Do not stay at Pacific Resort
 

My husband and I travelled to Auckland in early March with a planned stop into Raro for 2 nights. Due to cyclone activity planes were not permitted to land and thus, we were flown directly to Auckland. When I contacted the hotel to cancel they indicated because we did not give 24 hours notice we were charged 100% of our reservation w/out refund! This is bad business. We plan to make a trip to Raro in the future and would never consider Pacific Resort.

I think you should write to them again and say that there are several hundred people on this forum, all of them travellers and potential customers, who are outraged by their bloody-minded attitude, and that if they cared to look at your situation again (it was hardly your fault, after all!), you'd be glad to print a "retraction" and tell us all what jolly good fellows they all are at Pacific Resort.

In the meantime, doesn't your travel insurance cover you for rerouting due to changes in schedule by an airline?

That's pretty darned bad. Be sure to post this on Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree board (http://thorntree.lonelyplanet.com/ca...s.cfm?catid=20) so other folks hear about it.

Also, you might ask "Raro" (a frequent poster on that board) what he thinks of that policy under those circumstances (ie the plane was diverted). He's the owner of the Shangri-La Resort at Muri (a neighbor of the Rarotonga Pacific Resort) as well as a published travel writer ("The Cook Islands Companion") and a retired lawyer and US judge. Note that I'm not suggesting that you ask him for legal advice, just for his opinion on whether or not that policy under those conditions is commonplace. He may simply tell you that if you didn't have travel insurance, your just plain out of luck and that such extraordinary circumstance are exactly why folks buy travel insurance. That answer (if that's what he tells you) won't make you happy, but at least you'll know that the Pacific Resort is playing by the acceptable rules of business - unfortunate as they may well be for you.

On the other hand, if he tells you that other places on the island did not operate that way under those circumstances, it may give you a bit more leverage with the Pacific Resort.

Ken

please also post a note on the tripavdisor.com website under hotels. I use this forum to check on specific hotels / resorts before I book.

It should be very easy indeed simply to claim on your travel insurance.

I know this is a little old to be giving advice, but you should have also just called up your credit card company and filed a claim with them. That would have been easier, too.

Also - take it to the top at Pacific Resort... It's amazing what the owners will do for you, compared to their lowly managers who may not care as much as the owners about the place's reputation.

We stayed at the Pacific Resort Aitutaki in December 2003, and we were told by the manager on the day before we checked out that we could NOT get a late check out without paying another few hundred dollars for the luxury. Well.... we just happened to be having breakfast the morning of our departure date and spoke with one of the OWNERS and we sort of "complained" that we couldn't get a late checkout, especially after spending such a fabulous week there and we planned to tell all our friends about this fabulous place (wink wink) and he immediately authorized a 4pm check out at NO CHARGE.