The moment when...

MairePoppy · August 2015

I worked in a pharmacy for many years. An older man stopped to pick up his prescription for Viagra. This was when doctors first started prescribing it for impotence. When I handed him the prescription, he counted the pills and became irate that there were only 10 pills in the container. How dare we tell him he can only have sex 10 times? His gf was waiting in the car and they were off to the cape for a long weekend. He wanted 30, ASAP. The pharamcist stepped in and told him he could have 30, as his doctor prescribed, but his insurance company would only pay for the first 10. The cost for the other 20 would be about $200. He grabbed the bad and stormed out of the store. He made such a scene in the store that after he left, customers were commenting on how sorry they felt for his gf.

lovesclimbing · August 2015

huskypuppy14 said:

julieanne912 said:

arrippa said:

lyndausvi said:

arrippa said:

novella1186 said:

Haha!

When I did customer service at a casino resort, I had a couple people scream at me for "messing up" their reservation (I was just the person checking them in; I was not the person who made the damn reservation). Whenever this happened, the manager would look it up in the system, and sure enough the guest made their own reservation via hotels.com or a similar website. They messed it up themselves. But it was always my fault.

Question on that. I was told by someone who works front desk for a major hotel in NYC that they do not legally have to hold a hotels.com reservation. Since they didn't book with them, it's not the hotels responsibility. Is that true?

Sort of true. However, it's also a good way to get booted from Hotels.com. So it's not something they do on a regular basis.

We have 24 hours to reject any reservations that is made on Hotels.com. I've have reject a Hotels.com reservation once. 1 person on booking.com and 1 on hotels.com booked our last room at the same time. They hit our system within a second of each other. Since it put us over I had to reject one of the reservations. I picked the Hotels.com one. They helped the guest find another unit.

Happy birthday!! Thanks for the clarification. Once I heard this, I started to only book hotels through the hotels themselves.

I also think when you book through those sites, you get worse rooms sometimes. We went to Vegas with FI's family for a football game, and they all booked through a package deal on Expedia. Since we were flying from a different airport, we booked our room direct with the hotel. Our room was WAY nicer than theirs. I can't help but think it's because we booked direct. I've had other times years ago when I'd use Priceline a lot, and I always seemed to get a shitty room... the one by the elevator, or the ice machine, or with a view of a wall etc.

I think this is true. I'm going on vacation next week, and when I was researching the hotel, there were many mixed reviews. It seemed that the people that booked directly through the hotel had a better room/experience, and their requests were guaranteed (like wanting a king sized bed, for example). I always book rooms directly through the hotel anyway.

I think it makes sense. People are probably booking through a third party to save money, so why would you get a better room than people paying more. Someone has to have the room by the ice machine.

-----------------preemptive box----------------

This is definitely true. I worked at a hotel for a summer. If we ran out of small rooms or overbooked small rooms on accident (like when people booked on third-party sites and it took a few hours for them to push through to our system and then we had to actually input them, which took more time), we would always upgrade the people who actually bought through our site.

The worst was when people would book on a third-party site just a few hours before check in. So when they'd get there, it usually either hadn't pushed through to our system, or if it had, it hasn't been properly set up with all the payment info and such. People would get upset when we couldn't find the reservation even though it clearly said xyz site could take 24-48 hours to process.

We'd also get people complaining when they booked the cheapest room and then found out there was no free wifi in the room. That's what you get when you buy the cheapest room and don't read the list of amenities included carefully!

novella1186 · August 2015

lovesclimbing said:

julieanne912 said:

arrippa said:

lyndausvi said:

arrippa said:

novella1186 said:

Haha!

When I did customer service at a casino resort, I had a couple people scream at me for "messing up" their reservation (I was just the person checking them in; I was not the person who made the damn reservation). Whenever this happened, the manager would look it up in the system, and sure enough the guest made their own reservation via hotels.com or a similar website. They messed it up themselves. But it was always my fault.

Question on that. I was told by someone who works front desk for a major hotel in NYC that they do not legally have to hold a hotels.com reservation. Since they didn't book with them, it's not the hotels responsibility. Is that true?

Sort of true. However, it's also a good way to get booted from Hotels.com. So it's not something they do on a regular basis.

