Night Terrors: Mercure Bendigo Schaller

[lovestotravel]

So someone had an electronic key, with the wrong room number written on the card holder/cardboard cover in a 4 star hotel....They tried the key, which didn't work and you woke up.....

Surely the room had a deadbolt/lock/latch or all of the above ? and if you are so worried you travel with a door stopper/chock to stop people entering?

I would hate to see how worried you get when something really goes wrong at a hotel

 

[Cloud9]

So someone had an electronic key, with the wrong room number written on the card holder/cardboard cover in a 4 star hotel....They tried the key, which didn't work and you woke up.....

Surely the room had a deadbolt/lock/latch or all of the above ? and if you are so worried you travel with a door stopper/chock to stop people entering?

I would hate to see how worried you get when something really goes wrong at a hotel

I think we're 4 star only in name here. And they tried it for well over a minute - more than enough to wake me and keep me awake.

And I think it's important to put principle and professionalism front and centre here, to be frank.

 

[jb747]

Went back to my room after rather too many ales in Bahrain. Back in the GoDs of metal keys. Key wouldn’t work. Fumble some more. Voice comes from the room “ya cough, you’re going the other way”.

We only had a couple of flights, and as FO you’d have room 647 or 447, depending upon the way you were going.

 

[Cloud9]

Went back to my room after rather too many ales in Bahrain. Back in the GoDs of metal keys. Key wouldn’t work. Fumble some more. Voice comes from the room “ya cough, you’re going the the other way”.

We only had a couple of flights, and as FO you’d have room 647 or 447, depending upon the way you we going.

Now, that is infinitely better than my SatNav!

 

[exceladdict]

A good reminder that genuine mistakes can happen, and travelling with a small door stop and/or using security latches can provide extra piece of mind.

 

[p--and--t]

Went back to my room after rather too many ales in Bahrain. Back in the GoDs of metal keys. Key wouldn’t work. Fumble some more. Voice comes from the room “ya cough, you’re going the other way”.

We only had a couple of flights, and as FO you’d have room 647 or 447, depending upon the way you were going.

So as they say - you didn't know whether you were coming or going.

With too many ales, I hope your flight wasn't that following morning

 

[Denali]

Personally I wouldn't remove my honest reviews in exchange for money and or points. People depend on reviews, even negative ones. I enjoy reading the negative reviews first when looking at hotels. Most are whiney but the real reason negs are helpful.

 

[DC3]

Personally I wouldn't remove my honest reviews in exchange for money and or points. People depend on reviews, even negative ones. I enjoy reading the negative reviews first when looking at hotels. Most are whiney but the real reason negs are helpful.

We all have our price

 

[NM]

Went back to my room after rather too many ales in Bahrain. Back in the GoDs of metal keys. Key wouldn’t work. Fumble some more. Voice comes from the room “ya cough, you’re going the other way”.

We only had a couple of flights, and as FO you’d have room 647 or 447, depending upon the way you were going.

Did the captain get room 747?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Personally I wouldn't remove my honest reviews in exchange for money and or points. People depend on reviews, even negative ones. I enjoy reading the negative reviews first when looking at hotels. Most are whiney but the real reason negs are helpful.

Mistakes happen. I’m not sure how much investigation and remedial training needs to occur when a member of staff wrote down the wrong room number.

I don’t think either party is coming away from this looking particularly good at this point. It was a simple mistake. Should have had a simple outcome. Starting negotiations on ‘how much’ to remove a bad review doesn’t look good for either side.

While the reviews may be taken down from tripadvisor, this thread from AFF won’t. So the back and forth is a bit silly.

Plenty of reviews on trip advisor where the hotel has responded to complaints. The valid ones are actually helpful.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

What are you going to do if they don’t play ball? Your letter makes it sound like you have options to pursue. Have you checked those out, and confirmed you can use them?

At the end of the day, I would argue that the compensation should either be based on what you are entitled to under the law (i.e. 600 Euros if it was a flight disruption out of the EU) or alternatively if no such law exists, what the hotel service recovery standard is. With Accor and some hotels, there are no publicized service recovery standards for things like this (they do talk about what they owe you if they have to "walk" you to another hotel when they overbook). So then it comes down to thinking of what is reasonable. I would argue in most instances (including this one), a night's stay is reasonable for most disruptions payable either by points or $$$ (i.e. refund).

Was this the Ibis Styles in a suburb starting with B, by any chance?

This was in Hamburg, Germany. And if you must know it was the ibis Hamburg Alsterring (originally booked the ibis Hamburg Flughafen but that hotel was closed and the owner gave me the option of a refund or rebook into the Alsterring, the latter of which I chose).

As for the Ibis Styles Brisbane (which I suspect you were hinting at), I actually stayed there a number of times (see my reviews) and haven't had an issue with that particular property. Good location, modern and usually sensibly priced too (particularly with an Accor+ rate).

