free money yay!

[HotelMinion]

I've been noticing a recent trend of customers making reservations and prepaying thru a third party, like expedia and all of its websites, and then not showing up or calling. Free money for us! I'm not complaining, but I am curious as to why people do this. The way I figure:

1. They forgot they made this reservation

or

2. They tried but some emergency came up and they didn't have a phone to call or forgot to call.

or

3. They have oodles of money to burn and don't care when it goes to businesses freely. (most unlikely)

4. They couldn't make it, tried to call expedia, and expedia said no. (sometimes they say no, sometimes say yes.)

Well, when I make reservations and prepay with a hotel, even wild bulls can't stop me from showing. Hotels are expensive, and I'm not going to throw away $500+. This sort of things has always happened occasionally, like once or twice a month, but lately it has happened like once or twice a week. It's a bit annoying actually, since I'm waiting all night for them, and we can't sell their room so... What gives?

[Gizmo]

I recently had to no show on a pre planned third party site booking. However not only did I cancel it on the website but actually rang the hotel and apologised as soon as I knew - mainly so they *could* resell the room if they got a walk in....

I got a thank you from them and a nice little note with my reciept saying "hope you feel better soon!" which kinda told me how few people must bother!

[Chromatix]

This wasn't a hotel, but I just-barely missed a ferry crossing last week, which - since it was an overnight crossing - had included a booked cabin. Those aren't particularly cheap, even the "economy" ones, in high season.

It wasn't my fault. I had been on a connecting train which was predicted to be 30 minutes late due to a points failure - making the connection tight but still theoretically manageable - which in fact turned into a 45 minute delay. Stockholm's public transport system then conspired against me in every way possible, so that by the time I'd located the correct bus stop and got within sight of the ferry terminal, there was a massive red ferry sliding serenely out of sight down the channel.

So the ferry operator got no notice that I wouldn't be using my cabin after all. They were nice, though - when I went in the next day (after discovering that they closed the terminal building pretty sharpish after the ferry left), they actually gave me a partial refund on rebooking me for a daytime ferry. Now, while a cabin isn't such a necessity on a daytime crossing, it was still appreciated as a way to not have to deal with the restaurants, duty-free shopping, casinos, clubs and smoking decks that dominate the rest of the ship.

[bhskittykatt]

We had someone recently book through a discount site which doesn't tell you the hotel until after you've already paid. You get to pick the area though, and this guest unfortunately didn't pay enough attention because the area he searched for was sold out so it defaulted to showing our hotel in the next closest geographic area. Problem is, we're on the other side of an international boundary and this guest did not have a passport or enhanced driver's license to cross the line.

He called me upset because the booking site wouldn't refund his money. Unfortunately I can't do anything about it since they have his money, not us; I could only refund the booking site and not him directly. It was weekend rates too so he was out like $400. It sucked and I felt bad for him but it was out of my hands.