We have 24 hours to reject any reservations that is made on Hotels.com. I've have reject a Hotels.com reservation once. 1 person on booking.com and 1 on hotels.com booked our last room at the same time. They hit our system within a second of each other. Since it put us over I had to reject one of the reservations. I picked the Hotels.com one. They helped the guest find another unit.

Happy birthday!! Thanks for the clarification. Once I heard this, I started to only book hotels through the hotels themselves.

I also think when you book through those sites, you get worse rooms sometimes. We went to Vegas with FI's family for a football game, and they all booked through a package deal on Expedia. Since we were flying from a different airport, we booked our room direct with the hotel. Our room was WAY nicer than theirs. I can't help but think it's because we booked direct. I've had other times years ago when I'd use Priceline a lot, and I always seemed to get a shitty room... the one by the elevator, or the ice machine, or with a view of a wall etc.

I think this is true. I'm going on vacation next week, and when I was researching the hotel, there were many mixed reviews. It seemed that the people that booked directly through the hotel had a better room/experience, and their requests were guaranteed (like wanting a king sized bed, for example). I always book rooms directly through the hotel anyway.

I think it makes sense. People are probably booking through a third party to save money, so why would you get a better room than people paying more. Someone has to have the room by the ice machine.
-----------------preemptive box---------------- This is definitely true. I worked at a hotel for a summer. If we ran out of small rooms or overbooked small rooms on accident (like when people booked on third-party sites and it took a few hours for them to push through to our system and then we had to actually input them, which took more time), we would always upgrade the people who actually bought through our site. The worst was when people would book on a third-party site just a few hours before check in. So when they'd get there, it usually either hadn't pushed through to our system, or if it had, it hasn't been properly set up with all the payment info and such. People would get upset when we couldn't find the reservation even though it clearly said xyz site could take 24-48 hours to process. We'd also get people complaining when they booked the cheapest room and then found out there was no free wifi in the room. That's what you get when you buy the cheapest room and don't read the list of amenities included carefully!

hotels.com caused so many problems for our hotel and for our guests that I don't book through them. Basically when a guest would book on that site, the site would send us a fax of the reservation, and sometimes it wouldn't come through. If we didn't get the fax, then we have 0 record of any reservation and no way of knowing about it/holding a room for them.

When all our rooms were booked, hotels.com had no way of knowing this until our manager called and told them we were full and they needed to stop booking rooms for us. So a lot of times we got over-booked via hotels.com (and sometimes we wouldn't get the fax, so then we'd have a guest standing at our desk wanting to check in after driving several hours to get there, and there were no rooms left)

We also saw the price that the customer had paid on their hotels.com reservation, and sometimes it was actually more expensive than just booking directly through us. But we weren't allowed to say anything to them about it.

And, if someone messed up their own reservation on the website, there was nothing we could do to fix it. If we somehow messed it up ourselves we would fix it and sometimes even upgrade them for the inconvenience. If they messed it up, they were stuck with their mistake.

So yeah. I would recommend just booking direct.

ETA when I was unemployed right after college, I had a brief stint as a freelance writer for hotels.com. Another reason I don't like them. I was writing reviews for hotels on the other side of the country that I had never even been to. I was using google and whatnot to be able to describe attractions in the area and stuff like that, but I had no idea half the time, and the site would "check the accuracy" and then just publish it. It seemed really shady to me, like I wasn't giving customers an honest description at all. Which is probably why when I booked a hotel through that website described as being in "the heart of Madrid" I ended up an hour outside of the city.

lyndausvi · August 2015

We have a "direct" connect with expedia who handles hotels.com too. The direct connect doesn't always work. There is always a delay. The few times we have oversold it's always been due to the direct connect with Hotels.com didn't work. Never have had a problem with booking.com.

Another problem is requests. Requests are not guaranteed even booking directly through hotel. Even less so via a 3rd party. I love the guest who books via Hotels.com at 7pm, shows up at 7:20pm and gets all upset that his request of a higher floor was not granted.

WTF dude, 80% of the hotel already checked-in before you even booked. What am I supposed to go kick them out?

Or they just don't get the layout of our hotel. They just assume since they see a balcony it's available for request. Yeah, no. At our hotel only 2 bedroom 2 bath rooms have a balcony. So if you booked a 1 bedroom or studio you are not getting a balcony.

Or we only have 13 units. 4 of which are 2 bedrooms. They somehow think I'm being a bitch for not upgrading. Dude, I have 4 2 bedrooms, not really a huge inventory you know?

