Unnecessary escalations
This spring and summer have been rough on travel. My partner and I actually had a hotel cancel our reservation after the world ended. It was complicated by the fact that we’d used a combination of credit card points and cash to make the reservation for two different rooms, one for us and one for my partner’s mother.
It was probably the somewhat complicated nature of the way we originally placed the reservation that made getting our refund such a mess. Over the course of two months and four separate interactions, we spent upwards of six hours on the phone or in a chat with agents; some credit card people, some ‘points’ people (a lot of folks don’t know that in many instances, the loyalty program isn’t run by the same company with whom you have loyalty).
It was a comedy of errors each time we reached out and tried to reconcile the issue, and the refunds and return of points actually dribbled in over time with some points for one room here, the credit on the card back for the other room there, and so forth. We couldn’t figure out what was so complicated, even given that we were dealing with two different entities, especially considering the cancellation was initiated by them in the first place.
While my partner was frustrated, I was embarrassed. Embarrassed for our industry. (more…)