customer is always rrrrrrwrong!

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Wait, your manager ignored the GM and comped her room? WTF is that??

Management training.

I gotta admit, it's been a while since I've seen a story of a manager standing firm and a subordinate being a dishrag. Perhaps never.

Bingo. The U.S. Open and the Masters tournament are practically the Super Bowl of Golf.

The U.S. open in particular, landing on Father's Day weekend, is I'm sure a popular gift idea for people with golf loving dads and some money.

The PGA championship has been held twice at a golf course about half an hour away from me. Both times it was difficult if not impossible to get a hotel room within a sizable radius of the course. All the hotels locally were filled, with the possible exception of the dives.

In a few years the Ryder Cup is going to be held there, along with probably some other major golf tournaments.

[dalesys]

Doggonnit, the Hubster had better haul his ass out of bed soon, I gots me some golfin' to watch.

... if you don't get up NOW!, you won't be putting on MY green ...

[Ironclad Alibi]

Why couldn't they just ask for non smoking in the first place?

As far as I can tell from the postings, the SC's and travel agents being discussed did ask for a non-smoking room in the first place, and were told none were available.

[Becks]

There are places that still have rooms that allow smoking?

That's it!! No more letting the (former smoker) MOTH book rooms!

[Racket_Man]

The PGA championship has been held twice at a golf course about half an hour away from me. Both times it was difficult if not impossible to get a hotel room within a sizable radius of the course. All the hotels locally were filled, with the possible exception of the dives.

In a few years the Ryder Cup is going to be held there, along with probably some other major golf tournaments.

even over Packer home game weekends even the dive/dump hotels (???) are full. I think even we up here get some of the "overflow" (60 or so miles away) from those major golf tourneyments

[mharbourgirl]

... if you don't get up NOW!, you won't be putting on MY green ...

Waahaahaa!

I am sooo going to use that at the appropriate moment.

[underemployeed]

....
He told OMS to tell MB to throw her and her rotten family out and call the cops if they whine! He didn't want evil people in his hotel and neither do I. And he meant it too. Ah, to be a GM...

OMS, instead, comped her night and set it up so our hotel pays for the reservation at Hellton. WTF She bitches, and she gets free nights?! Call the cops on this crazy bitch! Why oh why won't OMS grow some ballz already?

Well at least they are leaving and won't be here tomorrow. That guy that was supposed to come in, never did, so his clean, non smoking room was freed up. I don't think I'll tell them that though. I have to work tomorrow night

Devils Advocate, it is easier to comp her the room at your hotel than to deal with the cops and the fallout from that situation. Setting up reservation(IE, booking not paying) with a competitor fine as the cost of giving the room away is cost of cleaning, water and electricity from MB buys a $20 space heater to turn on HIGH, while the AC is set to full blast arctic chill.

However, I think the GM needs to know not only were orders not followed on tossing them out. That you actually PAID for them to stay 2 days at another hotel, and I'm wondering if they cut the OSM a deal or charged the going rate for the night. Which Idk, sounds like OSM just costed your hotel A LOT of money compared to tossing them out on their asses like instructed.

[wagegoth]

I just want to add that smoke allergies are a myth. It's not an allergen it's an irritant, so saying one is allergic to cigarette smoke is inaccurate.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Allergic-to-Cigarette-Smoke

I'm afraid that article is incorrect in a number of points. There are ingredients in most cigarettes to which one can easily be allergic. Smoke is an irritant, but the ingredients that are released into the air with the smoke are often allergans, as well as carcinogens.

My husband smokes Sherman's, and they simply don't cause me problems the way most major cigarette brands do.

[EricKei]

Reading this story has made my eye start twitching uncontrollably now.... A lot of travel agents are evil and can't tell the truth. Will continue to lie to customers.

"Okay, Ma'am, I see the problem. When you get home, you're gonna have to have a little chat with your travel agent about his 'honesty' issues..."

[MrSmiley]

Hotel I worked it became 100% non-smoking. So what does this mean? Well it just means that this sometimes comes up but backwards:

"I want a smoking room"
"We don't have any"
"I want a smoking room".

Some people leave. Others ignore us, smoke in their room and we take pictures of the ashes they leave behind and ding them with a $100-250 cleaning fee (The registration card they sign says $250 but most are only charged $150).

We do however have different room types that people complain about similar to the original post. The room you book is what you book. If it isn't please don't book. In fact our online booking (as well as some travel agents) spit out messages that say something like "Pre-paid reservation. No changes are able to be made to this reservation". The most common confusion is between the rooms labeled poolSIDE (patio door accesses pool directly) and poolVIEW (2nd floor balcony overlooking the pool).

[Peppergirl]

Up until a few years ago, travel agent booking engines (called GDS's), couldn't differentiate between smoking and non smoking rooms. We simply had to book a room and manually request smoking or non.

However, nowadays it's nearly impossible to find a room that doesn't specifically say one or the other.

That TA was just lazy, and was probably just trying to get rid of that high maintenence family. I hate that, because it gives good TA's (like me) a bad rep.

Sorry you had to deal with that. And the spineless manager was a twat.

[Kristev]

That spineless mismanager should be fired. Quite simply. The only comp that entitlement consumer deserved was a boot in the rear and a visit to the police station for tresspassing and borderline threating behavior.

I will stay out of the smoking matter, except to state that my mother, having asthma, cannot be around cigarette smoke at all.

[auntiem]

Up until a few years ago, travel agent booking engines (called GDS's), couldn't differentiate between smoking and non smoking rooms. We simply had to book a room and manually request smoking or non.

However, nowadays it's nearly impossible to find a room that doesn't specifically say one or the other.

That TA was just lazy, and was probably just trying to get rid of that high maintenence family. I hate that, because it gives good TA's (like me) a bad rep.

Sorry you had to deal with that. And the spineless manager was a twat.

Totally agree. Also, our GDS would list the rooms smoking/non-smoking but I believe in our system that was reported to the GDS by the hotel. The only reason I know that is because one hotel chain went non-smoking and it still showed smoking rooms available. A lazy agent who didn't bother to read updates / talk to their sales rep would probably book it and it would show as a smoking room on the reservation. *sigh*.

[Moirae]

The hotels I work for have always been "smoking/non-smoking is a request only".

[Mr Hero]

I was reminded of this thread when I had this happen to me last night. I just couldn't remember the name of the thread or who posted it.