Yesterday we did THIS POST about what we feel is our WORST HOTEL EVER story. Rather than rehash it, if you haven’t read the post yet, read it now.
But we will tell you this. I’ve been travelling since I went over to India in 1972 (where I met co-blogger Swaaraj Chuahan in New Delhi, where he was working on a major newspaper). Over the years I have stayed in hotels in South Asia, Cypress, Europe, Iran, the United States, Mexico and Canada. But the stay at this hotel was the worst in 34 years. It involved some problems with the Internet, but Internet service was not the issue (read the post).
In my post I mentioned that I reserved this through Orbitz and probably wouldn’t use Orbitz again. Two things happened to make me yesterday change my view.
Firstly, to preface it, the ease of doing hotel reservations on the Internet can’t be surprassed. And I’ve used Orbitz for many years now on probably 80 percent of my hotel reservations in the past 8 years or so.
When I left that hotel, after paying for the room and not asking for a refund (which I’m sure the hotel wouldn’t have given anyway), I went for the first time to an Extended Stay America hotel for the first time. They were GREAT — the complete opposite of the hotel from which I had literally fled in the middle of the night.
But the manager at that Extended Stay hotel said I was perhaps too rough on Orbitz:”When you go to a site like Orbitz or Expedia or Priceline.com their websit doesn’t really give you the details you need about amenties. I usually call the hotel and ask them some questions, and only then make the reservation.”
I thought about that — words spoken after yesterday’s post appeared. And then I got a phone call yesterday morning out of the blue from Orbitz Customer Service desk. It was VERY impressive customer relations work and was not perfunctory but very sincere.
It turns out they saw the post. And, without going into a lot of detail, they were apologetic about my experience but wanted also wanted to explain that the hotels submit their info (whether it’s accurate or incomplete or not) on the honor system. They made it clear that they wanted to encourage me to be a regular customer because when they saw my huge past list of reservations, they knew I was.
I suggested that their website put something in very prominent letters about checking with the hotel about amnenities advertised on the site. (There is a smaller disclaimer on a few items but that is NOT enough; I never had any trouble at any other hotel I reserved via Orbitz). So YES I will continue to book through Orbitz (and will make a reservation for LA later this week).
But here are some tips I want to offer bloggers, who need Internet and also business people who need to be online. I will do all of the above in the future to avoid winding up in similar hotel in the future:
- If the hotel has feature you need and its listed CALL the hotel and double check. For instance, if they say they have wireless call and ask if it’s easy to connect to. DO NOT STAY A HOTEL THAT CHARGES YOU FOR INTERNET SERVICE AND HAS REMOVED DATAPORTS FROM ITS PHONES if you need to go online.
- Be sure to ASK it the Internet is free and, if not, what the rates are. FYI most (but not all) hotels will not charge you for using their wireless or high speed Internet.
- Ask about whether phone service is free or you’re going to be charged for it. Some really big hotels charge for phone use but these days most hotels don’t — and certainly small hotels or motels don’t.
A final story.
The kind of service I had at that hotel is not typical. Many readers recall that I was stranded in Arizona a few weeks ago after my car broke down. I had the GREAT PLEASURE of staying at the Bear Mountain Inn in the mountain community of Lakeside in Eastern Arizona. Like the hotel from hell, the wireless didn’t work in my room. But these folks gave me the key to their conference room where wireless did work and said I could use it any time 24 hours a day.
They weren’t tossing a whole bunch of surprises at me; they constantly tried to my stay as nice as possible and to help me as much as possible. THAT hotel was the Hotel From Heaven.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.