Leslie Kelley’s room rate at InterContinental’s Barclay New York was an astonishingly low $129 a night. Astonishing, because the published room rate is $329 a night. And astonishing, because of the extras the hotel allegedly tried to add to her bill to make up for some of the lost revenue.
At least that’s her story.
Here’s the rate she booked through Hotwire. As a reminder, Hotwire is an “opaque” site that doesn’t tell you which property you’re staying at until you’ve made a nonrefundable reservation by credit card.
Wow, that’s some deal.
But then things got interesting.
I guess they were not making any money off of us, since they tried to charge us more than $80 for a breakfast the day we were checking out — and that we did not have in their dining room. Got that taking off the bill as the signature on the receipt was nothing like my husbands and we were just heading out for breakfast. Don’t think we’d be eating again right after eating $80 worth of food there.
OK, that’s unfortunate, but it sounds like an honest billing error. Happens all the time, and the Barclay fixed it quickly. But then …
When we got home and got our credit card bill they had added another $3.25, not on the original check-out bill, for the coffee bags placed in the room.
Have you ever heard of a hotel charging for the coffee or tea that I previously thought was an amenity in the room? They certainly were not in the locked mini bar. What a bunch of cheapos! Is this a new practice of all hotels?
This is the first I’ve heard of a hotel charging for the in-room coffeemaker. Some unethical hotels add a “resort” fee that they say includes the use of an in-room coffeemaker, but I’ve never ever seen a fee for drinking coffee in your room.
Have you come across a surcharge for drinking coffee in your room?
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No, I wasn’t ever charged for coffee, but I do have a gripe with American Airlines.
On March 27, 2009 I was booked on a Celebrity Cruise with my friend by Vacation Travel Club (800-524-6240). I flew from JFK (NYC) flight 133 on American Airlines to LAX (Los Angeles) and then on Qantas Airlines flight 12 to Sydney. My friend flew from Newark and then on the LAX flight with me to Sydney. Vacation Travel Club booked us BOTH AT THE SAME TIME on the cruise with the flights included. I was charged $15 for one bag at JFK. My friend was not charged a thing for TWO bags. Three separate agents of American Airlines (AA) told me I shouldn’t have been charged and to just go to http://www.aa.com and request a refund. Recently I called a reservation agent to find out the fare as if I was a potential customer and I asked if there was a baggage charge for flying from JFK to Sydney. She told me there was no charge because it was an international flight. Now AA is trying to tell me I should be charged even though my friend was not. This doesn’t make sense to me.
My friend had told me on the trip that she was not charged because AA has a reciprocal agreement with Qantas on international flights (just like the AA agents told me). It is very difficult to deal with AA because each time you must go to their website and file a separate complaint with all the particulars. At no time did I receive (or could I make) a phone call to AA. They just flatly told me without explanation in an email that they thought it over and refuse to refund the charge. Nowhere in their email is there an explanation of their refusal to refund the $15. I know $15 is not much, it is the principle. It would not be much to AA either. No wonder airlines are going bankrupt with this kind of customer “service.”
I know this is off the original topic, but in deference to Mary’s problem w/AA:
You may want to rub their noses in their own policy:
https://www.aa.com/aa/i18nForward.do?p=/utility/baggageExceptions.jsp
It clearly states: “Customers originating travel in the U.S., U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico or Canada and traveling to an international destination beyond the U.S., U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico or Canada ” are exempt for baggage fees. Qantas is an AA partner, so this policy should hold. Possibly even better if your ticket had an AA flight number from LAX to SYD. I would just keep trying until you get the answer you want.
Did you by chance put the charge on a credit card? As a last resort, you can try challenging the charge–keep copies of the e-mails from AA as proof you tried to resolve it.
To add insult to injury, the hotel coffee is usually crappy anyway! I hope Leslie complained.
I’ve never been charged for the in-room coffee because I never drink it, but just last week was charged after -the-fact for supposedly drinking the bottled water in my room at a Fairfield Inn
Since I am a Marriott Platinumcustomer I was given bottled water at check-in, which was the only water I consumed during my stay.
When I called the hotel in question to ask about this charge, and finally convinced the desk agent that I did not drink their bottled water, she immediately tried to tell me I would had to have purchased something from the lobby “marketplace” to justify the extra $2 charge. ( Which was added to my bill 24 hours after I had checked out ).
Eventually she took the $2 off my bill, but had I not checked my credit card charges for the stay I would have unwittingly paid it. Granted, $2 will not break the bank, but multiply that by hundreds of customers and Marriott has the potential to make a lot of extra money that way. Let the buyer beware!
Yes, some hotels charge for the coffee and it usually is the higher end hotels, too. Just because something is available in your room doesn’t mean it is complimentary and often they don’t make the information easy to find. When in doubt I call the front desk.
I have found Visa and American Express to have excellent records when dealing with companies that try to add things to your bill after check out.
I found, when my bill for a Celebrity cruise appeared on my statement, that it was a larger amount than my receipt from the check out desk showed
Celebrity had added about $40.00 to my bill for items used out my cabin frig. Things that I didn’t use. I asked Celebrity for, and received a promise of, a refund. But after it didn’t show up on my statement I asked repeatedly for it and was told many times that it had been sent. It never did appear. I asked Amex to look into it and they applied the credit to my account immediately.
I could describe many other similar problems with refunds or merchandise that fails to show up and where Visa and Amex have simply absorbed the credit themselves..
Oh yeah, stay away from Celebrity Cruises. What a terrible ship, staff and company to deal with! Absolutely the worst cruise, in a long list of my cruises, that it has been my misfortune to take.