That is the only billing problem I wasn’t able to resolve. The key here is my “rule of 1000″ which is whenever someone bilks you out of a dollar, make absolutely sure it costs them at least 1000 times that much in lost business.

I agree with you on the convenience. It’s just that, as you point out, it’s a form of credit, and should be treated as such. It’s the responsibility of a credit grantor to verify the identity of their customer so they can collect later. It’s up to them to balance the convenience for their customer against the ability to prove the charge; if they can’t substantiate that the person they’re charging is the one who actually incurred it, then they need to smile, apologize, remove the charge, and eat the loss.

One of the problems with identity theft is how casual random businesses are in ensuring the customer is who they say they are, how vigorously they will try to collect against the wrong person later, and how hard it is for that wrong person to prove a negative — that they *didn’t* incur such charge. A hotel has an advantage in that they only extend restaurant etc credit to a small set of people; they just need to use technology (e.g. card swipe) to ensure they’re picking the correct one of that set.

I can understand your point. European hotels generally ask only for my room number, but US hotels seems to ask for both Room number and name. Its like any other form of credit. How difficult do we want to make it for transactions to occur. I suspect that this erroneous billing is relatively rare and we don’t want to make it too onerous else the hotels will stop offering the easy ability to charge items.

For example, on business trips, I often meet clients at hotels. I will usually sign the valet ticket and have it charged to my room. I’d rather have that type of flexibility and chance a hotel screw up then to then tighten up and lose the ability to do

We need to make it clear (with laws) that it’s the *hotel* that needs to substantiate each expense if challenged — a printed room number simply shouldn’t be sufficient and should result in immediate reversal of the charge with apology. A signature (that matches), a room key swipe, etc, should be required, and if the hotel *chooses* not to ask for those at the restaurant etc, that’s their problem, not mine.

Josh

However, when I showed up at the front desk after the other guy had already checked in, and they realized there really were two confirmed guests with the same name, they were very classy about it, and gave my wife and me a very posh suite at the regular room price. That alone got them future visits from us, not to mention a good-sized group booking for a company trip.

As an aside, the Frankfurter Hof is a great hotel with wonderful service. On our first visit, my wife and I ordered tea and cookies each evening upon returning from dinner after the trade show. After the first two nights, I’d dial room service and they’d say, “Good evening, Mr. —, are you ready for your tea and cookies?” And they kept a record and prepared tea and cookies on future visits years later, too. Amazing.

Is it Henry Harteveldt, the travel analyst at Forrester Research when he states that “Where hotels generally used to remove an erroneous charge without question, now they are more careful,”

-OR-

Richard Atkins, a New York-based corporate trainer, who believes that. “In almost every case, a visit to the front desk resolves the [billing] issue

My personal experience is that Mr. Atkins is correct, at least insofar as you are perceived to be a valuable customer, e.g. member of the hotel’s loyalty program.