentally chose another "special rate" when I was not at all informed. But at least I didn't choose the prepaid special rate. With that said, I see no reason Wyndham can't reflect that on a folio.
3. My folio does NOT show a $0 balance. It showed the property charged me $xx.xx on my CC but the room was free. So, technically, according to the folio, Wyndham actually OWES me money. I know that's a loophole, but I don't plan to chargeback. It's not entirely the right thing to do, nor do I want to waste my time.

A copy of your credit card statement with the charge for the hotel on the dates you stayed, given to your business office won't be enough?

If you received Wyndham points too, those will show up in your account and you can show that to them as you wouldn't be getting points if you were redeeming points.

If none of that is enough, ask your credit card company if they have a detailed invoice for that charge.

If you refute the charge with your credit card company, Super 8 will be required to produce documentation showing your stay and the charge. It may not be the right thing to do with respect to the franchisee, but it doesn't sound as if the franchisee is going out of his/her way to help you, either.

The missing document is the delayed confirmation receipt which you say you eventually received. That is your receipt for the payment and you then have the folio from the property. Those two together are the proof of payment.

Don't attempt a chargeback here. Some CC issuers view that as fraud. You paid the correct rate, stayed at the property and have a receipt.

You simply may not have provided the correct paperwork to the accounting folks or they may not be the brightest.

First mistake you made was:
 

Staying at a Super 8. Second one was: staying at a Wyndham property at all. Couldn't find a nice HIX? Wyndham's CS makes IHG's look good.

Don't dispute the CC charge, just send that charge statment/info to your accounting dept.

Oh yeah, welcome to FT.

Welcome to FlyerTalk, SYL. Your story doesn't sound so "super simple" 12 paragraphs later. Anyway:

The WyndhamRewards website lets you select lots of special rates. I use them all the time on the website, without having to type in any codes. Just because you booked it from the official website doesn't mean you couldn't have used a special rate.

In fact, the normal tate is not prepaid. So it was a special rate if it was a prepaid rate!

I don't understand why you used a prepaid rate if you were going to get reimbursed by your business. Prepaid rates are always more confusing to get reimbursed, many hotels show them as $0 on the bill, not just Super 8, not just WyndhamRewards.

Meanwhile, how does your credit card statement list the charge? :confused:

OP has a CC statement showing that his account was debited for the room and a statement from the property showing the stay and a $0 balance. Not sure what else anyone could want or supply. Perhaps less messy on one piece of paper, but I do not see Wyndham or any other chain or individual property altering its accounting practices because OP's employer can't take two pieces of paper rather than one.

This sounds more like a labor dispute than a hotel issue.

I see no issue with doing a chargeback as if my folio says that the room rate was $0.00, that means that according to the hotel, my room was free and therefore any charge to my CC is unauthorized.

Wrong. Try it and see what happens.

Just a bit hard to certify that a charge is unauthorized when OP says that it was. He just does not like the accounting format which US hotels, not just Wyndham, use to avoid expense and tax fraud. But, if you are willing to commit bank fraud to get around this, a couple of more frauds hardly matter.

I had a similar issue with a Wyndham property that said they couldn't provide an itemized bill because it was booked and prepaid via Wyndham. At the time I thought the staff didn't know what they were doing.
Based on this OP report, I'd think that they do have a system issue were the central reservation system doesn't transfer the transaction detail to the property system... Given other Wyndham system issues I have encountered, this wouldn't be a surprise.

Provide all documentation and file a complaint with your state’s attorney general consumer affairs division. File a complaint against Wyndham corporate and another against the specific super 8. They’ll straighten it out for you!

Or you will receive the same answer as everyone else has given. The OP has a properly issued receipt on his CC and a properly accounted $0 balance receipt from the property. Unless you can point to some specific statute which requires Wyndham to create a fraud-prone tax reimbursement process to satisfy the green eye shade people at OP's employer, this isn't worth the postage or bandwidth.

Thanks for the reply! Sorry for being late.

What you said is not exactly true. The folio Super 8 gave me actually has a -$75.81 balance, not a $0 balance. Because, the folios shows that the room charges $0, the tax and fees are $0, but my credit card is charged $75.81.

It gets interesting here.

Plus, while I appreciate your input in various replies, I don't completely agree with you on various points.

First, as I already noted, the confirmation email only says "total room rate $67.99 tax is not included". No tax, no total amount, just room rate. I don't know why but that's what I got. My folio shows my total payment is $75.81. Honestly, even I don't know if the difference, $7.82, is solely tax or not. Could that be $2.82 in tax and $5 for a bottle of water? My accounting folks don't know. Oh, those green eye shades people can go and look up the state tax, county tax, municipality tax, hotel and resort fee, new room fee... for the hotel and figure out what the $7.82 is themselves. Well, then I guess the green eye shades people at Wyndham should give me a correct folio in the first place.

Second, I honestly don't know why you believe the folio is good. The room rate is $67.99, the tax is (supposedly) $7.82, I paid $75.81, the balance is $0. Now, the folio shows, the room rate is $0, the tax is $0, I paid $75.81, the balance is -$75.81. Does the folio really appear correct to you? I can't think of how this can be remotely related to fraud prevention... If I'm missing anything let me know. To me, if the folio doesn't reflect actual charges and payments, it is wrong. But you said you don't see how Wyndham should alter it. I think I must be missing something.

So... Will that work better than BBB?

Thanks for the reply!

I checked my credit card statement. The total amount was charged on the day I checked out. So I actually didn't pay prepaid. I edited my original post.

Actually, I just came back from a leisure trip where I stayed at six different SPG hotels. During my July business trip I stayed at Extended Stay America. I always prepaid. I used to stay at Hilton and Marriott. None of them have ever gave me a $0 bill for a prepaid stay. Maybe I've been lucky, until I stayed at Super 8?

Alright... So even if I DID pay a special rate (some special rate other than the prepaid rate...) Shouldn't a Wyndham property be able to print a correct folio... even if it is a special rate? If the property couldn't... Shouldn't the central reservation be able to do that... But clearly they didn't have any human being read through my request. All they replied is to let me talk to the property. Same format, same text, every time.

BTW, my credit card statement simply listed room rate and tax fees combined as one single transaction. Is that what you're referring to?