Sometimes Hotels Can Torture Us, Too
A few months ago I arrived at the Hampton Inn Great Valley (Frazer, PA) about 45 minutes from PHL Airport. The previous week I paid a last-minute-no-regular-rooms-left-sorry rate of $189 for the best room on the Concierge Floor at the STL Marriott, so I expected this to be a letdown.
But since Hilton bills Hampton Inns as its “quality, value-priced hotels” (Hilton's words), and since I have stayed at many a Hampton in the past, I was stunned to find my very large pharma client’s best corporate rate to be $144.
No overnight accommodation value for money, I guess, is to be found in Frazer, Pennsylvania.
Adding insult to injury, the front desk woman was surly, had no water for Diamond members like me, and gleefully informed me “don’t know if we’ll get any tomorrow.”
She then told my colleague standing next to me, who is HHonors Gold, that he should stay Gold and not become Diamond because “Once a person gets to be a Diamond, they just harass the staff, like your friend here [meaning me].”
Jeez, all I did was politely ask for the bottle of water Hilton says its best customers are entitled to, even at a Hampton.
Little experiences like this really pull me down. I know it’s a horrible job to work behind the desk at that hotel late on Sunday night, but for $144/night plus a fistful of taxes, it seems to me that they could at least be courteous.
A few months ago I arrived at the Hampton Inn Great Valley (Frazer, PA) about 45 minutes from PHL Airport. The previous week I paid a last-minute-no-regular-rooms-left-sorry rate of $189 for the best room on the Concierge Floor at the STL Marriott, so I expected this to be a letdown.
But since Hilton bills Hampton Inns as its “quality, value-priced hotels” (Hilton's words), and since I have stayed at many a Hampton in the past, I was stunned to find my very large pharma client’s best corporate rate to be $144.
No overnight accommodation value for money, I guess, is to be found in Frazer, Pennsylvania.
Adding insult to injury, the front desk woman was surly, had no water for Diamond members like me, and gleefully informed me “don’t know if we’ll get any tomorrow.”
She then told my colleague standing next to me, who is HHonors Gold, that he should stay Gold and not become Diamond because “Once a person gets to be a Diamond, they just harass the staff, like your friend here [meaning me].”
Jeez, all I did was politely ask for the bottle of water Hilton says its best customers are entitled to, even at a Hampton.
Little experiences like this really pull me down. I know it’s a horrible job to work behind the desk at that hotel late on Sunday night, but for $144/night plus a fistful of taxes, it seems to me that they could at least be courteous.
posted by William A. Allen III | 8:31 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home