Travel agent bookings in the islands were often a bitch, We would always say "TA's sell the dream, we live the nightmare". They always told HM couples they would get an upgrade if they ask. Our hotel ran at 90% and our upgraded rooms were sold at full price most of the time. They were just rarely available. I've seen many a bride cry because we didn't upgrade them.

wandajune6 · August 2015

That's ridiculous.

I have worked many customer service lines over the years. I do a decent amount of customer support in my current job as well. I'm used to taking a lot of abuse but will bend over backwards for someone who admits fault and is pleasant to deal with. If it's our fault, I will make it a mission to get things fixed ASAP.

That said, if you screw up customer service badly, I will get it fixed. 6 or 7 years ago, Best Buy's Geek Squad had my laptop because of a hard drive issue. They accidentally switched my hard drive with another couple's. I got theirs while it took the store 4 days to figure out where mine went- which they were never willing to tell me. They screwed up their response horribly and I addressed it, aggressively. The manager didn't think this was a problem in need of a solution.

When the store staff was dismissive, I worked my way up through the company in search of a solution that I found appropriate: a refund for the work I paid for, identify theft/fraud protection, and an apology. The apology was not just for putting my person information in jeopardy or shoddy workmanship but also for asking me not to let the other couple know and acting like none of it was a problem.

In the end, I got a call back from a C-level executive who refunded the money for the work that was done and gave me 5 years of credit monitoring. He also offered $5000 in store credit but I told him that, as I would not be a customer again, I'd rather take it in cash. The other couple was made the same offer but, from what I understand, their $5K credit was never sent to them. The manager who denied the problem was fired.

arrrghmatey · August 2015

My sister attempted to book her flight for our girls' trip to the east coast that we took earlier this year. She thought she was doing the smart thing by using a sketchy, supposedly cheaper booking website. The cheaper website worked by using flexible dates, so you would put in the dates you want to fly, and they will return the cheapest fares for around that time frame. Sister did this and automatically picked the cheapest fare that was returned in the search, not noticing that it had her flying out Tuesday and flying back the following Tuesday, rather than flying out Thursday and flying back Sunday. She emailed the itinerary to me, Mom, and our other sister, but none of us bothered to look at it (why should we?).

Fast forward to 6 months later when it's time to take out trip. Sister gets a call from the airline on Wednesday stating she missed her flight, which left the day before. Sister gets incredibly upset, starts blaming the booking agency and claims that they changed her flights without telling her. I went back and found the original itinerary she emailed us and saw that the reservations was originally made for Tuesday-Tuesday….so the agency didn't change anything. She just didn't look over her itinerary. I pointed this out to her, then she blames Mom and I for not telling she put the wrong dates in. Then she proceeds to threaten that she wasn't going to be able to come on the trip because her airfare was non-transferrable or refundable, and she couldn't afford a new last-minute ticket. She did this in hopes that someone would offer to pay for her new ticket. I said "Okay, we'll miss you." So did Mom and other sister.

She ended up shelling out the money for a new ticket when we refused to help her, but still blames us and the airline for her stupidity.

banana468 · August 2015

I once had a customer calling me irate that we didn't ship her order.

She typed in my email address incorrectly so I never received the order. When I reminded her that no order confirmation means we don't have the order, it was still my fault that I didn't confirm the order it was impossible for me to have.

She ultimately stopped doing business with us but I have a feeling she was always going to be THAT customer who refused to ever accept her own mistakes.

lyndausvi · August 2015

banana468 said:

I once had a customer calling me irate that we didn't ship her order.

She typed in my email address incorrectly so I never received the order. When I reminded her that no order confirmation means we don't have the order, it was still my fault that I didn't confirm the order it was impossible for me to have.

She ultimately stopped doing business with us but I have a feeling she was always going to be THAT customer who refused to ever accept her own mistakes.

duh, it's your fault for not having access to the wrong email.

I get that sometimes from owners. My work email ends in .co NOT .com. No "m". People get so irate at me for not responding to an email they sent to .com. Or they send it to linda nor lynda.

Apparently I'm supposed to have lynda@company.co, lynda@company.com, linda@company.co and linda@company.com as emails just in case they make a type-o.

banana468 · August 2015

I wound up asking our IT guy at the time to at least have a few alias emails forward to me in the unlikely event that it happened again. But it was so insane.

