ComplaintsforHoliday Inn Express Boone

• Initial Complaint

  02/19/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Customer Service Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  We just had a horrible experience here. Our family’s lodging plans were thwarted so we called this hotel to inquire about a room for last night, Fri 2/18. 1 king suite (listed for next Fri night as a reference for $279). We were charged $625.73 - “subtotal $459 and $166 taxes & service fees.” For one night. At a Holiday Inn Express. Devestated but desperate (another hotel we tried was sold out, and it was past our kids bedtime at this point), we accepted the OUTRAGEOUS price. Such an incredible rip off. But we desperately needed a place to bathe & sleep after snow activities w/ tired kids. 3 huge issues: 1) Rip-off price as above 2) We checked in at 8:30 PM and were given a key to room 200. Brought all of our stuff up. Opened the door, kids ran in first. IT WAS AN OCCUPIED ROOM. Someone’s purse, food, other personal belongings on the table. We booked it back downstairs. No real apology from the front desk. Given a key to another room instead. 3) The living room/pull out sofa area’s heater was broken. It was 20 degrees outside & very cold in this area. We called downstairs. They didn’t offer a solution. I specifically asked if they had a space heater and they brought an old one up. Did not give off much heat & did not feel safe in a room with 2 small children. We slept with the heat cranked in the king bed area which made it uncomfortably warm for us, but didn’t do much for the sofa bed area. Woke up this morning to our kids’ hands and feet ice cold. They cried. I told the front desk. Said someone would look into that heater. Doubt it happened. I cannot believe we just paid $625 for that experience. Please help us make this right.

  Business response

  03/04/2022

  Sent: Friday, March 4, 2022 1:51 PM
  To: ***** ******** ***********************
  Cc: '********* ******** ****************************
  Subject: RE: The Better Business Bureau has received a customer concern about your business

  Thank you for reaching out to us. I am sorry to hear about this guests experience. I have reviewed the information regarding this matter and found that the heater in the room they were in did stop working. Our maintenance department went up the morning of the guests departure and changed the unit out so that this would not be an issue for the next guest. This was the last room of this room type that we had for the night that the guest was staying with us and we were sold out on this night so therefore we could not move them to another room of any room type. Our front desk staff did apologize to them for the inconvenience. This was a pre-paid reservation that was booked through a third party called “********”. When a reservation is booked through a third party and is a pre-paid reservation, this means that the guest paid the third party travel agent for the room and the third party travel agent provides the hotel with a virtual credit card to pay us for the room. If the guest had booked directly with the hotel we would have been able to offer them some sort of discount for the inconvenience of the heater not working, however when they are booked through a third party we are not allowed to change the rate of the room reservation as this was the agreement the guest had with the third party travel agency. When the room is pre-paid by the guest and the travel agent has provided the hotel with a virtual credit card that we used to charge the room stay to any refunds that we would have issued would have gone back to the travel agency and not the guest as we did not charge the guest credit card. We only billed the third party travel agent 439.90 in total including taxes for this room. The remaining amount that the guest states that they paid must have been fees associated with and charged by the third party travel agent. If you have any further questions please feel free to reach out to me.

  Stephanie O’*****

  General Manager

  HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS – BOONE

  828-264-2451

   

  For area information check out www.highcountryhost.com

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