Any advice on how to resolve a complaint against a US hotel?

Addy123 | 17:45 Tue 04th Sep 2012 | Civil

2 Answers

I'm sorry this is a long one but this is actually a brief topline!

My partner and I went on holiday in June. We used a hotel that I have used for the last five years. I am a member of their points club and use them in the UK as I am away on business a lot.
I had sufficient points to cover 5 of our 8 nights stay.

When we arrived the hotel was like a building site as it was undergoing refurbishment which we had not been notified about despite booking in January. They had also increased their prices by over 200% on previous years- a fact I had noticed when booking but not worried about as I was going to use my membership points for 5 nights

On arrival there was a mix up with my points and they would not accept them. As we had been travelling 18 hours I just paid for the first night and then phoned the company the next day (Tuesday) to complain. I was given a complaint number and told the manager would contact me by the Friday.

I heard nothing and spent the week worried and upset which wrecked the holiday for me. Finally in Saturday I tracked down the manager and put my complaint to him and gave him the complaint number. He was rude and unhelpful and refused to address my concerns- he told me that he had not had chance to check his e-mails all week!. A member of staff who I know from the previous 5 years (and who hadn’t been around all week) took pity on me and put me in touch with the membership department and we did manage to access 3 nights free.

On my return to the UK I wrote a complaint and sent it within 24 hours by registered post. I tracked it and it arrived 8 days later. I explained had the manager acted professionally and expediently I could have accessed the original 5 nights free as expected. I requested a refund for those nights and some compensation for the disgusting state of the hotel.

It was another month before they finally contacted me and they were very sympathetic and promised they would sort it out. I was clear that I was happy to make some payment as I had actually received a service (a room-it was not possible to locate another room for the stay as they have a festival the week we are there and the city is always fully booked, although strangely enough, not our hotel this year), but I did expect a refund of two nights + something to recognise the awful state of the hotel and the poor way the manager had treated me.
Another month went by and they offered a $160 refund against a bill of $1400!!! I declined immediately telling them it was insufficient. They eventually offered a further $160 and have referred me to the hotel for a further refund for the poor treatment.
I know that the manager was rude and unprofessional to my face so I have no chance trying to do anything from a distance, so I have accepted the $320 refund, but now they have sent me a cheque in $’s that will take six week to clear and result in charges reducing it’s value to less than £160 in total!

I have asked them to refund against the credit card used to pay the bill, but they are ignoring my request. They are now even disputing the full $320 saying it’s only $160! I have sent them a copy of their original e-mail and the further one offering “an additional $160” and have heard nothing.

I have reached the end of my tether now and have posted the pics I took during my stay of the appalling state of the hotel on Tripadvisor with a scathing review (which is a shame because I have another review for the same hotel in 2008 saying how it is basic but clean and perfectly adequate and the staff are lovely) This has turned into a nightmare, my holiday was heavily impacted and I have had 3 months of stress trying to get this sorted. If anyone has any ideas on what I should do next I would be grateful.