Hotel 91

Review: At the beginning of this month I booked a couple nights stay at Hotel 91 through [redacted]. When I realized I was unable to go on the trip, I cancelled my stay. It turns out, my stay was never cancelled and there is no record of me doing so. In return, Hotel 91 charged me a fee of $211.54 and then cancelled my room. I have spoken to several people at [redacted] who told me the hotel is the one who charges the fee, not them, and have the ability to take it off if they choose. They called on my behalf but the issue was not resolved. When I spoke with the manager and explained that I know I cancelled the reservation but instead, [redacted] only has a record that my dates were changed, I was hoping he would be understanding and refund my money. However, he told me that all hotels are allowed to charge this type of fee and because there is no record he will do nothing about it. The fees are also not listed on their website nor do they have a policy section. We travel to New York several times a year and this is the first time I have experienced something negative like this at a hotel and I only hope the matter can be resolved.Desired Settlement: I would like a refund of $211.54, which is what I was charged for a room I did not stay in and a trip I did not take.

Business

Response:

To Whom It May Concern,

[redacted] made a reservation at Hotel 91,through [redacted], for 3 nights and was due to check-in on October [redacted]and check-out on October [redacted]. Her reservation was never canceled and as a result the hotel charged her a standard no-show fee of $211.54, which is the equivalent of a one nights' stay plus tax. The hotel's cancelation policy is listed on the [redacted] site in which [redacted] made the reservation and on our own website. It clearly states that "If canceled or modified up to 1 day before the date of arrival, no fee will be charged. If canceled or modified later or in case of no-show, 100 percent of the first night will be charged." [redacted] did not show up for any portion of her 3 night stay, and only phoned the hotel on October [redacted], the day after she was due to check-in.

She claimed that she had canceled the reservation through [redacted], yet she had no cancelation number to confirm this. She then called back and amended her story claiming that she had previously phoned [redacted] to cancel but instead they incorrectly changed her stay dates. Yet again, there is no record of a change to her reservation. Any time there is ANY sort of modification to an existing reservation the change is logged in the [redacted] extranet and made readily visible to the hotel. To ensure that a change is received and acknowledged by the hotel a fax is also sent. If she had canceled the booking any time prior to 3pm on October [redacted] she would not have been charged. Furthermore, if an error in communication had occurred and the fault lied with either [redacted] or Hotel 91,we would have gladly refunded the amount in question. Needless to say, it is evident that [redacted]'s claim that she canceled the reservation is incorrect. As a result the hotel lost out on 3 nights worth of revenue and she was billed a no-show charge for one of those nights.

Front Office Manager, [redacted]

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID# [redacted], and have determined that my complaint has NOT been resolved because:

Hotel 91 is correct in saying that I did not call until October **, however, I spoke to several representatives on the phone at [redacted] and when they reviewed my account they told me they were not sure what happened but they they were able to see that dates were changed rather than cancelled. I called when my account was charged. I was not expecting a charge because I believed that I had cancelled my reservations through the e-mail I received, which took me to [redacted]'s website. Therefore, I did not call until October **. The representatives at [redacted] were very nice and all of them said hotels are able to refund you the fee if they want to but they are choosing not to in this situation. As per my complaint before, the charges I incurred are not listed on Hotel 91's website. The policy they described is not specific and before I booked my reservation I checked out the hotel's website and there were no specific charges listed.

If my reservation was not cancelled it was due to error through the website, considering my dates were changed and not cancelled. I have apologized and have tried to handle the situation very professionally. I feel that because I did not go to New York that weekend and stay at the hotel that I should receive a refund for the fee that is worth one night's stay at the hotel that they charged me. I will continue to travel to New York but I would be uncomfortable staying at a hotel who is not willing to put it's customers first but instead charges them a fee for something that was due to an error.

Sincerely,