What was worse is at the time, I worked for a guy who didn't understand that the customer's anger was largely due to her own incompetence. He still thought we were completely at fault.

And he had an IT background.

wandajune6 · August 2015

banana468 said:

I wound up asking our IT guy at the time to at least have a few alias emails forward to me in the unlikely event that it happened again. But it was so insane.

What was worse is at the time, I worked for a guy who didn't understand that the customer's anger was largely due to her own incompetence. He still thought we were completely at fault.

And he had an IT background.

Asshole. My boss recently got a call from a client furious that I wasn't responding to their phone calls (my main client is the CEO but I support lots of high level employees). The guy was furious that his important/valued employees were getting ignored. My boss sees me taking phone calls constantly so she knew that there was something wrong. Long story short, the CEO's new secretary was giving out the wrong number for me (she assumed I was in the same area code that she was). I've had similar experiences with email and voicemail as well.

It does make me wonder how people could leave so many messages without listening to the recording...

lovesclimbing · August 2015

novella1186 said:

lovesclimbing said:

julieanne912 said:

arrippa said:

lyndausvi said:

arrippa said:

novella1186 said:

Haha!

When I did customer service at a casino resort, I had a couple people scream at me for "messing up" their reservation (I was just the person checking them in; I was not the person who made the damn reservation). Whenever this happened, the manager would look it up in the system, and sure enough the guest made their own reservation via hotels.com or a similar website. They messed it up themselves. But it was always my fault.

Question on that. I was told by someone who works front desk for a major hotel in NYC that they do not legally have to hold a hotels.com reservation. Since they didn't book with them, it's not the hotels responsibility. Is that true?

Sort of true. However, it's also a good way to get booted from Hotels.com. So it's not something they do on a regular basis.

We have 24 hours to reject any reservations that is made on Hotels.com. I've have reject a Hotels.com reservation once. 1 person on booking.com and 1 on hotels.com booked our last room at the same time. They hit our system within a second of each other. Since it put us over I had to reject one of the reservations. I picked the Hotels.com one. They helped the guest find another unit.

Happy birthday!! Thanks for the clarification. Once I heard this, I started to only book hotels through the hotels themselves.

I also think when you book through those sites, you get worse rooms sometimes. We went to Vegas with FI's family for a football game, and they all booked through a package deal on Expedia. Since we were flying from a different airport, we booked our room direct with the hotel. Our room was WAY nicer than theirs. I can't help but think it's because we booked direct. I've had other times years ago when I'd use Priceline a lot, and I always seemed to get a shitty room... the one by the elevator, or the ice machine, or with a view of a wall etc.

I think this is true. I'm going on vacation next week, and when I was researching the hotel, there were many mixed reviews. It seemed that the people that booked directly through the hotel had a better room/experience, and their requests were guaranteed (like wanting a king sized bed, for example). I always book rooms directly through the hotel anyway.

I think it makes sense. People are probably booking through a third party to save money, so why would you get a better room than people paying more. Someone has to have the room by the ice machine.
-----------------preemptive box---------------- This is definitely true. I worked at a hotel for a summer. If we ran out of small rooms or overbooked small rooms on accident (like when people booked on third-party sites and it took a few hours for them to push through to our system and then we had to actually input them, which took more time), we would always upgrade the people who actually bought through our site. The worst was when people would book on a third-party site just a few hours before check in. So when they'd get there, it usually either hadn't pushed through to our system, or if it had, it hasn't been properly set up with all the payment info and such. People would get upset when we couldn't find the reservation even though it clearly said xyz site could take 24-48 hours to process. We'd also get people complaining when they booked the cheapest room and then found out there was no free wifi in the room. That's what you get when you buy the cheapest room and don't read the list of amenities included carefully!

hotels.com caused so many problems for our hotel and for our guests that I don't book through them. Basically when a guest would book on that site, the site would send us a fax of the reservation, and sometimes it wouldn't come through. If we didn't get the fax, then we have 0 record of any reservation and no way of knowing about it/holding a room for them.

When all our rooms were booked, hotels.com had no way of knowing this until our manager called and told them we were full and they needed to stop booking rooms for us. So a lot of times we got over-booked via hotels.com (and sometimes we wouldn't get the fax, so then we'd have a guest standing at our desk wanting to check in after driving several hours to get there, and there were no rooms left)

We also saw the price that the customer had paid on their hotels.com reservation, and sometimes it was actually more expensive than just booking directly through us. But we weren't allowed to say anything to them about it.

