Hotel Bait and Switch - involuntarily being "walked" to another hotel
 

This brief article has an account of a hotel switch in Rome, when someone booked a hotel online. When he arrived, he was switched to another hotel in a worse area.

http://www.ricksteves.com/news/0408/beware.htm

However, I really don't think this is related to booking through a third-party agency, since I've read several accounts of people who have had similar experiences at hotels (it seems Italian ones in particular) however they booked the hotel.

In any event, what do you do if you arrive at your chosen hotel in Italy (or elsewhere) and they try this particular trick? I know that typically in the US, if a hotel "walks" a customer, the customer essentially receives the first night free.

I was not aware that if someone is the US is "walked" that they "essentially receive the first night free." Is that some sort of "rule" or what? Although I suppose if you have a guaranteed reservation at a hotel and they cannot produce a room then you should be entitled to something...at least a room as nice as the one booked.

Are there laws that cover this? Somehow I suspect there may not be.

I went to the link, and it looked like a Q and A, chosen by rick steves for his website, apparently to illustrate a point about booking hotels through agencies. But the brief article didn't give the whole picture.

I know the hotel mentioned, and know they work closely with another hotel (in the same area of town). Both of these hotels are in the area of the Termini station, where it might seem "bad" from block to block. So the person who wrote it was not "walked" to a worse area at all, simply to a different hotel in the same area of town.

On my arrival in Rome at the same hotel, I was alone, and had trouble finding the address. The desk clerk actually left the hotel, and walked 3 blocks to find me on the street, and "walked: me safely to my hotel, where they offered me a room at either hotel, if I thought the other location was easier to find.
I don't remember anyone at any other hotel being so considerate as to go out on the street to look for a guest who is lost!!

So my response to the question
"What would you do if you arrive at your hotel in Italy and they try this particular trick?" is:

I would count to ten, take a deep breath, and try not to jump to conclusions too quickly. Sometimes the intention is not to "trick" you, but to give you options.

On another occasion, at another Italian hotel, I was moved to a different, smaller room to make way for an American couple who had decided they wanted the room I was staying in and were making alot of nasty noise about it. Rather than let it spoil my trip, I conceded and moved my room. But I didn't automatically blame the hotel, more the nasty aggression of the guests themselves. The hotel staff actually treated me royally for the rest of my stay!!

Hi wiil,

Sometimes small hotels do have difficulty accomodating guests, eg, someone decides to stay longer, or the plumbing fails.

It is not necessarily bait and switch to move you.

This happened to us a while ago in San Francisco. They moved us to a better hotel.

A number of years ago we arrived in Bergen, Norway to stay at a very nice place -- Park Hotel that we had reserved months ahead. They informed us that we'd be in the "annex" about four blocks away -- some university cheap housing that they take over in the summer season. We argued for a while but they stood firm that we'd have to stay there. When I said, "well at least I guess our breakfast is here in the beautiful breakfast room", they informed me that no, we'd have breakfast in the makeshift dining room in the annes. We paid for our parking permit, went over and looked at the worst dump I've ever seen. We spent the next hour or so finding another place and we found a wonderful room for even less (senior discount) at the SAS by the harbor. We returned to the office of the Park and turned in our key saying we weren't staying as we weren't happy. We also showed them our written confirmation giving us to 5 PM to cancel and we were well ahead of that. Suddenly everything changed. They could, in fact, now find us a room in the main hotel, and they they started getting nasty with us when we refused to take it saying we already paid at another place.

I guess the moral is that if you push and push, maybe you'll get your way. I didn't feel like doing that, but believed them the first time when they said there was "no possible way" they could find us a room in the main hotel.
The way I look at it, if you have a reservation at a particular hotel, you have no obligation to take an alternate. Of course, if everything else in town is booked, you don't have a lot of choice. But a decent credit card company would stand behind your refusal to pay for a hotel when they could not provide you with a room there.

This happened to us on our first trip to Paris. We booked at La Famila and were surprised upon our arrival to find that the plumbing in our room was out of order, and that they has booked us at another nearby hotel, La Studia.

We always try to "go with the flow" when we travel, so we didn't mind and figured we'd make the best of it. And, it turned out better after all. The room rate was slightly less, there was a small grocery and the metro stop right outside the hotel, and the laundromat was a half block away. All conveniences we didn't seem to have at Familia.

We were just glad that La Familia took the time to rebook us elsewhere, rather than just send out on our way with no alternative. And, it worked out fine.

I haven't gotten to this in my trip report yet. I booked "Hotel Gabbiano" in Maratea on Expedia at least 4-5 months before my trip last month. I had an Italian friend call the hotel a month later to confirm the reservation, and they had it. I still had an odd felling about the place. So, after we had toured Paestum and were to head to Maratea we called them. "We don't have your reservation..." The man was completely no help so we just went straight to the hotel. My dad argued with the manager in Italian for what seemed an eternity, and during this they showed us the fax from "Esperia" (I guess the agency Expedia works with in Italy?) which stated that they had tried to get a hold of me the week before, but they did not have any contact info for me., which is bull because Expedia had all my info. They had moved us to Grand Hotel Pianeta which was way up the mountain, not on the beach like Gabbiano. At that point I just asked my dad to stop arguing because I was pretty sure that I had read that Pianeta was much nicer than Gabbiano. The hotel was much nicer, and we had an amazing view of the statue "Il Redentore."

