You’re tired and ready to check into your hotel. Everything is in order, or so you think. Well, let’s hope you ‘re right. But you may be wrong and the hotel is a disaster. At at the 11th hour, do you grin and bear it or start hunting for new digs?
Expect to forfeit that night’s charge and perhaps the next night’s, plus more. Sometimes fighting for a rebate can cost more in time and money than it’s worth, and it may be easier to admit you’d been had and call it a learning experience. Is there a customer bill of rights when it comes to hotels?
Then here are times no amount of money will keep someone in a hotel. My late husband and I nearly got divorced over one he’d booked in Corsica. No, I didn’t kill him but was tempted. This “charming retreat” was so filthy I slept in my clothes and wouldn’t consider taking a shower. Thank goodness, I had baby-wipes to keep me (hummm) relatively fresh. The carpet looked and smelled as if mildew was growing from it. After seeing bugs crawling up the walls, I excused myself and slept in the car.
How do you avoid hotels from hell? Some hints:
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• When you arrive and the desk clerk is asleep or on his/her cell phone and doesn’t look up
• There’s no one to collect suitcases and good luck finding a luggage trolley
• Locating your reservation is a chore and the lobby is filthy
• Garbage is visible and the odor that greets you is not from your favorite perfume shop
• Ask to see the room before having the luggage sent up. This may sound spoiled, but the bellman will thank you.
• Check to be sure the room is OK. It should be clean, preferably not with only one window opening onto an air shaft with zero light and air or situated in a place that’s so noisy you won’t be able to think, much less sleep.
• Under construction? Try to ascertain whether or not construction is taking place in adjoining rooms or above or below you.
• Location, location, location. Even if everything looked terrific on the hotel’s website, you still may prefer a room that’s not next to the elevator. Or, if there’s a closet where guests can get ice and soft drinks, you may find you’re a part of a party to which you weren’t invited. Ask to be moved before getting settled.
• Clean bathroom Make sure it has been properly cleaned. If it hasn’t, you can assume the hotel’s housekeeping staff, and therefore the hotel, may not be up to your standards.
• Check out the bed. Does it sag and is the bedspread clean? Many people like duvets since they’re supposedly cleaned after each client.
• Be realistic. Don’t anticipate design decor and showers with all-marble bathrooms if you’re staying in a motel that costs less than $100 per night and is on a highway. You’re also at a disadvantage if you haven’t reserved a room, even at the very last minute.
The worse room I ever stayed in was the only one I could find when driving from Paris to the South of France. Every hotel had a sold-out sign and we ended up staying in a room that was obtained by swiping a credit card in a machine next to the building’s main door. The credit card was returned with a receipt and a plastic key that opened a specific room’s door.
This was an emergency trip and I’d taken a pillow and blanket. After sleeping for three hours, it was back on the highway. I had enough on my mind that it didn’t enter my consciousness until later, that I suspect the room had more than one set of occupants each evening. There was no one to whom to complain and the rate was so nominal I wasn’t entitled to rant.
But that’s not always the case and there are rooms that are so terrible you should be entitled to a rebate. Please post any such experiences. What have you done? Have you been successful in getting money credited to your account?
Karen Fawcett is president of Bonjour Paris
