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Hotel gave me a room for one, not two


EdJS
By EdJS,
in

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A few weeks ago I booked a room for my guest and his wife in San Francisco. I bid for a Boutique and got the Hotel Triton for $82.

This evening when they arrived from their transcontinental flight, the hotel only had single rooms available. They refused to give my guest a room for two, and they refused to move them into another hotel.

I called Priceline customer service, and after about 30 minutes of investigation in which they called the hotel, they told me that I was right: The hotel did not fulfill its end of the agreement which says that all rooms are supposed to be double occupancy.

So Priceline offered to give me a full refund, which I took.

But now I was stuck: Here were my guests without a hotel room, on a very busy week! I needed to find a room for them FAST.

I tried another Priceline bid, up to $100 for a boutique, but it wasn't taken.

Fortunately, Hotwire had a 3.5* available for $101, which I took. It turned out to be the Crowne Plaza, which was good enough for such an extreme last minute booking. (I'm telling you, it was 6:30 pm and my guests were wondering where they would spend the night.)

Even though it ended all right (except for the extra cost of the hotel room), I'm still pretty steamed about this. I was trying to show San Francisco off to two people whom I care about and who had never been here before, and on their first day they run into this incredible inconvenience.

What's worse is that it makes me wary of using Priceline in the future. How do I know this won't happen again?

Ed

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Welcome to BetterBidding!

Sorry to hear of your bad experience. The bottom line is that you can't be certain it won't happen again, just like you can't be certain that if you booked this hotel directly you wouldn't have had the same problem.

Besides the refunded money, i would send a bill to either Priceline or the Hotel (your choice) for the difference in cost. Your friends made plans expecting the hotel to cost them $82/nite but it ended up costing them $101 due to a breech of contract... whoever breached the contract should make up the difference.

As per the second post in our RULES and POLICIES, please post the winning Priceline bid to the SAN FRANCISCO PRICELINE section of the board and the hotwire results to the SAN FRANCISCO HOTWIRE sction of the board. In the Hotwire thread please also include the amenity icons associated with the hotel, as that information will best help others identify it before purchase. You can still view the amenity icons by clicking the MY ACCOUNT link on the top right corner of Hotwire's homepage.

Thank you in advance for posting the updated information to the board.

Please use this HOTWIRE and these PRICELINE LINKS: HOTELS, CAR RENTALS, and AIRFARE to begin your travel purchases

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I would write a letter to PL,letting them know how this problem left you on the street in an unknown city.Also let them know how this cost you $$ and you would like some compensation.

In my opinion Pl should have got you another room,I can"t see how this would have been a problem for them to do.

I would also file a complaint against the hotel with the BBB,it only takes 15mins online.

At the very least you should get some bonus $$$.

You should have been walked to another hotel at the Triton"s expense and gotten a refund from PL.

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Folks, I hope we are not seeing a trend with hotels taking advantage of their negotiations with Priceline. The worst I have seen is hotels giving a double-bed for 2 occupants? Does double-bed really mean it will sleep 2 adults? It is starting to look like single travelers/businessmen are the only ones safe when it comes to booking with Priceline as far as bedding goes. I wonder if Hotwire, Orbitz, Expedia and Travelocity folks run into the same difficulties. :)

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I wouldn't read too much into this.

I know you are currently having a problem with the Fairfield Inn chain, but this is a differently scenario in my opinion. This is a Boutique hotel, and although i agree that the hotel is wrong in this instance, their actions don't surprise me. I have often commented how, in my mind, Boutique is often another word for 'small hotel'. I think this scenario is not likely to happen at most of the large chain hotels that most of us receive.

Please use this HOTWIRE and these PRICELINE LINKS: HOTELS, CAR RENTALS, and AIRFARE to begin your travel purchases

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I think this is a gray area... if i recall a thead in the past (i'll try to find it later) where there was a mention that Priceline considers a double bed accomodations for two people why Hotwire states that is it not. (but keep in mind each of their policies and view on this topic are subject to change)

Please use this HOTWIRE and these PRICELINE LINKS: HOTELS, CAR RENTALS, and AIRFARE to begin your travel purchases

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Folks, I hope we are not seeing a trend with hotels taking advantage of their negotiations with Priceline.  The worst I have seen is hotels giving a double-bed for 2 occupants?  Does double-bed really mean it will sleep 2 adults?

I'll appreciate some clarification from the original poster. Was the room they were offered one with a single (i.e. twin) bed? If that's the case then there is definitely a legitimate gripe. IN that event I'm really surprised that the Triton didn't step up to the plate. They are a Klimpton Group property and as such are usually very good about customer service.

A double bed (ie. a "full" bed) is smaller than a Queen but it is in fact large enough for two people - I'm 6 ' 2" and not a small guy - my GF and I shared a full bed comfortably for years before I upgraded to a queen. So the answer is yes - a full bed really will sleep two adults (at least those of us who like to sleep close). A twin or single bed, OTOH, is definitely not big enough for two (I have tried it and ended up on the floor).

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I was asked for some clarification here. The room that was offered contained a single (i.e. twin) bed only. The hotel's own web site indicates that these rooms are for the solo traveler.

There were two reasons why the hotel staff was not as helpful as one might expect from Kimpton:

1. There's a big convention in town this week and almost all Kimpton hotels are fully booked.

2. It's not clear that they realized that it was their fault. They seemed to be under the impression that Priceline guests can be forced to take any room. So they didn't consider this an overbooking situation, which is what it really was.

Ed

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.

2. It's not clear that they realized that it was their fault. They seemed to be under the impression that Priceline guests can be forced to take any room. So they didn't consider this an overbooking situation, which is what it really was.

Ed

Please tell me that you don"t really believe this?

If you had booked at full price the hotel would have found you another place to stay and paid for it.This happens everyday at hotels and any good hotel would have taken care of you.

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I went to their website and put in about 10 dates and I could not get a room with anything less then one double bed to come up.Did you see the room with a twin bed come up with a rate?Or do you thing that they had no rooms at all,when your friends got to the hotel and that was their way of getting rid of your friends w/o a problem?

I can only guess at how mad you are over this,as I am not even involved and it makes me mad at how your friends were treated.

This just goes to show how PLs poor customer service has failed to step up to the plate and take care of their customer again.

This reminds me of how badly PL treated the people that had rooms booked for the Las Vegas Westin Causarina when it failed to open on time.

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On the Triton's website, if you click on Rooms and Suites, you'll see this paragraph:

"Who says seeking enlightenment has to be painful? Experience the calm - and comfort - of Zen with a stay in one of the downtown Hotel Triton's Zen Dens. Ideal for the solo traveler looking to find solace, these cozy guestrooms feature a uniquely stylized oversized daybed that also serves as a couch. "

That's what they were given.

Ed

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  • 1 month later...

Coming from Sweden and travelling mainly in Europe (have not been to US for 7 years :) ) this is something I am quite used to. In Europe (especially France and Spain) it is very common to have something called grand lit (big bed in French) which tends to be quite intimate for two people.

One of the larger package tour dealers in Sweden had information in their catalogue (pre-internet time :) ) that these rooms only suited people who "loved each other".

So when I was i the States I was surprised over the size of the rooms. My room was big enough for four...

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