And, if someone messed up their own reservation on the website, there was nothing we could do to fix it. If we somehow messed it up ourselves we would fix it and sometimes even upgrade them for the inconvenience. If they messed it up, they were stuck with their mistake.

So yeah. I would recommend just booking direct.

ETA when I was unemployed right after college, I had a brief stint as a freelance writer for hotels.com. Another reason I don't like them. I was writing reviews for hotels on the other side of the country that I had never even been to. I was using google and whatnot to be able to describe attractions in the area and stuff like that, but I had no idea half the time, and the site would "check the accuracy" and then just publish it. It seemed really shady to me, like I wasn't giving customers an honest description at all. Which is probably why when I booked a hotel through that website described as being in "the heart of Madrid" I ended up an hour outside of the city.

Yes, yes, all of the bolded! If I recall correctly, the reservations would push through to our system and automatically be inputted, but the names wouldn't. So we would have to compare a printout we were sent with reservation numbers and then actually change the name on the reservation from "expedia" or "hotels" to their name, and then change the payment info.

Also, we'd get people calling us asking to cancel and sometimes they'd get upset when we told them we couldn't cancel their reservation, they had to call expedia or whoever to cancel through them. And it's much easier to get a hold of us (we were part of a small regional chain of less than a dozen hotels) then to get a hold of expedia or hotels.com!

lyndausvi · August 2015

lovesclimbing said:

novella1186 said:

lovesclimbing said:

julieanne912 said:

arrippa said:

lyndausvi said:

arrippa said:

novella1186 said:

Haha!

When I did customer service at a casino resort, I had a couple people scream at me for "messing up" their reservation (I was just the person checking them in; I was not the person who made the damn reservation). Whenever this happened, the manager would look it up in the system, and sure enough the guest made their own reservation via hotels.com or a similar website. They messed it up themselves. But it was always my fault.

Question on that. I was told by someone who works front desk for a major hotel in NYC that they do not legally have to hold a hotels.com reservation. Since they didn't book with them, it's not the hotels responsibility. Is that true?

Sort of true. However, it's also a good way to get booted from Hotels.com. So it's not something they do on a regular basis.

We have 24 hours to reject any reservations that is made on Hotels.com. I've have reject a Hotels.com reservation once. 1 person on booking.com and 1 on hotels.com booked our last room at the same time. They hit our system within a second of each other. Since it put us over I had to reject one of the reservations. I picked the Hotels.com one. They helped the guest find another unit.

Happy birthday!! Thanks for the clarification. Once I heard this, I started to only book hotels through the hotels themselves.

I also think when you book through those sites, you get worse rooms sometimes. We went to Vegas with FI's family for a football game, and they all booked through a package deal on Expedia. Since we were flying from a different airport, we booked our room direct with the hotel. Our room was WAY nicer than theirs. I can't help but think it's because we booked direct. I've had other times years ago when I'd use Priceline a lot, and I always seemed to get a shitty room... the one by the elevator, or the ice machine, or with a view of a wall etc.

I think this is true. I'm going on vacation next week, and when I was researching the hotel, there were many mixed reviews. It seemed that the people that booked directly through the hotel had a better room/experience, and their requests were guaranteed (like wanting a king sized bed, for example). I always book rooms directly through the hotel anyway.

I think it makes sense. People are probably booking through a third party to save money, so why would you get a better room than people paying more. Someone has to have the room by the ice machine.
-----------------preemptive box---------------- This is definitely true. I worked at a hotel for a summer. If we ran out of small rooms or overbooked small rooms on accident (like when people booked on third-party sites and it took a few hours for them to push through to our system and then we had to actually input them, which took more time), we would always upgrade the people who actually bought through our site. The worst was when people would book on a third-party site just a few hours before check in. So when they'd get there, it usually either hadn't pushed through to our system, or if it had, it hasn't been properly set up with all the payment info and such. People would get upset when we couldn't find the reservation even though it clearly said xyz site could take 24-48 hours to process. We'd also get people complaining when they booked the cheapest room and then found out there was no free wifi in the room. That's what you get when you buy the cheapest room and don't read the list of amenities included carefully!

hotels.com caused so many problems for our hotel and for our guests that I don't book through them. Basically when a guest would book on that site, the site would send us a fax of the reservation, and sometimes it wouldn't come through. If we didn't get the fax, then we have 0 record of any reservation and no way of knowing about it/holding a room for them.

