If you need to cancel your reservation, call to cancel it.  ‘Well, duh!  Isn’t that obvious?’ you might ask…Not as obvious as you would think apparently.

Why do hotels charge no show fees you ask?  Well, let me paint a picture for you.

It is a Saturday night.  The hotel has been sold out for this night for months as there is a huge concert in town. The whole city is completely sold out and everyone has rates close to $350.  Even the crappy hotel down the street is over $200 which is like a miracle in itself.  You are getting calls left and right for rooms for people that would gladly pay the $350 or more, if a room were to open up.  But, you have to keep telling people that want a room that you are sold out.  Well, Sunday morning rolls around and the AM Manager is told by the Night Auditor that there were three no shows last night.  And just that quickly, the Manager’s whole day just got flushed down the toilet because he/she knows that all those three guests had to do was call and cancel their reservations.  And if they had, we could have sold those rooms for $350 apiece and made an extra $1,050 in revenue.  Then, as sure as water’s wet, you get a call a few hours later from one of the no shows from Saturday night asking why they got a charge on their card when they never stayed at the hotel.  And, folks, that is where today’s story starts (and mind you, I will be writing verbatim how the guest spoke to me, just so you all don’t think I’m illiterate or anything).

Phone rings.

Spike:  Hello?

 Ms. Sumthinuperass:  You da Manager?!

Spike: Whoa, whoa, whoa, pump your brakes, lady.  I’m gonna need you to turn down your psycho dial just a tad bit.  It’s 8:30am and am in no mood for confrontation this early

 Ms. Sumthinuperass:  I got charged from your hotel!

Spike:  No way!  That’s awesome! Thanks for calling to tell us we charged you!  We have been known to charge people from time to time.  Was there more?  Or did you just want to call and chat?

Ms. Sumthinuperass:  I had a reservation for last night and I didn’t come and you still charged my card anyways!

 Spike:  Ohhh, now I see what’s going on, grouchy-puss.  Let me ask you a rhetorical question:  Did you call and cancel your reservation?

Ms. Sumthinuperass:  No I didn’t call to cancel.  I didn’t know I had to.  No one told me that!

Spike:  Yeaa, that’s what I thought.  So, what you’re telling me is, you need someone to inform you that if you’re not going to show up for a reservation at a hotel, that you have to call to tell them you’re not coming?   

Ms. Sumthinuperass:  You have got to be kidding me.  I need you to take this charge off my card.  It has over drafted my account now and I can’t pay my rent this month now because you charged my card without consulting me first!

Spike:  Listen here, Miss “I can’t take responsibility for my actions”, this is how it works.  A reservation is a contract.  We kept up our end of the deal by guaranteeing your room and not selling it to the hundred other people we could have given your room away to, that would have paid ten times what you paid.  You didn’t hold up your end of the deal by showing up.  End of story.  It is not our problem that you suck at finances and decided it was a better idea to rent a hotel room instead of paying your rent this month.  And I didn’t need to consult you when I charged your card last night because you were consulted when you gave us the card initially when we booked your room and then again when you got the multiple confirmations that were sent to you.  Chalk this one up to a learning experience – that is if you plan on learning from it

 Click, she hangs up on me.

Phone rings again 5 minutes later.

Spike:  WHAT!?

Aunt Sumthinuperass:  You da Manager?

Spike:  Ummm, yessssss…

Aunt Sumthinuperass:  Yea, you charged my niece for a hotel room she ain’t stay in.  I’m telling you that’s that bull and you need to take that off now!

 

Spike:  Oh, now I got Auntie on the phone.  Baby can’t take care of her own problems, she’s gotta get big scary Auntie on the phone to handle it.  What do you even know about this situation?   What she told you about it?  Because I’m sure she told you that the hotel is the reason why she can’t pay rent this month and it’s the hotel’s fault that she can’t get a job, and it’s the hotel’s fault that she works as a stripper (I’m just assuming that last thing)

Aunt Sumthinuperass:  I stay in hotels all the time.  No other hotel does this sh*t!

Spike:  Oh, you stay in hotels all the time, so you know everything about them, right?  Why didn’t you say so!  Next time I have a guest issue, I’ll give you a call and you can help me through it.  As a matter of fact, I got one for you:  What would you tell a nasty ass lady that very obviously has no idea what she’s talking about, but she feels like she does because she talks loud and yells a lot so she can get what she wants?  Ya know, even though everything that’s coming out of her mouth is completely and utterly erroneous and idiotic.  What would you say to this lady?

Aunt Sumthinuperass:  I’m ’bout to get my lawyer on the phone! 

Spike:  Look at it this way:  if you are having a party and the people you invited confirmed that they were coming and then the night of your party, they just didn’t show up, I don’t think you’d like that too much, would ya?  Well this is the same thing, except I’m the one having the party and the penalty for not showing up to my party is one night’s room and tax.  The reason?  Because you obviously don’t have common courtesy (which doesn’t seem so common anymore, by the way).

Hangs up on me.

No joke – phone rings again 5 minutes later.

Spike:  Oh my freaking God, what!?