Between the time spent arguing with the guy on the phone at Paestum, stopping at Hotel Gabbiano, and arguing with the manager there we wasted at least 3-4 hours that day and we were only spending 2 nights to begin with.

I suspect that some of these "walks" are done by locals who get a commission for every person they steel away near the hotel and bring to some other hotel. We saw it happen in Cairo. They are very charming and professional....rip off artists.

I had used Expedia to book the Hilton at Cocoa Beach last spring. I had even called the Hilton directly to confirm the reservation and to stress that my daughter and I would be arriving around 3 a.m. and would be exhausted from our flights, to make sure the room would be there for us. The Hilton promised our room would be there waiting for us. But guess what-- it wasn't. They "walked" us to the Ramada Inn about a mile away. To make it worse, the Hilton desk clerk watched me unload all our suitcases from the car and lug them into the lobby before he told me they were full. He just stood behind the desk, with nothing else to do at 3 a.m. He also didn't offer to help me put the bags back into the car after he'd sent us on our way. Needless to say, I was a very unhappy camper. My daughter and I had each taken two flights and driven an hour to get to Cocoa Beach that a.m. And, yes, the Hilton said they'd "comp" that night, but since I'd booked through Expedia, I had already paid for the entire stay. The desk clerk had no idea how they would reimburse me, and it took a few conversations with management to figure it out. I was able to finagle a couple of free breakfast buffet passes, as my daughter and I were there for 8 nights, but still we never felt compensated for the day of our vacation that was lost by having to move from hotel to hotel, twice.

I've never heard of a hotel in the US paying for a night's room if they overbooked/made a mistake or had room problems. I haven't discussed that a lot, though.

I've read of this happening to several people (it's never happened to me). Any decent hotel will have an alternative suggestion. If they do have your reservation, and admit it, but can't accommodate you, I think they should have called another hotel and lined up a room for you -- a room within the same general area and about same price.

I am pretty organized and a planner, so I actually always carry a list of a couple hotel phone numbers as backups when I travel in case I do need them. I pick hotels that may have been runners-up in my original decision, ones I know in the same area and like, ones I know the rates of, etc. I've never had to use it, but I like being prepared. An alternative is just to look around the hotel and see if there is another one that looks okay within sight, and check it out. That will minimize traveling.

I don't like being at the mercy of a hotel suggesting one I know nothing about, which is why I do this. It isn't a lot of trouble, as I usually had a list of several possibles to begin with that I was considering.

I've never been walked personally. However, based on reports on Flyertalk and other forums, standard practice at American chain hotels seems to be to send the guest to another hotel and pay for the first night.

Fortunately we have not experienced being changed to a hotel other than the one we reserved. On our first trips to Europe our hotels were booked by travel agents, but we soon began making our own reservations mostly on the internet and sometimes by phone. I always request a confirmation, which I print and take with me, and shortly before we leave I e-mail the hotel once again to make sure we're all set, asking for a return e-mail.

Years ago we arrived at our hotel in Mesa, Arizona, to be told they had overbooked and wouldn't have a room until the next day. We were sent to another hotel but I don't remember getting that room free.

Last year we had a printed confirmation of a reservation at a hotel in Carmel I made on the net and were told no rooms were available when we arrived. We went to a much better hotel and through the kindness of the desk clerk, when she heard our sad story, got a much reduced rate for a superior room. This had nothing to do with the hotel that didn't honor our reservation.

I will confirm what <b>WillTravel</b> posted above. I have been &quot;walked&quot; few times in the US by Hilton, Sheraton and Hyatt properties and it usually was just for the night. In most cases, the hotel took care of the bill at the other property and upon return also gave me some nice upgrades (if possible) or breakfast and once a free dinner for 2 at the hotel's signature restaurant.

Never been walked in Europe, but I &quot;walked&quot; myself couple of times. The Hilton Hyde Park was one of the times I left shortly after check-in. The place is a dump and I'm not sure how it's able to keep the Hilton affiliation. (Please don't confuse this property with the London Hilton on Park Lane, a beautiful property).

Anyway, to answer <b>TopMan's</b> question. No, there are no official rules or laws, but most hotels will do it for good customer relations, plus it usually doesn't cost them that much more and in some cases less. Let's say you reserved a room at a rate of $100 for few nights. They had a group that needed an extra night and were willing to pay $200 per room. The hotel has a deal with a property down the road for a distress room rate of $50. So the hotel collected $200 for their own room, paid their partner hotel $50, still leaving $150 in their pockets. The free upgrade next day for you? well, maybe they were empty anyway, so to show you good will they gave you a suite that they couldm't sell anyway. It's a simplistic example, but don't ever thing that these overbookings happen because of the hotel's or airline's stupidity. They are usually NOT money loosers for them. In many cases, possible money makers.

It only happened once, at a hotel in Sorrento. This was not booked on the web but direct. We were walked (actually, they drove us per our request) to their sister hotel for the first night. On the second night, they accomodated us at the original hotel, in a better room category (they actually took the initiative on this compensation, not us. I was happy just to be put up at the original hotel for the second night.)

Now we mentally prepare ourselves for the possibility, which includes finding out about any sister hotels, etc. Would it be more likely with a booking agency? Possibly, especially those that guarantee so-called 'equivalent standard' accomodation.

I had an error in my first post. The writer of that account is female, not male.

The posts here seem to confirm that there's no reason to think that you are more likely to be walked if you book directly through the hotel than through an agency.