AOPA credit card --- WARNING.

Did you tell them that if they didn't show they would be responsible for
one night's payment.

Yes. Over and over, abundantly. With a guaranteed reservation, we'll hold
the suite all night.

The six home Iowa Hawkeye Big Ten football games are our biggest weekends of
the year. Rates go up 30%, and a two night minimum stay is required -- and
we still turn hundreds of people away. It's what gets us through the long,
dead winter ahead.

Just a few weeks ago a woman booked the Red Baron Suite for both nights, and
we pre-authorized the entire weekend's amount on her credit card.
Everything went through VISA just fine, we told her about the 7 day
cancellation policy (on football weekends, we demand a week's notice, so
that we are assured of re-booking the suite in the event of cancellation),
and we mailed her a reminder postcard, outlining what she had agreed to do.

When she didn't show up on Friday night of game weekend, we held the suite
open for her all night long -- turning away dozens of potential guests. I
called her first thing Saturday morning, and received no answer. I left her
a personal message, telling her that we were holding her "guaranteed" suite
for her, and held my breath.

She never showed up again Saturday night.

Ten days later, she called, spitting mad that we had charged her for ONE
night's stay. (I ate the other $150.) She just wouldn't hear of how
wounded WE were, and called me every name in the book. She then picked up
her phone, called her credit card company, disputed the charge -- and they
immediately reversed our charge AND charged us a $15 "processing fee" to
boot.

We are now in the middle of "the paper chase" with VISA -- but I guarantee
we will lose the battle even though we followed standard procedure to the
letter.

There is no honor among thieves, and what she did to us is no different than
if she had stolen a DVD player from her suite. Yet under the new credit
laws, VISA credits her -- and docks us -- no questions asked.

What VISA is now being allowed to do to their vendors under the guise of
"fairness to the customer" is going to destroy the credit card system in
America. (Which may not be a bad thing.) EVERY consumer is going to pay
more because of scumbags like this woman, and actions like hers will become
more widespread as more deadbeats discover this new way to "beat the
system."

By the way -- in case anyone is wondering, we've never been ripped off by a
pilot. Pilots ALWAYS leave clean suites, ALWAYS tip the housekeepers, and
ALWAYS put gas in the courtesy van when they're done.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:

Did you tell them that if they didn't show they would be responsible for
one night's payment.


Yes. Over and over, abundantly. With a guaranteed reservation, we'll hold
the suite all night.

I've twice been on the reverse side of this situation where a hotel
gave me a guaranteed reservation and then failed to hold a room
available. Once the room had been reserved with either Visa or
Mastercard and the hotel basically told us that we were on our own
but could use the pay phone in the lobby to search for another place
to stay. Complaining later to the credit card company got us
nowhere. The other time an AMEX card had been used to hold the
reservation and the treatment was quite different. They
apologized for having overbooked, arranged transportation to
another hotel and paid for my first night's stay there plus a few
free phone calls so I could let others know where I was staying.
I heard similar stories from others and apparently AMEX had a
much stricter policy of making both the hotels and customers
adhere to the guaranteed reservation policies.

I've twice been on the reverse side of this situation where a hotel
gave me a guaranteed reservation and then failed to hold a room
available. Once the room had been reserved with either Visa or
Mastercard and the hotel basically told us that we were on our own
but could use the pay phone in the lobby to search for another place
to stay. Complaining later to the credit card company got us
nowhere. The other time an AMEX card had been used to hold the
reservation and the treatment was quite different. They
apologized for having overbooked, arranged transportation to
another hotel and paid for my first night's stay there plus a few
free phone calls so I could let others know where I was staying.
I heard similar stories from others and apparently AMEX had a
much stricter policy of making both the hotels and customers
adhere to the guaranteed reservation policies.

Amex had nothing to do with it. You just found a hotel that unscrupulously
overbooks, but still has a conscience about doing so.

Unscrupulous hotels that over-book are trying to fight the no-show/bogus
reservation problem by playing the odds, rather than getting guaranteed
reservations and following through with charging no-shows. When everyone
actually shows up, someone gets screwed. You were "it" that night.

We NEVER over-book. Since each suite is unique, represents a different era
of aviation history, and is often specifically requested, it's pretty tough
to substitute one suite for another. Thus, with a guaranteed reservation,
that suite is yours -- no matter when you show up.

But, on the flipside, in exchange for this kind of service we will charge
you if you don't show up -- period.

