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Everyone, get this:
My husband works out of town, and the last time he showed up at the La Quinta Inn in Franklin, TN a couple of days before the boss. The boss asked him to give the hotel our card to hold the room (paid us 50 bucks for the trouble.) Then boss man gave the hotel his card when he got in town, a full week before checkout. So nothing is supposed to come from our account at all. All’s well, right?
Check-out day:
The hotel charged our account anyway.
$280 (for a “holding fee”) + $287 and change.
Husband went down to front desk, this was on Saturday, and they assured him it was cleared up even though one of those charges would say “pending” until close of banking business on Monday night.
Tuesday morning.
Not cleared up. $280.
Then, $280 again.
Then, again. $280.
Then, you guessed it: again. $280
And one more time, this time for $287 and change.
FIVE charges on Tuesday morning instead of none. Tuesday they assured us it would be cleared up on Wednesday.
Not.
Wednesday they assured us it would be cleared up today.
Not.
So now, with all those charges PLUS overdraft fees the account is almost $800 negative. And I need to buy things. And I need to pay bills.
Fuck you, La Quinta Inn in Nashville, Franklin, TN. You are a bunch of incompetent morons.
Oh, yeah. No money to celebrate Valentines day.
UPDATE: Here’s someone else who had a grand time with La Quinta Inn. This site is also about how La Quinta Inn Sucks.
FURTHER UPDATE: The latest is that from today, five days after this started, they are saying it will be 3–5 business days before our original money is back in our account ~monday is a holiday, so we’re talking thursday or so~ and 2 weeks before they refund us the fees we have accrued in this mess. I called the customer service department for La Quinta Inns, and the woman on the other end told me there was nothing she could do.
So I asked her, “It sounds to me like you are saying that because of banking procedures (set up to work under normal circumstances) your hands are tied, and you feel no responsibility for the incompetence of YOUR employees, considering that we owed La Quinta NOTHING. Her response:
“If your husband’s boss had been there at check-in none of this would have happened.”
Way to own up to your mistakes. Fantastic business practice. Good luck with that, La Quinta.
If there’s anybody at La Quinta Inns & Suites with enough sense, I suggest you start reading Seth Godin’s blog.
*** Help me by Stumbling this article! Maybe if more people see it, I’ll get my money sooner! ***
6 responses so far ↓
1 ken // Feb 14, 2008 at 9:29 am
Apparently, on June 20th of last year, my wife and I posted 2 signs in Philadelphia, claiming that the street side parking was reserved for our Day Care facility.
1. We own no day care facility
2. I would never, EVER set foot in the area listed in the two code violation tickets we received. I’d be dead and chopped in to wind chimes in seconds.
3. On said date, both violations occurred, according to the tickets, at the EXACT SAME TIME. Interesting, b/c the one ticket is listed on the 500 block of the street and the other, the 800 block.
4. Of greater interest, the tickets, apparently written at the exact same time, were written by ONE OFFICER (must be a clone).
5. So now, on June 4th, I have to attend a hearing and prove that I do not own a day care center in an area where children are presumably consumed like fresh vegetables by an impecunious and drug-addled neighborhood.
6. Best part, the city wants me to provide “documentation that I do not own a child care facility”. Um…I suppose I’ll bring the same documentation that claims I do not have ownership over a cilantro packing facility.
So welcome to America.
Although, grousing about no money for Valentine’s Day sounds American enough, right?
Just give the man a hug. Maybe a kiss. Indulge a fetish.
Me, I’m gonna roll around in some cilantro.
XOXO
ken’s last blog post..inspirational throw-away
2 Taylor // Feb 14, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Ken, your mind works in mysterious ways.
He’s out of town anyway, for Valentine’s Day. It’s not the holiday, it’s the seventeen hundred bucks (and counting.)
3 mandy // Feb 14, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Hotels suck at reimbursing people … we had the sae thing at Mellow Mushroom pizza in winston-Salem … we bought 5 peoples dinner that night .. and not once did they EVER apologize … hope it gets cleared up soon for you …
4 mark // Feb 15, 2008 at 5:08 am
The big chain hotels in the US seem to not pay their staff very well. The professionalism is somewhat lacking to say the least.
5 Taylor // Feb 16, 2008 at 1:55 pm
@mark No kidding! This is been outrageous.
6 MS // Nov 11, 2008 at 2:00 pm
So it’s never the person’s fault…? I have seen many signs stating that if you use a DEBIT/CHECK card, the funds are taken out right away yet I hear people complaining non stop about how they have no money and have an overdraft fee. It’s the hotel’s fault that you presented a method of payment with no money?? Checking someone in is very easy and VERY safe. They cannot swipe your credit card and then “decide” to charge you 2x, 3x 8x as much. In my career, about 85-95% of hotel billing issues is the actual card holder and their bank. A hotel can send a request to your bank that we will charge you $100 from your initial $120 authorization, thus releasing $20. Some banks do not allow second auths on the same card (Bank issue) then resulting in a new $120 auth and a $100 charge with a total of $340 showing up on your statement even though the hotel only charged $100, the rest releases on the bank’s time. It is out of the Hotel’s hands and it is your bank’s policy. The operators at your bank are paid less and will say just about anything to make you happy due to the phone survey at the end of the call. A Hotel Front Desk Clerk is paid well in accordance to the demographics and will work hard to get a promotion. It’s not that they won’t give you your $$$ back, it’s that they can’t. Read ALL the very fine print on the agreement when you get a new credit card. It states it very clearly that it is up to the bank’s discretion to release funds or allow charges from pending holds or authorizations…this is their way to get overdraft fees and a simple attempt to stop theft. Educate yourself first before you go on an idiotic rant.
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