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Hotel Horrors
The Occidental Tourist · April 12, 2000

Well, the Tourist certainly fanned the fire among readers when it came to Bizarro-world hotel stays. Lots of folks had even more twisted but true experiences to share.

For the next two columns, the Tourist is happy to let 'em. (And send him yours at tourist@ticked.com):

- Reader Steve Edwards could very well be the Job of hotel travelers. Here’s a summary of the bewildering experiences he’s had and, no, the Tourist simply could not make this up: He had CONFIRMED reservations and the hotel was still overbooked.

“Of course they were willing to put me in a comparable hotel for the night at no charge,” Edwards recalls. “Problem was that the hotel was halfway back to Boston and spanned the Massachusetts Turnpike. I spent the night at the substitute hotel, checked out the next morning and went to work.”

Stevie shouldn’t have checked out, it appears. That afternoon, he went back to the original hotel thinking now it was OK to check in. Their response? “We solved your problem by moving you to another hotel.”

Since the venue was less than desirable, he spoke up.

“I explained that I had reservations with this particular hotel which had been confirmed and I expected to stay at their hotel,” Edwards says. “Tough luck. A call to my corporate travel agent resulted in a room, again comped.”

While the hotel’s comp offerings were OK, it didn’t really do much for the Steve-ster personally, because his trip involved business. Therefore, any ‘comping’ benefits his company. Not Edwards.

His solution? “Hotels ought to routinely give certificates for complementary stays within the chain so that the person being inconvenienced is compensated instead of their company.”

Absolutely, Steve. And the Tourist always finds that making that extra toll-free call to the corporate chain headquarters helps when you feel the local place failed to make up for lousy service and misadventures like yours.

In another stay at this hotel (and, at this point, the Tourist has to ask why did ol’ Steve bother with this place?), the establishment failed to provide a tidy, little essential in the room: a bed.

And that wasn’t all. The following highlight at least gave him something to talk about at the lounge: After a long day, he slipped in the electronic key to find a couple ‘in the act.’ “It happened at the same hotel as above. Solution for me was an apology from the hotel and a good story for me to tell. And for the couple that I interrupted, only a sheepish look as I passed them in the lobby a couple of days later. I never had the nerve to ask how they were compensated.”

- This from reader Denise Martin, a teacher from Italy, on a stay at a California Ramada Inn:

“Highlights include the hotel billing the credit card for 15 nights on our first day (the bill beat us home). Then the hotel towed our car away on our last night. Our car towing happened at 11:30 at night. The car was parked in front of our room (and the hotel knew it was ours, they saw us in it every day) at about 8:00PM. The hotel claims that they had the car towed because it rolled back out of its space. I know seems unbelievable.

“When I got up in the morning and did not find the car. I ran to the office and told to call the police because our car was stolen. The front desk clerk did not understand me. He had no knowledge of what had happened. He said they don't call the police. I would have to call them from my room. I was appalled. When I called the police they told me the hotel had called them to tow an unknown car from their lot.

“Now the story gets even stranger. The address for the towing was not the hotel, it was from down the block. Then when I confronted the hotel about the towing they said that the car had rolled out of the spot, then angled and was found about 100 feet down the way and in front of another room. Seems impossible to me for a parked car to do. Now they knew we were leaving the next day and they should have had our car registration on file for identification, plus what would it have taken them to come to our room? Now remember the car was parked at 8 and did not roll till 11:30. Strange happenings for a car. But, it is California and strange things have been known to happen there ...”

Yes, Denise, this is true. Must be something in the bottled mineral water there, but doesn't California essentially serve as a de facto separate nation?

BTW: Denise went through all the proper channels to try to get compensated for her troubles, even calling Ramada’s toll-free line to try to get someone in corporate. Apparently, the drones answering the toll-free line refused to cough it up.

At this point, the Tourist suggest using readily available online resources like www.hoovers.com to track down corporate info. They’ll even tell you who the top execs are, and many of them are very receptive to customer complaints.

The Occidental Tourist is a magazine writer in Washington, DC. He writes for Maxim, POV, Capital Style and ABCNews.com. His column appears on Tuesdays. E-mail him at tourist@ticked.com.