When all our rooms were booked, hotels.com had no way of knowing this until our manager called and told them we were full and they needed to stop booking rooms for us. So a lot of times we got over-booked via hotels.com (and sometimes we wouldn't get the fax, so then we'd have a guest standing at our desk wanting to check in after driving several hours to get there, and there were no rooms left)

We also saw the price that the customer had paid on their hotels.com reservation, and sometimes it was actually more expensive than just booking directly through us. But we weren't allowed to say anything to them about it.

And, if someone messed up their own reservation on the website, there was nothing we could do to fix it. If we somehow messed it up ourselves we would fix it and sometimes even upgrade them for the inconvenience. If they messed it up, they were stuck with their mistake.

So yeah. I would recommend just booking direct.

ETA when I was unemployed right after college, I had a brief stint as a freelance writer for hotels.com. Another reason I don't like them. I was writing reviews for hotels on the other side of the country that I had never even been to. I was using google and whatnot to be able to describe attractions in the area and stuff like that, but I had no idea half the time, and the site would "check the accuracy" and then just publish it. It seemed really shady to me, like I wasn't giving customers an honest description at all. Which is probably why when I booked a hotel through that website described as being in "the heart of Madrid" I ended up an hour outside of the city.

Yes, yes, all of the bolded! If I recall correctly, the reservations would push through to our system and automatically be inputted, but the names wouldn't. So we would have to compare a printout we were sent with reservation numbers and then actually change the name on the reservation from "expedia" or "hotels" to their name, and then change the payment info.

Also, we'd get people calling us asking to cancel and sometimes they'd get upset when we told them we couldn't cancel their reservation, they had to call expedia or whoever to cancel through them. And it's much easier to get a hold of us (we were part of a small regional chain of less than a dozen hotels) then to get a hold of expedia or hotels.com!

yep. We get so many people get mad when we tell them they have to go through whatever site they booked from. It's crazy how many people forget who they booked from.

You see we pay a commission on those who stay. Not on those who book and then cancel. If the hotel started canceling then the 3rd party is goring to think we are trying to get out of paying commission. Which I totally understand as there is no way of them knowing if they guests didn't actually stay or not.

ShesSoCold · August 2015

Hmmm. Thanks for this. I used hotels.com and I am two nights away from a second free night. I know many of the chains offer similar things through their own sites so I will start doing that (after I earn and use my free nights!!) instead. But I do call the hotels directly to ensure my reservation went through and to verbally request anything special, but I'm never upset if they can't accommodate.

lyndausvi · August 2015

I still book through hotels.com. Mostly last minute (same night or next night) hotels when we travel and plans get delayed or changed. I pick the cheapest place and know pretty much what I'm getting into.

thisismynickname2 · August 2015

The only thing that's kind of a bummer about the third party sites is sometimes only they have the rooms! When we booked our honeymoon, I had originally found the hotel on Expedia. I went directly to the hotel's site to explore and saw that they had some bonus deals you could get if you booked directly through them. But, they didn't have the same availability; in fact, they were sold out. I could only book the dates I wanted on Expedia and the hotel declined to give me the same bonus offers that were on their site. Oh well. Them's the breaks, as they say.

But again on the topic of customer service, as DH works for the airlines, it's pretty much the same kind of complaints. The people who pay the absolute lowest possible fares seem to be the ones that bitch the most, and especially bitch about perceived differences between them and those who paid more. Like, why can't they get assigned the seats with extra legroom? Why can't they get the free upgrade to first class? (Also, why can't their family of six sit together after all the seats have been assigned to a fully booked flight?) Because the people getting the bigger seats and free upgrades are the frequent fliers who spend loads of money with the company, not the once-per-year lowest-fare vacationers! People forget that flying is still a luxury, not an entitlement. Flying is not public transportation like city/metro trains and buses.

julieanne912 · August 2015

ShesSoCold said:

Hmmm. Thanks for this. I used hotels.com and I am two nights away from a second free night. I know many of the chains offer similar things through their own sites so I will start doing that (after I earn and use my free nights!!) instead. But I do call the hotels directly to ensure my reservation went through and to verbally request anything special, but I'm never upset if they can't accommodate.

