By Arnie Weissmann
It happens all the time and more often than you think. You arrive at a hotel with a guaranteed confirmed reservation only to be told there are no rooms. What do you do? What can you do? Well first, you have to understand the real definition of terms.
A guaranteed reservation only guarantees you’ll be charged for the room if you don’t show up, but in this scenario you have shown up. What happened?
Like the airlines, hotels regularly overbook, expecting some last minute cancellations. On occasion everyone shows up, and like an oversold flight, there are more people than can be accommodated. In this scenario, are you sleeping in the lobby? Not even close. You have options, and you have rights.
First, and especially if you’ve confirmed the room with a credit card, the hotel will attempt to “walk” you — that’s an industry term for physically sending you to another hotel for the night. In this case, that room cost should be on the hotel. And in most cases, if you’ve booked your original hotel for more than one night, they’ll bring you back the second night.
Before you ever accept that offer, remember this: a full hotel is not necessarily a full hotel.
Ask the front desk clerk if it has an “out of order” room. It’s a regular hotel room that has been blocked out of its inventory because something is wrong with the room — a mirror might be cracked, the phone out of order or a lampshade broken. If the bed and the bathroom works, tell the hotel you’ll take that room — and it should actually be at a discount.
Are you staying at a big convention hotel? The key to getting a room here is understanding the word “booked” versus “blocked”. Large blocks of prepaid rooms are being held by corporations or groups attending the convention. Ask the manager to tell you which person at these companies controls the hotel block, and if they aren’t using a room they’ve already paid for, they’ll be only too happy to release it to you.
If you do end up getting walked to another hotel, insist that you get a refund for that night, and that the hotel pays for transportation to the new hotel, and back to your original hotel the next day.
If all else fails, try this on for size: ask the desk clerk what he would do if the president of the United States walked in and asked for a room. Well of course he’ll say he’d got one. Then say: “Good news, I spoke to the White House. He’s not coming, I’ll take his room!”
