Snarky SC grates on my nerves

[HotelMinion]

This SC made a reservation for the 21. She came in on the 22nd at 3 am! Now that gets on my nerves. Why do people say they will come on this day but come on the next. But whatever. I checked her in. Usually pple are apologetic about being late but she acted like we should be ever so grateful that she came in at all.
Her bratty kid asked me if there was an indoor pool. I said no. SC looked at me like I just kicked him across the room. Um. ok...
Then SC asks if this restaurant about half a mile is open. I google the hours. No. I say no. SC goes anyway. SC comes back and says snarkily, "Just so you KNOW, it IS open."
I say with surprise, "Oh really? Well I googled it and it said it wasn't so..."
SC isn't listening. She runs back to her room.
If you're gonna go, then why ask me anyway. I bet she complain about me...

[NecessaryCatharsis]

I've booked rooms like that before, and probably would again. If I think I'm showing up after midnight I book for the night before. Even places with lax early check in policies probably wouldn't be willing to do it 12 hours early. I've never booked at place that asked me what time I expected to arrive, so I always thought that what should be done?

I have had a hotel call me twice after 9 or 10 pm to check that I was still showing, (I always put my cell as my contact #), but they didn't seem upset to find that I was still coming and was a few-several hours away yet.

And when travelling with my kid I always ask, in advance of booking or showing up, if there's a pool. No point in booking and then having him disappointed on arrival. Total fail on her part. Also hate, hate, hate when people ask me a question and then either argue the answer or chose not to listen. If you already knew what you were going to do why waste my time asking my thoughts. Really rude fail.

See if you can get housekeeping to do her place last, every day she's staying

[alogram]

I don't get this complaint. Had she made the reservation for the 22nd, isn't check out time much later in the day? This guaranteed her a room at 3 am... ?

[Tash]

At my hotel, they have to do that in order to be guaranteed a room at that early of a checkin. I'm pretty sure that's common practice at every hotel.

[HotelMinion]

Well see, it's like this. She made a booking for the 21, and check in time is for the 21. At midnight the date goes from the 21 to the 22. I have to run my audit and change the business date. Which means her reservation will go to noshow, which frees up the room so that anyone could snatch it up, and if they do, she's out of luck if she does show up after the audit. Cuz that's room's taken up cuz it was freed.
Sometime pple will call and say hey, I'm arriving late and I won't be there until 2 am, please don't sell my room. I say, ok no problem. She didn't do it. Sometimes there's a note on the reservation about arrivig late. There was no note. No note, no call...we assume you're not showing up and you get charged our no show fee.
I've had guests arrive at 3 am with a reservation for 4 nights, and when I try to pull up and reinstate the reservation, uh oh, there's an error! Someone has taken it for one or two of those nights. When I tell this to them, they bite my head off. That's why I'm annoyed when there's a late arrival and the person didn't call. I could call and ask then, I suppose but the manager says I don't have to. Most of the time the number is fake anyway. Or there is none.
So if you're arriving early the next day make sure there's a note or call, we'd appreciate no surprises...

[Mr Hero]

On sold out nights, I charge the CC a room was held with. We charge it anyway for no show fees, but I do it early on these nights if it declines. If payment goes through, I hold the room indefinitely. If it doesn't, I sell the room to someone else. Also helps that we run audit around 2 or 3 in the morning.

[bainsidhe]

I've learned two things after reading this site for a while now.

1) Call the hotel if you're arriving very late. Some hotels overbook and/or release the reservation if you don't show by a certain time. This allows them to resell the room and complete their audit.

2) Back when I used to work night audit, my hotel was both small and awesome. Our system wasn't complicated. We rarely sold out. And in the nearly two years I worked weekends, I never had to call the cops or even deal with super-pissed guests. This site and related stories makes me incredibly grateful for that.

[sirwired]

It sounds like your hotel's software is the biggest problem if you need to do piles of paperwork during night audit for late checkins. The guest certainly can't make a reservation for the "real" day of their stay if they need to check in in the wee hours of the morning.

I can't say that I would have known that I needed to call the hotel for a late checkin, since I have the room guaranteed with my credit card. And many booking methods may not have a way for the guest to make a note of this at reservation time.

[Kit-Ginevra]

It also means if you have let them know you're on the way,when you arrive you have a happy check-in clerk who hasn't been wondering whether to delete you or not in case you walk in the door. Keeping the bod at the front desk on your good side always helps.

[Seshat]

I've always treated it as courtesy to call ahead if I'm going to be late checking in - mostly because I watched my parents do it.

[Catwoman2965]

I've always called as well, even if my reservation is guarenteed with my cc. Too many stories of people who simply don't show up, and leave the hotel wondering. It takes 2 seconds, and I figure if i were the one working, I'd like to know too.

[Caractacus_Potts]

Which means her reservation will go to noshow, which frees up the room so that anyone could snatch it up, and if they do, she's out of luck if she does show up after the audit.

So if I am reading this right your hotel does not charge people for no-shows (I mean, if your going to rent the room to someone else and tell the person who made the reservation that they are shit out of luck then obviously you didn't charge them for the room you gave to someone else, right!?!).

That's probably the problem because (and I don't travel a lot so I could be wrong) I think most hotels will charge the person who reserved the room regardless of whether they show up or not. So, as several people had said if they knew they were going to be showing up at 3AM they book a room for the day before expecting to be charged for the room and for the room to be available when they show up.

I'm guessing the fact that they were not charged for the room is little consolation to the person standing in your lobby at 3AM looking to go to sleep. Personally I always call ahead if I know I am going to be late, I'm kind of paranoid about a hotel giving away my room!

[HotelMinion]

We try to charge people but some people give us a declined credit card, so then we can't. The reservation system doesn't check to see if the card is valid or not.
If someone's coming in at 3 am they should call. Credit cards are only for that day of arrival. 3am the next day is not the day of arrival.
It may seem harsh but there is an important reason behind the madness. The reservation system is designed to force people to arrive at the check in time because there was a huge problem with pple checking in very early next morning and demanding things. Very early morning, there is no housekeepers, no room service, no managers, no maintenance. So less grief.

I know that we have commercials that say, "Come in any time you like, we won't mind! Lol!" That's a lie. I now sa les are a big part of business but sometime I hate their lies.
Again, I only get pissed off if the reservation is for multiple nights. If the reservation is for one night, it's less of a problem. Multiple nighters are more to lose there reservation, especially during busy season. This particular SC was a 4 nighter.

BTW, when I was a noobie hotel worker, my manager showed me a powerpoint of an angry customer. It's called Very Bad Hotel, IDK if it's still around. Anyway, it was about this customer who came in early morning, only to find his room has been sold! He went on to make fun of the hotel and the hotel worker, and state that he was guaranteed a room. My manage asked me what I thought of it.

I said "Wow that was a very bad hotel! How could they do that?"

Now I say, "Did he call?"