Momma Sumthinuperass:  Yea, my daughter called me and told me you be chargin’ her card for no reason

Spike:  Not even a hello?  How rude are you?  I guess by this point since I’ve talked to your whole family, we’re past that level in our relationship.  Yea, I just spoke to your dimwit daughter who couldn’t get through her thick skull that she no showed and didn’t call us to cancel so there’s a charge for that.  And then I spoke to her Aunt, which, by hearing you speak, I guess would be your sister?  Any who, I told her the same exact thing.  Both times I was hung up on.  So, please, tell me, which part of anything that I told them is so hard to understand that I had to talk to your whole family this morning?  Or are you just too crappy of a parent to acknowledge that your daughter screwed up and she needs to learn her lesson?

Momma Sumthinuperass:  She should never have been able to book this room anyways!  I was looking on your website and it says you have to be 21 years or older to get a room!  So even if she was going to come to check in, you wouldn’t honor her reservation anyways, right!?

Spike:  Wow, Sherlock!  I’m so glad that someone in your family can read!  And by the way you worded that, it sounds like you think you got me in a corner.  That’s so cute.  I could cut you off and shut you up right now, but it still sounds like you have nonsense spewing from your mouth so, please continue…

Momma Sumthinuperass:  Yes, she is under 21.  So how could she have known that you weren’t going to honor her reservation even if she did show up!?

Spike:  See, the problem is, your daughter should not have booked the room to begin with if she’s under 21.  And just as clearly as you saw it on our website, was just as clear as it was when she was booking the room.  Now if you’re telling me that your daughter is old enough to be able to book a hotel room all by herself using a computer, but does not have the mental wherewithal to read or understand rules set in place for that hotel and take responsibility for her actions when she is called out on them, then I’m pretty sure that goes back on your parenting skills, and not me as a Hotel Manager

Momma Sumthinuperass: If those are your rules, then why do you even let people under 21 book?!

Spike:  Let me start by repeating your question back to me, because maybe if I do that, it will sound less moronic.  ‘If those are your rules, then why do you even let people under 21 book?’ Wow, I’m not usually stumped on the stupidity of others but you might have me here.  Let me take a crack at it though. There is no way we can prevent anyone from booking our hotel via our website.  We do not ask for a birthday when you make a reservation.  We don’t have people in our back office sifting through a database every day and trying to weed out guests that look like their under 21 just by looking at their name.  Since there is no way to prevent people from booking, we have procedures in place – one of them being the note that shows up on the website that you so eloquently read back to me, as well as that same note on the confirmation she was sent – but at no point did your daughter see that policy and think, ‘hey, maybe I should call the hotel just to double check on this’.  She says she didn’t see it – just like what I say when my wife ask me why I didn’t wash the dishes.  And if she didn’t see it, she either needs friggin’ prescription goggles or she is lying and did look at it, and said, ‘whatever, I’m sure they don’t actually mean that’.  My suggestion?  You go home and yell at your daughter instead of me for trying to book a hotel room where, more than likely, she was going to engage in some sort of illegal activity anyways.  Maybe the question you need to ask yourself is, what is a teenage girl booking a hotel room for $200 for?  Then when you find out the answer to that question, you can apologize to me for taking time away from my morning that I can never get back.  How’s all that sound?

Momma Sumthinuperass: I’m done trying to talk with you. You take this charge off right now!

Spike:  Or what?  What are you gonna do?  Come on down here and beat me up?      

                                                                                                        

Momma Sumthinuperass: I’m ’bout to come down there and kick yo motha $@&#*$!

Spike:  Oh damn.  She called me out!

Well, about 25 minutes later, the cops show up asking for me.  In no way did I think the cops showing up had anything to do with this situation, but I was wrong.  The cop said that there was a crazy lady that called them and told them to come down to the hotel because I charged her daughter money illegally.  In fact, I told the cop, I was about to call them myself because that ‘crazy lady’ they were referring to just threatened to come down to the hotel and beat me up.  And judging by her voice, she was a bigggg lady and probably could have.

 

 Moral of the story:

EVERY hotel has some sort of no show policy and cancelation policy.  Not all hotels have an age policy, but the more reputable ones most likely do.  A normal no show policy is 24 to 48 hours.  If you do call to cancel your reservation within that time frame, you may be subject to a penalty as was stated when you booked the room.  Don’t call up and complain about this because these are all things you were told would be the case when you booked if you cancelled within the cancelation window.  And I say ‘may’ be subject to a penalty because not all the time do you get charged.  People that work in hotels are normal people like you and I and we have a heart.  So, if it’s a family emergency or situation out of your control, a lot of places will work with you.  All of this is also dependent on how you booked your reservation. If you booked via Expedia, Travelocity, or any other third party site, more than likely your reservations is not cancelable and non changeable and you can’t cancel it or modify it even if it’s 2 weeks out.  But understand that we can’t just write off every single charge that a guest questions us on because if we did that, then what would be the point of having a cancelation policy or no show policy?  On that note, don’t call and fake it and say your flight got cancelled or something when it really didn’t because most hotels are not dumb and can check the incoming flights and see if it actually was cancelled or not.  So save yourself the embarrassment and don’t do that.

Any who, if you do not decide to call and cancel your reservation and it no shows, the chances of you getting a refund are slim to none.  Just as the situation I laid out in the intro to this post, hotels turn down other guests that want the room you booked.  And when you don’t show up, and then call wanting a refund, all the hotel can think is that they could have sold your room 50 times over if they had just known you weren’t coming.  That is why a lot of hotels don’t have any sympathy for you when your reservation no shows and you had an opportunity to call to cancel.

Oh, and I know you are all clenching your fists in anticipation, but, Momma Sumthinuperass never showed up to fight me.  The legend of Spike musta been too much for her.