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Discount travel websites can provide amazing discounts, but can also make you a second-class consumer of sorts--particularly in hotels. Jesse learned this the hard way when he booked a stay at a Holiday Inn in a major American city.
If that is how Holiday Inn feels, then they should not do buisness with Priceline. No one is making them. They use the service rather than let rooms it empty. Priceline makes it clear though, that the rate is usually a room for one or two people.
. I was the bad customer (his words) that booked through priceline instead of holiday inn.
After this words, I would have left the hotel, start beeing a good customer at his competitors. And contact the customer relationship department of Holiday Inn, of course.
On one hand, as far as I know, you can not make any specific room reservations with priceline, you can put in your wishes but the hotel is free to give you any avaliable room. I wanted to use priceline last year but did not want to sleep in one bed with a collegue, so I just used the regular booking page. Priceline website says, the hotel accomodate at least 2 adults, nothing more.
In my experience, priceline is good when travelling alone and the type of room is not that important. On the other hand, the rude behavior of that hotel manager should not be tolerated.
Um, hotels have to willingly join Priceline. Every hotel does not show up on Priceline. In fact, I can tell you which hotels in San Diego participate, since only a handful always come up in winning bids. Most do not participate. Holiday Inn needs to fire this manager, he clearly has no concept of how the travel industry works.
We use PL all the time and have never had issues with specific requests at some really nice hotels. In fact, we've even gotten upgrades when we arrived. Maybe that's the difference between a Kimpton hotel and a Holiday Inn, next time the guy should bid for a better star rating!
Hotels prefer you to book through them--no big surprise there. They may even be able to give you the same discount, but then PL doesn't get a cut of the action.
Hotels prefer you to book through them--no big surprise there.
Then they shouldn't work with Priceline. PL can't just add them to their site, they need permission from the hotel. If you want people to book with your directly, don't partner up with PL, it's that simple.
I'm sure the Front line Manager has no control over that. That is done at the General mgr/Owner level, Or Corp, Level for Corp own'ed hotels.
Not Priceline Related but when I was moving from PA to GA, Did not know where I was going to stop for the night, Stopped at a hotel at 10pm Parking lot was bout 1/2 filled. Desk Clerk quotes me Rack Rate ($140+tax) I looked at him and sayed you can do better, but he didnt move on the price. I then called my 24x7 Travel desk, they booked me in same hotel, they Upgraded me to a suite, for $79+tax for the night, When I gave the desk clerk the Conf number he mumbles, this is why we can't make any money.
Then they shouldn't work with Priceline. PL can't just add them to their site, they need permission from the hotel. If you want people to book with your directly, don't partner up with PL, it's that simple.
I never said that they wouldn't work with Priceline at all, just stated their preference. What they would PREFER.
Same thing happened to me when booking through Priceline. I got to the hotel and the clerk handed me some card so that "next time I traveled" (though I doubt it would ever happen again), I could book directly with the hotel, and potentially get the same kind of rate (about $35 a night).
There's no big surprise that they would prefer me booking through them directly, even though they are willing to work with Priceline.
I'm sure the Front line Manager has no control over that. That is done at the General mgr/Owner level, Or Corp, Level for Corp own'ed hotels.
Not Priceline Related but when I was moving from PA to GA, Did not know where I was going to stop for the night, Stopped at a hotel at 10pm Parking lot was bout 1/2 filled. Desk Clerk quotes me Rack Rate ($140+tax) I looked at him and sayed you can do better, but he didnt move on the price. I then called my 24x7 Travel desk, they booked me in same hotel, they Upgraded me to a suite, for $79+tax for the night, When I gave the desk clerk the Conf number he mumbles, this is why we can't make any money.
More often than not, the front desk clerk has no authority to make pricing decisions. The general managers of most properties run a pricing report looking for exceptions to the pricing. If they see you discounting rooms, you might lose your job.
I am not saying that I couldn't steer people to certain discounts but outright discounts, no way.
It is nothing to get a Priceline room for $40 at a time when the hotel is quoting $129.
I'm sure the Front line Manager has no control over that. That is done at the General mgr/Owner level, Or Corp, Level for Corp own'ed hotels.
Not Priceline Related but when I was moving from PA to GA, Did not know where I was going to stop for the night, Stopped at a hotel at 10pm Parking lot was bout 1/2 filled. Desk Clerk quotes me Rack Rate ($140+tax) I looked at him and sayed you can do better, but he didnt move on the price. I then called my 24x7 Travel desk, they booked me in same hotel, they Upgraded me to a suite, for $79+tax for the night, When I gave the desk clerk the Conf number he mumbles, this is why we can't make any money.
Was this travel desk something thru a company you worked for? A travel club? Corporate rates and leisure rates can vary greatly. Also, the desk agent can only discount the rate so much - the hotel res system will have a floor rate set by the GM for that property, so that desk person may not be able to give that great rate even if they wanted to.
So, for all those people who complain that the clerk wouldn't give them 50.00/night for a room that usually goes for 149.00/night in high-season and then come to C-D and whine they're doing the hotel a favor by occupying space - just think if your boss asked if they could just pay your 8.00/hr this week instead of your normal 20.00/hr and stated they were doing you a favor by letting you show up for work this week, would you be so "understanding"?
Still, that agent grumbling was uncalled for!
Also a common misconception is that if the parking lot is half-full, the hotel must only be half-full, too. This would happen a lot when I worked the desk as our hotel which also had banquet/meeting space separate from the hotel. So many people at 1am couldn't believe we were completely sold-out of rooms since "the parking lot is only half-full".
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