RSD
Established Member
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2010
- Posts
- 1,890
Was looking for a hotel close to where I needed to visit in Chengdu, China and so used the map option on the Qantas Hotels booking page to locate a hotel that was suitably located... made the booking etc - all fine.
Landed in Chengdu on Tuesday evening and tried to get a Didi from the airport to the hotel. Didi couldn't find/didn't recognise the hotel name, so then I entered the address that came with the booking - that got me nowhere either. The locals were trying to help (well apart from the fake "Didi Uber" drivers who just wanted me to get in the car and we would figure it out on the way with the help of a mysterious friend) but they couldn't figure it out either despite the various translate apps being used aplenty.
Eventually a school girl who could speak reasonable English came along and between the two of us we managed to identify on the Didi map the approximate position of the hotel based on the map on the Qantas Hotels webpage and we managed to get Didi to accept a booking to there with the expectation that I should be able to find a roughly 20 story Hyatt once I got within +/- 100 metres of it.
Got to the address with the Didi driver and... nothing that vaguely resembled anything like a hotel... it wasn't quite China's equivalent of the Bronx, but it was a lot closer to the Bronx than it was to Broadway - 2am in the morning with people sitting around cable drums drinking and smoking etc. The Didi driver dumped me and fled.
Fortunately the locals were friendly and hospitable, and out came the translation apps again and eventually they managed to find a number for the Hyatt and rung them and gave me the phone to speak to the manager - who couldn't speak English. So more use of translation apps and it was organised that the hotel would send a taxi to pick me up and take me to the hotel - which is about 10km away from the location shown on the map on the Qantas Hotels page, and the street name is absolutely nothing like the street name that came with the booking confirmation. So after a ginormous 3.5 hour stuff around I finally checked into the Hyatt at 2.30am.
It would be an understatement to say that I am a little bit annoyed, fortunately I have done a reasonable amount of travel so I didn't freak out or end up in the foetal position crying - but I am concerned about what could have happened to say a solo female traveller or a first time overseas traveller - it would have been pretty confronting for a person like that.
I will give Qantas Hotels a call tomorrow to thank them for their exemplary geographical accuracy, but what are the thoughts about what I should ask for in compensation for this enormous stuff around?
I could almost be excused for thinking that Qantas Hotels has been trying to kill me over the years - back in 1994 I booked a hotel in Los Angeles through the Qantas Hotels page - it would have been really really nice if they had of warned me before I booked it that this hotel they were offering was in the Skid Row section of Los Angeles... after I checked in around lunch time I decided to go for a walk to stretch the legs, and about every third building was burnt out, there were needles lying on the ground everywhere, and eventually an ambulance pulled up beside me and insisted that they take me back to the hotel rather than me walk the 500 or so metres back to it - and the paramedics were wearing body armour. Needless to say I didn't go out after dark...
Landed in Chengdu on Tuesday evening and tried to get a Didi from the airport to the hotel. Didi couldn't find/didn't recognise the hotel name, so then I entered the address that came with the booking - that got me nowhere either. The locals were trying to help (well apart from the fake "Didi Uber" drivers who just wanted me to get in the car and we would figure it out on the way with the help of a mysterious friend) but they couldn't figure it out either despite the various translate apps being used aplenty.
Eventually a school girl who could speak reasonable English came along and between the two of us we managed to identify on the Didi map the approximate position of the hotel based on the map on the Qantas Hotels webpage and we managed to get Didi to accept a booking to there with the expectation that I should be able to find a roughly 20 story Hyatt once I got within +/- 100 metres of it.
Got to the address with the Didi driver and... nothing that vaguely resembled anything like a hotel... it wasn't quite China's equivalent of the Bronx, but it was a lot closer to the Bronx than it was to Broadway - 2am in the morning with people sitting around cable drums drinking and smoking etc. The Didi driver dumped me and fled.
Fortunately the locals were friendly and hospitable, and out came the translation apps again and eventually they managed to find a number for the Hyatt and rung them and gave me the phone to speak to the manager - who couldn't speak English. So more use of translation apps and it was organised that the hotel would send a taxi to pick me up and take me to the hotel - which is about 10km away from the location shown on the map on the Qantas Hotels page, and the street name is absolutely nothing like the street name that came with the booking confirmation. So after a ginormous 3.5 hour stuff around I finally checked into the Hyatt at 2.30am.
It would be an understatement to say that I am a little bit annoyed, fortunately I have done a reasonable amount of travel so I didn't freak out or end up in the foetal position crying - but I am concerned about what could have happened to say a solo female traveller or a first time overseas traveller - it would have been pretty confronting for a person like that.
I will give Qantas Hotels a call tomorrow to thank them for their exemplary geographical accuracy, but what are the thoughts about what I should ask for in compensation for this enormous stuff around?
I could almost be excused for thinking that Qantas Hotels has been trying to kill me over the years - back in 1994 I booked a hotel in Los Angeles through the Qantas Hotels page - it would have been really really nice if they had of warned me before I booked it that this hotel they were offering was in the Skid Row section of Los Angeles... after I checked in around lunch time I decided to go for a walk to stretch the legs, and about every third building was burnt out, there were needles lying on the ground everywhere, and eventually an ambulance pulled up beside me and insisted that they take me back to the hotel rather than me walk the 500 or so metres back to it - and the paramedics were wearing body armour. Needless to say I didn't go out after dark...
in A$ via an Australian merchant and so don’t get whacked the 3% international transaction fee 
