Red Roof Inns

[redacted]
 
13.3333339691162px; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Thank you for forwarding the guest complaint and allowing us an opportunity to respond. The Red Roof Inn does business with [redacted] in two fashions, business that [redacted] pays for and business they recommend but the individual pays their own. Since we do hundreds of thousands of dollars with [redacted] we entered into a contract agreement to offer them special rates. Part of the contract agreement is that we have blackout periods, we must agree to the reservation, they must pay the bill, and the rate is not transferrable. In order for the departments at [redacted] to exercise their ability book with the hotel via, internet, call center, or direct, they are issued an account number. By using this account number, we and they, are able track which department is booking and therefore responsible for the bill.
 
The Alumni Association for [redacted] was issued an account and they inadvertently posted their account information online for their users instead of the discount percentage we were offering for an event in 2014 not 2015. We routinely run reports to see what reservations are being booked by [redacted] and  we reach out to those departments to ensure we have all the necessary information for billing purposes. When we ran a report for 2015 we discovered a number of rooms had been booked by the Alumni Association during a blackout period which is stated in our previous contract with UVA. When we reached out to the department it became clear they had accidently posted their account information to the public. We contacted those guests to make them aware that they were welcomed to keep their reservation but we could not honor the rate because we did not agree to this rate. Basically this amounts to an individual’s credit card information getting out and the bank refusing payment for fraudulent purchases. The customer never intended for their information to be given to others therefore the bank does not expect the customer to take the loss.  
 
Although we know the guests are not ultimately responsible for receiving bad information but we, Red Roof Inn, did not publish this private information and therefore cannot be held responsible for taking the loss. One customer took the liberty of writing the Alumni Association regarding the $97 dollar rate because she knew she was supposed to be paying more. In her email to them she stated that she would love to get such a low rate but considering Red Roof Inn is advertising rooms for $279/night as are most hotels something had to be wrong. Unfortunately, the individual in the Alumni Association received the email on August 3, 2014 and they did not act until we contacted them on September 29, 2014 when we discovered the issue. In the spirit of customer service and the fact that it was the Associations’ error and not ours, we asked them if they would be willing to pay the difference or even match what the guest received and we would take the $85/night loss. The Alumni Association would not agree so we have no choice but to rebook the guests at the higher rate or allow the guests to cancel their reservations.

Review: On July 15, 2013, we made a reservation to stay at the Red Roof Inn, [redacted] for May 16-18, 2013 to attend a [redacted] graduation ceremony. A copy of the reservation confirmation is attached. We were not told over the phone when we made the reservation of any policy to charge us in full any time before the date of check-in. Further, we were never told in any correspondence, written, by mail or by email, of any intent to charge us months before our arrival. If we had been so informed, we never would have made reservations with the Red Roof Inn. Yet, this past weekend, months before our expected check-in date, our [redacted] card was charged for $906.24 by the Red Roof Inn of [redacted]. Since we had no notice, this large charge disrupted our finances. We had to call our bank to cancel our credit card (that you ran without our permission) and have been working with our bank to address overdraft charges that resulted from your unauthorized billing and taking of our funds. We contacted the [redacted] Police Department to report this incident, have written the Office of the Attorney General for the Commonwealth of [redacted] as well as the local Revdex.com to file a complaint, and we contacted the Red Roof Inn Corporate Guest Relations Office to file a complaint. We can be reached by calling[redacted] or by email at [redacted].Desired Settlement: We want to preclude the Red Roof Inn from withdrawing any monies and return any funds that they obtained without our permission. In addition, we want an apology from the Red Roof Inn for all inconveniences.

Business

Response:

Spoke to [redacted] the gener[redacted] of the business. She states that the customer used a third party site to book the reservation. Graduation weekend is a prepaid weekend and had the customer booked through The Red Roof Inn directly those terms would have been clearly stated on the reservation. However, the site that was used did not disclose the terms and conditions concerning cancelations. The customer did contact the Red Roof Inn and because she was able to show proof of the lack of discloser her reservations has since been cancelled and refunded.

Review: I booked a room at this hotel in August of 2014 for a reunions weekend in June of 2015 and used a discount code that was provided to me by my school's alumni association. Two months later, I received an email from the property manager informing me that although I had a confirmed reservation at a certain price, the discount code I was provided with was incorrect and that I would have to pay a rate that was almost three times the rate I was initially quoted. I have an email confirmation with the lower price and would not have booked this hotel had I been required to pay the full asking price.

I have spoken with Red Roof corporate guest relations and they believe that since the school distributed the information, the hotel should not be required to honor the price. The school never quoted a specific price, only provided the code. I did not know the price until I input the code on Red Roof's website, and therefore Red Roof itself has misrepresented the price I will have to pay. I have also spoken with someone at the Red Roof [redacted] who told me over the phone that if I were to make a reservation online the price I would later be charged upon staying at the hotel would not increase at all.Desired Settlement: I believe that Red Roof should honor the price that was quoted to me in my email confirmation. I understand that the code I received I was incorrect, but it took Red Roof over 2 months to contact me to let me know that the rate was incorrect. As this is a popular weekend, there are no other hotel rooms available at this point, and I am forced to stay in the room I initially booked at the higher rate.

Business

Response:

[redacted]

Thank you for forwarding the guest complaint and allowing us an opportunity to respond. The Red Roof Inn does business with [redacted] in two fashions, business that [redacted] pays for and business they recommend but the individual pays their own. Since we do hundreds of thousands of dollars with [redacted] we entered into a contract agreement to offer them special rates. Part of the contract agreement is that we have blackout periods, we must agree to the reservation, they must pay the bill, and the rate is not transferrable. In order for the departments at [redacted] to exercise their ability book with the hotel via, internet, call center, or direct, they are issued an account number. By using this account number, we and they, are able track which department is booking and therefore responsible for the bill.

The Alumni Association for [redacted] was issued an account and they inadvertently posted their account information online for their users instead of the discount percentage we were offering for an event in 2014 not 2015. We routinely run reports to see what reservations are being booked by [redacted] and we reach out to those departments to ensure we have all the necessary information for billing purposes. When we ran a report for 2015 we discovered a number of rooms had been booked by the Alumni Association during a blackout period which is stated in our previous contract with UVA. When we reached out to the department it became clear they had accidently posted their account information to the public. We contacted those guests to make them aware that they were welcomed to keep their reservation but we could not honor the rate because we did not agree to this rate. Basically this amounts to an individual’s credit card information getting out and the bank refusing payment for fraudulent purchases. The customer never intended for their information to be given to others therefore the bank does not expect the customer to take the loss.

Although we know the guests are not ultimately responsible for receiving bad information but we, Red Roof Inn, did not publish this private information and therefore cannot be held responsible for taking the loss. One customer took the liberty of writing the Alumni Association regarding the $97 dollar rate because she knew she was supposed to be paying more. In her email to them she stated that she would love to get such a low rate but considering Red Roof Inn is advertising rooms for $279/night as are most hotels something had to be wrong. Unfortunately, the individual in the Alumni Association received the email on August 3, 2014 and they did not act until we contacted them on September 29, 2014 when we discovered the issue. In the spirit of customer service and the fact that it was the Associations’ error and not ours, we asked them if they would be willing to pay the difference or even match what the guest received and we would take the $85/night loss. The Alumni Association would not agree so we have no choice but to rebook the guests at the higher rate or allow the guests to cancel their reservations.