Q: I’m trying to get a promised refund of loyalty points from Doubletree, and I’m just about out of patience. We stayed at the Doubletree Grand Hotel, near the port of Miami, just before taking a cruise earlier this year. I cashed in 30,000 of my hard-earned Hilton HHonors points for the room.
It was a disappointing experience. We had a horrible time at the hotel, basically because of service that we didn’t receive. Although I complained at the time to the manager, nothing was done to make things right, and since our cruise was leaving, I decided to pursue the matter with Hilton, which owns Doubletree, when we returned.
I was contacted by a hotel manager and offered a gift certificate. I declined, since we won’t be visiting Miami anytime soon. Then I was offered a 20,000-point refund, which I accepted. But the points never showed up in my account. After several inquiries, I received an apology and a promise of another 10,000 points to make up for the trouble.
It’s been nearly four months since we stayed at the Doubletree, and no points have shown up in my account. What’s more, I haven’t received any response to my last e-mail, in which I say that I feel as if I’m getting the runaround. Your help would be greatly appreciated.
– Elizabeth Klikas, Riverside, Ill.
A: Doubletree needs to refund you points, on the double. When you don’t get the service you expect and a hotel offers to make things right, the apology and compensation need to be delivered promptly. Not a month or — God forbid — four months from now.
You say that you complained when the service problems started, but that nothing was done. Who did you talk to? Normally, guests pick up the phone and speak with a hotel operator. That’s not good enough.
Dropping by the front desk for a personal visit is a far more effective way to get what you deserve. You should do this the minute you discovered the service lapse. Take the elevator downstairs and politely present yourself to the clerk at the front desk. If you don’t get an immediate resolution, ask for a manager.
My point is, don’t leave until you have what you want. Because once you’ve checked out you’ve almost certainly closed the door on a speedy resolution — and maybe even any resolution at all.
Hotels strongly prefer to resolve any customer service problems before you check out, mostly because it’s far easier to make something up to you while you’re still a guest. Of course, it’s also embarrassing to have to explain a customer service lapse to your bosses at corporate headquarters.
I can’t imagine why Doubletree stalled on refunding your points. But in reading the correspondence between you and the hotel, it’s clear that the delay was unintentional — perhaps the result of a mix-up between departments or simple error. The last thing any hotel would want to do is to add insult to injury by failing to give you what it promised.
I contacted Doubletree on your behalf. It replied to you immediately, apologizing for what it called a “lapse in communication” and credited your account with 30,000 points. It also sent you a certificate good for a free night’s stay at any Doubletree hotel.
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I stayed at Doubletree from June 9th thru June 18th, and was moved throughout the Hotel four times. When I checked in with my family the evening of June 9th, while putting my things in the draw, my trousers tore on some jagged nails and my right knee received a pretty nasty cut. I had an first aide kit, meant to take care of my kids cuts and scrapes, so I patched myself up. There was a nice sized chunk missing from the side of the draw, exposing the nails. Then I noticed my kids laughing at there reflection at the door/mirror next to the room entrance side closet. The mirror in the door was broken, with flecks of mirror shards inside the closet, it was also missing the other side of the door, making it impossible for me to completely be able to close off that area.
I called down to speak to the service department, who sent up a service technician. He banged the nails on the drawer in as best he could and then left. When he returned he took the broken door/mirror away and said the y had to order another door and that it would be in within three or four days.
Tired and unhappy with the way things were being handled, I called back down to the front desk and made another complaint. They eventually sent someone upstairs to take an accident report statement, and said they would find out if we could be moved to another room. After what seemed to be a considerable amount of time, I called back down stairs and insisted to speak to a manager. The manager said that they were unable to get me into another room and that the hotel was full. I was informed that I would be placed into another room the following afternoon. No other compensation was offered.
The next day I was moved, and contacted by a manager who notified me that I would not be charged for the previous night. The Hotel experienced, what they said was a Hotel wide problem with their air conditioner, it was not working. The room was nice but extremely hot. I called down two or three times that day to the front desk and was told that they were working on the issue. Feeling as if I was making a lot of complaints, we sweated through the next three nights, thinking that the problem was still throughout the hotel. It wasn’t until the maid service lady came in and noticed that a towel hook was broken that our feelings were confirmed. She sent a service technician to fix the towel hook. When he came in he said, oh my goodness it’s extremely hot in here. He apologized gave us a certificate for breakfast and said he would get someone to check out the air conditioning in the room.
We called down to the front desk and was told that the problem had been fixed on the 10th, but certain rooms still were experiencing temperature problems. It was now the 13th, so four the past 4 days we stayed in an extremely hot room and sweated all night. We were once again transfer to another room. The manager told us that since we were having all these problems, they wanted to put us in a nicer, newly renovated room, on one of the higher levels, it however only had one bed (for the four of us). It apparently was suppose to have a seperate area with a pull out bed, to make up for he lose of the second bed. We were happy to hear this and felt that finely we would receive appropriate compensation for all the problems we were having. When we got to the room, I was extremely disappointed, this room was very outdated, the carpet was stained and overused, the dust cover on the bed was torn in some places and old. The appliances were also obviously very old. The coach was filmy and stained in several places. The night manager I spoke to that arranged the room transfer seemed very nice, I could only imagine that she had no idea that this particular room hadn’t been renovated yet. I did not want to make yet another phone call, but when I went into the bathroom and turned on the light, it was apparently connected to an air vent that was making so much noise it would have woke the kids, if we got up to use it at night. It was a quite obnoxious noise. I called for a technician, then I called to make a complaint back down to the front desk. The technician took the vent out of the ceiling and brought it back nearly 30 minutes later. After replacing the vent it sounded a little better, but not at all like the other rooms we had stayed in, It was still loud. Later that evening the night manager called me and offered us another room, which I declined that evening. I explained that my children were now sleeping and that we would move in the morning, she said she would personally inspect the room before we arrived. I called down the following morning, to see if they would send someone up to help us with our luggage, we were tierd of lugging them around ourselves, They sent up a bellmen to assist us to our new room. This room once again had two beds, and came with no service work requirements, we had no more complaints. A manager called us the next day (June 16th) and said he would be crediting us for one more day, for all the problems we had. There are some minor details of one rude customer service clerk, and receiving a check out bill one day early then feuding with the clerk, notifying her that we were suppose to check out the following morning, but generally this is pretty accurate. I have not received my onepass miles from this stay. My bill is still incorrect. SInce I am still dealing with issues that stemmed from this stay, I feel I should receive some form of compensation. Any advise?