I reserved a hotel online, reccommeded in the Rick Steves Spain travel guide. The hotel sent me a reservation confirmation and code. The next day I asked a question about our room and the hotel cancelled my reservation saying that it did not meet their 3 day mimimum. I understand their policy. However it seems to me that they did not put this criteria into their website and therefore should have honored the reservation. How do I provide the feedback to the writers of the Rick Steves guide?
Posted by
The Heartland USA
8972 posts
bsc on the home page for Travel Forum, look down to the left and see a block of links for Useful Tools. There is a link for Guidebook Feedback, which you can use for this purpose.
Posted by
Seattle, WA
17433 posts
I do not see that as a problem worthy of complaint. The minimum stay may have been in an obscure place on the website. Or maybe it was due to an event occurring around the time of your stay and not posted on the website. It is unfortunate that the online reservation system was not programmed to catch it. But the fact that you got a confirmation code does not mean you had an enforceable contract. The automated system is still subject to quality control monitoring by a human.
We had a similar thing happen, also with a hotel in Spain. They did not cancel our reservation but emailed to ask if we could add a night to comply with the policy. We did.
Posted by
San Francisco/Marin County
9436 posts
If you had a confirmed reservation for weeks or months and then they cancelled, I would be annoyed and complain. But in your case, they cancelled the very next day. One day later doesn't seriously impact your plans.
This is not worthy of complaining about imo.
Posted by
Hatfield, PA, USA
86 posts
I disagree and support the complainer. I don't care about the statement from the barracks lawyer above, whether or not it is a legally enforceable contract in a Spanish Court of law (which I'm sure our barracks lawyer guy know all about). As a matter of ethical business practice and personal integrity you honor any explicit Confirmation. Period. (Exceptions, a natural disaster, death in the family, and the like). I feel the offending hotel needs to be called out in Guidebooks so that next time they will be more up front with their alleged minimums or other qualifications. I'm old, and " old school" on this stuff.