Guaranteed for Late Arrival to the Hotel... Ha!
The summer following our trip to Alaska, our family vacationed
in Minnesota. Our flight was scheduled to land very late in the
evening, so I asked our travel agent to set up a guarantee for
late arrival when she booked the hotel reservations. Our agent
confirmed that she had given the hotel our credit card to hold
the room. As planned, we arrived at the Doubletree Hotel at
about 11:30 PM. When I went to the registration desk to check
in, I was told that there were no rooms available. I was
shocked! I presented them with a printout from our travel agent,
which confirmed our guarantee for late arrival.
In search for a greater understanding of what a "guarantee for
late arrival" meant, I asked to speak with the manager on duty.
I asked him, "If we had not checked in tonight, would the hotel
have billed our credit card for the room, even though there are
no rooms available?" That's when I learned that the Doubletree
Hotel's guarantee was only a one-way guarantee. He confirmed
that this was their standard policy. Having difficulty
comprehending this policy, I reframed the question: "So if we
are paying for the room, why is someone else sleeping in it
right now?" He informed me that the guarantee did not obligate
them to provide accommodations in their hotel; it simply meant
that they guaranteed we would have a place to sleep that night.
As I stood at the counter, the desk attendant spent the next 20
minutes calling other hotels and motels in the area. Finally he
informed me that they would put us up at no charge at the Prime
Rate Motel down the road! Hardly the accommodations we had
planned on... and "down the road" was 15 miles away!
When we returned home from our trip, I called the Doubletree
Hotel headquarters in Phoenix to see if this was their corporate
policy, or just the local policy for that particular location. I
was shocked when their customer service rep informed me that
this was "standard practice in the industry," adding that "the
airlines do it all the time." From now on, when I know I will be
checking in late, I ask explicit questions about a hotel's
policy regarding guaranteed late arrivals.
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