forced to switch hotel rooms mid-stay?
 

In getting rate quotes from Paris 3 star hotels, 2 came in stating that I would be forced to switch to a different room during my stay. <BR>Has this happened to you? Can you explain why it would be necessary to switch me from one room to another? The hotels claim that both rooms would be classified the same (superior, deluxe, etc.).<BR><BR>

Can you check with the hotels? Maybe they overbooked the same room? In my personal experience when I asked for a reservation I've never been told that I'd need to switch rooms mid-stay. If I were you I would not choose either of those two hotels that told you this.

It may be that someone has booked a specific room number, some people do do that ..I have trouble remembering what room I'm in even while I'm staying there...So while it is available for the first part of your stay , it is promised to someone else for later.

Spider:<BR><BR>This has happened a couple of times at hotels that I have used in Paris and London. JOdy is correct about people wanting a specific room...my favorite hotel in London is very popular and guests regularly request certain rooms...so the hotel will book you into the rooms that are "free" during your stay. It may be that no one room is available for that entire period, so you need to change rooms during the stay. The hotel always makes this clear during booking so you can choose to do this or not...no surprises on check in.<BR><BR>Your Paris hotel is being upfront with you and you can choose to switch rooms at that particular hotel or seek out a new one to book. If the hotel is one that you really want for particular reasons, good price/location/ambience etc., changing rooms would, to me, not be such a bother...but some would find it too annoying. Judge for yourself.....<BR><BR>Judy in Germany<BR><BR>

It might be that someone has requested a specific room number, but equally likely is the phenomenon of 'fragmentation.' Just like your computer disk gets fragmented with odd bits and pieces of unused space, or a movie theatre starts getting fragmented with odd seats here and there as people fill the theatre, so do hotel room inventories start to become fragmented as rooms start to book up. The hotel is left with rooms 2 and 3 left free for say, August 10-15, rooms 2 and 4 for August 16 and 17, and so on. You have to move around because there is no longer sufficient free space to accomodate you in a single block of room dates.

this happened to us on a stay in Paris - we were told we would have to do this on booking (we didn't mind too much) but when we got there they said they could work around us and in the end we stayed in the same room.<BR><BR>I am sure thye will help you move your things!! you may be lucky and get upgraded?

At least they told you about it upfront. We stayed at the Hotel Bisanzio in Venice in 1993 and they told us as we turned in the room key to leave for a day of sightseeing after the first night of our three night stay that they needed the room for another reservation and so they would be moving us into another room. The part that still bothers me every time I read good comments about the Bisanzio (yeah, I know, "get over it") is that they weren't even apologetic about it. They said their staff would pack everything and move it for us, but we still didn't like the idea of someone else handling all our things, so we went back and spent precious vacation time repacking. This may well be the only negative comments you will ever read about the Bisanzio, but it still steams me when I read how friendly the staff is there because they were not friendly when we checked in and then they pulled this stunt. OK, maybe I'll try to "get over it" now.

I have never had that happen to me and I probably would not book there because I don't like packing up and moving, and it will take time out of your day as you can't usually do that until afternoon. I agree with Kathy above, I would be annoyed about that and wouldn't like someone else in my things.<BR><BR>I can think of a couple reasons, but it's surprising this happened twice to you -- someone requesting and getting a specific room as others have said (although I didn't think that many hotels would promise you specific room numbers--some I stay at regularly will promise a category and even side of hotel and floor within reason, but not a specific room). Or, I could see if it a group or family needed rooms next to each other and that was how they had to do it.<BR><BR>I don't understand other reasons or what Sue is suggesting, as if both rooms are really equal in quality and price, they could just as easily check someone else into the other room rather than moving you. Clearly they are checking someone else into the room they are forcing you to vacate, so they must have two free rooms on that date in the same category. If I really wanted to stay there, I would ask them the reason as I would suspect the rooms weren't really equal.

Thank you, Christina. It certainly occurred to me when the Bisanzio told us they had to move us because they had another party who needed the room that the alternative to splitting up our stay and moving us was to put the new arrivers in a different room and then move them to our room after we vacated it. But it was clear that they had already decided that we were the ones to have our stay split up, and even if we made a big fuss, as soon as we left for our sightseeing they would just go into our room and move us. OK. I'll try to get over it now.

This happened to me in Beaune, France. I had no warning of it. We returned to our hotel to find that they had moved our stuff! I was frantic about some fragile souvenirs, but they were okay. But then the hotel had the nerve to try to charge us the higher rate for the nicer room they forced us to move into, rather than the rate we had booked for our original room.

This happened to us at the Leveque. We had asked for a room overlooking the street, and they only had one of those available for the first six nights. The switch to a room on the courtyard side didn't bother us because we were forwarned, although I have to say that our original room was much nicer.

I would have really been furious if they moved all my things without any advance warning! What nerve! At least those hotels are telling you in advance, but I think I would look for somewhere else.