Yes do it! FI travels a lot for work (42 weeks last year), so he racked up reward points and free nights with Marriott. We are now getting a suite for 2 nights for the wedding for free, and he's using points to "pay" for a hotel room for his best man for that night as well.

ashtsb · August 2015

julieanne912 said:

ShesSoCold said:

Hmmm. Thanks for this. I used hotels.com and I am two nights away from a second free night. I know many of the chains offer similar things through their own sites so I will start doing that (after I earn and use my free nights!!) instead. But I do call the hotels directly to ensure my reservation went through and to verbally request anything special, but I'm never upset if they can't accommodate.

Yes do it! FI travels a lot for work (42 weeks last year), so he racked up reward points and free nights with Marriott. We are now getting a suite for 2 nights for the wedding for free, and he's using points to "pay" for a hotel room for his best man for that night as well.

My dad does a lot of travel with his job and racks up points. He doesn't use them because he only ever stays at hotels because of his job. He's giving them to us and we have 5 nights free! If we stayed at hotels enough I would totally get on one of these plans, we generally only stay maybe 3 nights at a hotel total a year!

julieanne912 · August 2015

ashtsb said:

julieanne912 said:

ShesSoCold said:

Hmmm. Thanks for this. I used hotels.com and I am two nights away from a second free night. I know many of the chains offer similar things through their own sites so I will start doing that (after I earn and use my free nights!!) instead. But I do call the hotels directly to ensure my reservation went through and to verbally request anything special, but I'm never upset if they can't accommodate.

Yes do it! FI travels a lot for work (42 weeks last year), so he racked up reward points and free nights with Marriott. We are now getting a suite for 2 nights for the wedding for free, and he's using points to "pay" for a hotel room for his best man for that night as well.

My dad does a lot of travel with his job and racks up points. He doesn't use them because he only ever stays at hotels because of his job. He's giving them to us and we have 5 nights free! If we stayed at hotels enough I would totally get on one of these plans, we generally only stay maybe 3 nights at a hotel total a year!

Yeah FI pretty much doesn't want to step foot in a hotel when he's home. He had a free night with Kimpton hotels (nicer boutique style), so I went and used it by myself LOL My BFFs husband was the GM at that particular hotel and upgraded me to a suite and sent up a basket of junk food. So I ate junk food in bed and watched bad TV. Hooray for FI's free nights!

lyndausvi · August 2015

My dad has over a million United airline points. He has a lifetime membership in the highest United point program. Free upgrades for him and my mom for life. He is the one who books a flight a hour before takeoff and will bump someone looking for an upgrade down to economy at the last minute.

He is always a lifetime member of the Marriott points program. Not sure how many points he has (well over a million). His name pops up and it's an automatic upgrade.

They are taking a cruise to South America and Antarctica next Feb soley on points.

wandajune6 · August 2015

I use Hotels.com all the time. I currently have 2 free nights banked and am close to a third. We were going to use them for NYC Restaurant week later this month but that fell through so it will probably just go to long weekends.

I usually use the service when I'm booking a few weeks in advance or I'm pulling into the parking lot. I've never had a problem but acknowledge that shit happens.

OllisaurusRex · August 2015

A guy wanted a refund because he ran over his garden hose with the lawn mower.

Thankfully, that was my last day at that job. And it was in the middle of True Blood insanity. I'd been told I looked rather vampire that day more than a few times. So I whipped around and hissed at him. The store manager fell over laughing at me. The idiot about peed himself and ran out the door.

I went back a few weeks later for something. Manager gets me and is laughing. Apparently the idiot had called corporate about the store employing vampires.

Because of course, vampires are standing outside, in full sun, with the garden center gear on.

I still like to hiss at people.

Knottie92548810 · August 2015

The main one I remember is a couple of ladies came in (I was working in a very busy sports bar). I had a large table of elderly gentlemen (wonderful and patient men) who were hard at hearing so it was taking longer than usual to get their orders. These women thought they were the only ones in the bar (there were over 100 people in our small dining room) and they were mad because their martinis took 5 minutes to get to their tables after I took their orders. I couldnt stand it. They were so rude that they made me cry (I'm not a cry-er). The head server at the time, only person who was above me at the time who is just as level headed as I am, had issues with these women.

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