Questionable Hotel Practices?

[higgin704]

I posted this comment as part of another thread but I think it deserves a subject of it's own. We recently stayed at the Hilton at WDW (a 4* hotel). Everyday we were harrassed by the timeshare sales people both at the vacation club booth and at the concierge desk. I would have expected this at a less classy type of place but not at a Hilton. I just wanted to see if this has become standard practice at most major hotel chains or if this was an Orlando only type of thing. It was really a pain to try and dodge the people in the lobby every day.
If it is standard procedure do they actually think that people respond favorably to this type of tactic. We stayed here via priceline at 75/night so I guess I can't complain too much but if I had paid full price I would have been extremely angry about it.

As a followup, we checked out on april 28 and a charge of 95 dollars was processed to our credit card for incidentals and food. On May 11 a charge of over 400 was posted to our CC for the room fee that had been prepaid by priceline. I called them that night and they said that they couldn't access that part of the system and to call back the next day and talk to finance. Low and behold the next day when I called finance, they said " we realized your problem yesterday and it has been fixed". I would bet money that it was "fixed" only after I called to complain.

What does priceline really believe is a 4* hotel. We have used them before around home (Baltimore) and bid at the three star level and I must say that there was little if any difference between the two with the exception that the 3* in baltimore had a huge room and the hilton has tiny little rooms. I would think that the tower/executive rooms on the 9th and 10th floor would clearly qualify to be called 4* but the rest of the hotel screams 3* to me (I'm not saying it is bad, just not of 4*quality in my opinion) I think priceline needs to rethink their rating system especially in hotels that clearly have two different levels of service available.

 

[Radar]

I wouldn't use these guys for a room, here of all the great deals, but since vacation is a once a year deal, always book directly with hotel, nothing worse than
this kind of stuff ruining a vacation.Sorry about your problems don't use them anymore...

 

[higgin704]

Most of my concerns have nothing to do with priceline, everything went fine from them. My concerns were with the hotel billing for a room that they had already been paid for (3 months prior to my arrival) and the slimy timeshare tactics employed by the hotel and their staff. My ratings question has to do with priceline but it was also a general comment as the hotel is still 4* rated by AAA so the same comments could apply for them

 

[skeezixspud]

... once at a Radisson, once at a Doubletree. You're right, it's nothing to do with Priceline, it is completely the fault of the hotels. One thing I did learn; make sure that the CC you give them for incidentals is the same one you used to do the Priceline bid. That way you can sic the CC on them if they double-charge. The first time it happened I checked in @ 2 am due to a late flight, and I didn't have the presence of mind to think of this; very dumb. I had to send each CC company a copy of the other one's statement to get them to intercede.
The second time I insisted that I get a paid-in-full statement before I checked out (I even insisted they inventory the minibar), but sure enough, the room charge showed up 24 hours later on my CC account.

The first hotel initially claimed that the Priceline paperwork was not proof of payment, the second used the "our billing is automated, we can't stop the charge from going in" excuse. These days, I use American Express exclusively in these situations, they are very good at quickly resolving disputes, even though these double-charges are not obvious (the merchant name and amount are usually not the same, and the dates don't match.)

The bottom line is that ANYTIME you use Priceline for a hotel, do NOT use the automated checkout. Go to the desk. It's less trouble to check out in person than to have to deal with a CC dispute. That said, I think Priceline for hotels is very good value; airfares are another story; I don't go there.

 

[mrsmom]

Hi, my sister and i stayed at the royalesort next door to the hilton and they never even asked us there about any timeshares, we seen them but we were never approched, But we walked over to all the hotels around there, including the Hilton and as soon as we were there they came up to us about the HGVC, boy i was surprised , i just said no and left.
I would stay at the royal plaza it was really nice.
Mrsmom

 

[Planogirl]

We stayed at the Doubletree Conference Center last year and saw no sign of timeshares. We had also used Priceline and then made use of the express check out. I had no idea that double pricing was ever a problem. Luckily, everything was fine, in fact I couldn't be more pleased with Priceline.