commencement weekend ruined by Hampton Inn Ithaca
By A Yahoo! Contributor, 5/30/11
I am a Cornell student just graduated today. I called to book three rooms at the end of April for May 28th 2011 for my friends coming from China, California and Pittsburgh who made the effort to come to my graduation. They did not send me a confirmation letter nor give me a confirmation number after my reservation. However, I did not take that very seriously, since I saw in my bank statement that they charged the rate they named on the phone in full amount on May 2 2011.
When I arrived, I figured out that they had no reservation for me. At the very beginning, they even denied that they charged me the money for the three rooms and asked me to contact my bank. After about half a hour, they finally found out that they charged me, but the money was not for May 28th 2011, but April 28th 2011. I was quite surprised because I was not even in the USA on April 28th 2011. It was very hard for me to communicate with them. Even though it was their mistake, they kept saying that the only thing they could do for me was to refund the money they charged and tried find three rooms for me. However, I needed to cover the price difference.
I found it was not fair because the room rate on May 28th was obviously much higher than the room rate if it were booked one month earlier. Why should I pay for the mistake they made? I tried my best to argue with them and I just wanted to be treated fairly. However, they called the policeman to ask us to stop arguing with them, because there manager who could make the decision was not able to talk to me at that moment. At the end, the policeman gave me the cards for the manager and CEO of Hampton Inn and suggested me to call them on Tuesday again.
I believe everyone understands the graduation ceremony is the most memorable moment for everyone. However, this unpleasant experience ruined one of my most important moments of my life.