We all have our price

Let's leave Qantas out of this discussion for once!

 

[MEL_Traveller]

At the end of the day, I would argue that the compensation should either be based on what you are entitled to under the law (i.e. 600 Euros if it was a flight disruption out of the EU) or alternatively if no such law exists, what the hotel service recovery standard is. With Accor and some hotels, there are no publicized service recovery standards for things like this (they do talk about what they owe you if they have to "walk" you to another hotel when they overbook). So then it comes down to thinking of what is reasonable. I would argue in most instances (including this one), a night's stay is reasonable for most disruptions payable either by points or $$$ (i.e. refund).

Exactly. But the OP’s correspondence made it sound like they would take action if the matter wasn’t resolved to their satisfaction.

My question was exactly ‘what’ action that would be, and whether or not the research had been done as you describe… what is appropriate, are there any applicable protection laws, or policies by Accor, etc.

Otherwise it’s easy for the company to call the bluff.

 

[RB]

Thanks for the redact, moderator.
I can confirm this is the email I have received from them. I have responded with a counter offer requesting a full refund of the third night's stay.
Posted below for transparency.

Dear <redacted>

Thank you for your email. Thank you, in particular, for a very clear reflection on the events that occurred. I am grateful that you have acknowledged that my experience was distressing, rather than an “inconvenience” as was conveyed to me by the hotel manager and Accor in their correspondence previously.

The terms that you outline are - in the main - reasonable and acceptable to me. However, given that I was unable to reach anyone on the out of hours number, given that my call was not returned, and given the fact that the hotel was unable to meet my needs at the time required, I must politely yet insistently request a full refund of my third night’s stay.

If you are willing to agree to this, then based on the rest of what you outline as how you intend to make amends for this extremely unfortunate incident, I - on my part - am happy to consider the matter closed.

I should like to thank you, very genuinely, for treating this matter with the gravity that it deserves. Your speed of response is admirable.

I look forward to hearing from you in due course as to whether we can strike an accord (pun intended) on resolving this issue fully and finally to our mutual satisfaction.

Kind Regards
Cloud9

Post automatically merged: Jul 25, 2024

For those wondering about the pun, how do you pronounce "d'accord" (as in, OK?) in French?

I find this a very sad way to approach what was a simple error. I fear you might be in for a lot of "night terrors" if you do much travel in the future

 

[Mattg]

This was in Hamburg, Germany. And if you must know it was the ibis Hamburg Alsterring (originally booked the ibis Hamburg Flughafen but that hotel was closed and the owner gave me the option of a refund or rebook into the Alsterring, the latter of which I chose).

Oh, I understood it was in Hamburg. I was wondering if it was the one in Barmbek, where I’ve stayed previously and had a few issues.

I have stayed at the Alsterring Ibis as well, and thought that was OK.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

For another guest with a key for your room, no it wouldn't work. But for staff it's a bit different. When I worked at a big hotel I recall we had a normal 'all access' key for housekeeping that wouldn't work when the deadbolt was on, but another 'firemans key' for managers etc which would still open the door if the deadbolt was engaged. Obviously lots of different types of doors around so not sure how universal that is.

Latches were a different matter... the chains are trivially easy to bypass, but we didn't have the other styles at the hotel I worked at. Nonetheless it has become a habit of mine to deadbolt and latch the door whenever I'm in a hotel room.

I think that's the key takeaway from all of this. If you are staying at a hotel, engage the deadbolt every time you enter your room, irrespective of how sketchy the location you are staying at may be. In that way you prevent others from entering your room (aside from supervisors/police but at that point you have other issues to worry about). For me the big nuisance is housekeeping which varies from hotel to hotel. At some hotels I have seen housekeeping come in as early as 8 AM. And certainly this would keep randos with the key from entering your room too!

-RooFlyer88

 

[RooFlyer]

Personally I wouldn't remove my honest reviews in exchange for money and or points. People depend on reviews, even negative ones. I enjoy reading the negative reviews first when looking at hotels. Most are whiney but the real reason negs are helpful.

I’m pretty much over looking at reviews, as they are so corruptible these days - negative ones removed, bogus positive ones put in. Except maybe TrustPilot.

So when my travel agent gave me a couple of hire car options for South Africa, I looked a couple of them up. Both had uniform one ratings from trustPilot per consistent and I believed them. In fact, the hire cars at Johannesburg Airport all sound so sleazy, I’m going to hire a private driver.

 

[Scarlett]

I think what I’ve learnt from this thread is that someone entering your hotel room while you are already in it, is:
60% of the time - another guest with an erroneously issued key
25% of the time - house keeping
14.99% of the time - hotel maintenance staff
0.000001% of the time - apparently a psycho or someone with ill intentions…

Guess I’ll continue to sleep soundly at night. the glass is half full.

 

[DC3]