One exception that ONLY pilots receive: If you are flying in, and
conditions drop to below VFR minimums anywhere along your route of flight,
you may cancel up to 6 PM without penalty. This "IFR Cancellation Policy"
has proven to be VERY popular with our private pilot guests, as you can
imagine! (We instituted it after running into hotel issues ourselves over
the years. Face it, flying a light plane isn't the most reliable form of
transportation, and thus we ended up never making hotel reservations in
advance, for fear of being charged for no-showing. This resulted in some
nasty sleeping experiences, on occasion, when we couldn't find a decent
hotel room.)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:

I've twice been on the reverse side of this situation where a hotel
gave me a guaranteed reservation and then failed to hold a room
available. Once the room had been reserved with either Visa or
Mastercard and the hotel basically told us that we were on our own
but could use the pay phone in the lobby to search for another place
to stay. Complaining later to the credit card company got us
nowhere. The other time an AMEX card had been used to hold the
reservation and the treatment was quite different. They
apologized for having overbooked, arranged transportation to
another hotel and paid for my first night's stay there plus a few
free phone calls so I could let others know where I was staying.
I heard similar stories from others and apparently AMEX had a
much stricter policy of making both the hotels and customers
adhere to the guaranteed reservation policies.


Amex had nothing to do with it. You just found a hotel that unscrupulously
overbooks, but still has a conscience about doing so.

This was at least a couple decades ago and I believe that
AMEX had everything to do with it. At that time AMEX was
in a very strong position in the hotel industry and was
reported to revoke their arrangements with hotels that
didn't honor their reservations. No idea what the current
policies are since the relative influence of AMEX vs. other
card providers has changed rather dramatically.

"Jay Honeck" writes:


Amex had nothing to do with it. You just found a hotel that unscrupulously
overbooks, but still has a conscience about doing so.

I disagree. It's my understanding tha AMEX really holds the
line on denied rooms; the original hotel eats the cost of
the replacement room, or they lose their merchant account.

Of course, it's possible that likely everything else about Amex;
this is now watered down, and/or not the case at all any more.

[There was a time Amex was really useful -- they got me a new card
the same day, in Guatemala City, on a US holiday.]

--
A host is a host from coast to
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 03:16:22 +0000 (UTC), David Lesher
wrote:

I disagree. It's my understanding tha AMEX really holds the
line on denied rooms; the original hotel eats the cost of
the replacement room, or they lose their merchant account.

The only time I was ever denied a room (members of a convention had
overstayed their reservations, and it is against the law in DC to
evict a tenant willing to pay for his room), the hotel called a taxi,
gave five dollars to the driver, and instructed him to take me to a
sister hotel, where I had a much finer room than I would have been
willing to pay for.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
the blog www.danford.net

Cub Driver wrote:
On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 03:16:22 +0000 (UTC), David Lesher
wrote:


I disagree. It's my understanding tha AMEX really holds the
line on denied rooms; the original hotel eats the cost of
the replacement room, or they lose their merchant account.


The only time I was ever denied a room

I had the Baltimore Hyatt (a dump by the way) try to deny me a
room once. I pointed out that I had reserved it on my AMEX and
oddly one of their "reserve" rooms became available. AMEX has
good customer support people. They were the easiest by far
to dispute a charge (which I have done twice).

Plenty of people willing to offer me credit, those who have crappy
support, get the Scissor treatment. I usually have a few in the
drawer because they were giving something away for enrolling (Margy
needed at hat at Oshkosh once so we got EAA Visa cards lying around
in the drawer). It's only once in a great while that someone will
notice that I have NEVER charged anything on their cards and inquire
or cancel the card over it.

Plenty of people willing to offer me credit, those who have crappy
support, get the Scissor treatment. I usually have a few in the
drawer because they were giving something away for enrolling (Margy
needed at hat at Oshkosh once so we got EAA Visa cards lying around
in the drawer).

For those interested in improving their credit ratings: it can be
detrimental to have several open credit lines (with balances or not) as
potential lenders will consider the possibility of you running up balances
and not being able to pay their debt back. Make sure you call credit card
companies you have unnecessary credit with and cancel directly with them -
cutting up the card isn't good enough.

"Jay Honeck" writes:


Amex had nothing to do with it. You just found a hotel that unscrupulously
overbooks, but still has a conscience about doing so.

It's my understanding that AMEX really holds the line on denied
rooms; the original hotel eats the cost of the replacement room, or
they lose their merchant account.

Of course, it's possible that like everything else about Amex; this
is now watered down, and/or not the case at all any more.

[There was an era when Amex was really useful -- they got me a new
card the same day, in Guatemala City, on a US holiday.]

--
A host is a host from coast to
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

In a previous article, David Lesher said:
[There was an era when Amex was really useful -- they got me a new
card the same day, in Guatemala City, on a US holiday.]

Yeah, I got a corporate AMEX delivered to my hotel room in Madrid when I
told my company that I couldn't pay a $250/day hotel room bill (times 60
days) on my own personal credit card.


--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
Of course, I also got weird looks when I said that, as a kid, I watched the
toast brown in a toaster to see whether it browned at a linear or exponential
rate. -- Jeff Davis