Poor Customer Service
This post is not meant to be an attack. It is simply stating my experience with Chateau Avalon. The hotel itself looks very nice, and I'm sure that several guests have not experienced issues such as this. This is, however, indicative of a larger problem with overall customer service.
I had made an online reservation for the night of February 13th. I made the reservation on February 1st. I had placed the reservation on a credit card that has a limit on how much you can spend in one transaction. Per their website, the cost at time of reservation would be 50% of the total cost of the room. Unbeknownst to me, the rate I had been offered was a special 72-hour sale, and the cost at time of reservation was 100% of the total cost of the room. This amount was over the transaction limit set by my credit card company, and thus, the transaction was not accepted.
This would have been fine, as I would have placed the reservation on another card. However, no attempt was made to contact me! I found out about the problem when I contacted Chateau Avalon to confirm the reservation three days later. I was then informed that my credit card was declined. I asked if I could put the reservation on another card, but the woman (who was actually very cordial) said that the room had already been booked. I asked if there was another room, but she said that there were no more rooms available.
Needless to say, I was quite upset by this, as this was supposed to be a Valentine's Day surprise for my girlfriend, who absolutely loves this hotel. The woman I spoke said that I might be able to contact the manager to get a free room on another date. I left a message for the manager, promptly made a reservation at another hotel, and the next morning, a representative (not the manager) contacted me. She said that I had indeed been contacted by phone and by email. This came as a shock to me, as I never received any email, and I was never contacted by phone, and never had a voicemail message. She said that the person who put the notes on my account was very diligent about this, and definitely made the attempt to contact me. She believed her staff over the customer over a very simple matter, and that is definitely a mistake.
I was dumbfounded that she even suggested that I was wrong. She offered to give me a similar room on a different date at the same price, which was less than adequate, due to the circumstances. Nonetheless, I accepted. She assured me that I would be able to take advantage of the offer within a certain amount of time. I requested that she email me this information. However, to this day I have not received any emails from Chateau Avalon, except for the original reservation confirmation.
If I had not bothered to verify the reservation, I may have come to Chateau Avalon that night, only to find out that I wouldn't be staying there. That would have been utterly unacceptable.