4 ms·

>It’s cheaper to overbook and relocate someone to a near hotel having 105% capacity than having running lower than 100% on high season. And your relocated cust

by jaclaz 7y ago

>It’s cheaper to overbook and relocate someone to a near hotel having 105% capacity than having running lower than 100% on high season. And your relocated customers are surely happy about that. I (used to) travel a lot for work and the one thing I am pretty sure is that I never returned to a hotel that overbooked and had me relocate, additionally I told everyone I knew about the shitty behaviour and made sure that noone in the company I worked for ever booked there again. Now, I make some consulting work for a small, independent, hotel, and - luckily enough - even if it is "cheaper" to overbook, the management holds the care and respect for the customer well above that.

mantap 7y ago
Thankfully we have websites such as booking.com to sniff out fraudulent operations like GP's. Reviews where guests have been turned away with a valid reservation are the reddest of red flags for me. Dirty rooms can be cleaned, cockroaches can be eradicated, but intentional overselling indicates an incurable dishonesty at the heart of management.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  Marriott/Hilton/IHG/Accor/Choice/Wyndham/Hyatt, everyone overcooks. The systems are set to allow a certain number of rooms to be overbooked every night, since there is a high probability of a certain percentage of people not showing up or wanting to cancel every night. The more rooms a hotel has, the more they can overbook. Although all the major brands have a policy of providing a free room night and transportation to an equivalent quality hotel nearby. All the airlines do it to, too. Also, if a VIP comes in wanting to spend a month at the hotel and the hotel has to overbook a couple nights, they’re not going to turn away thousands in revenue. Even the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan cancels reservations when the Saudi royal family is in town.
mrandish 7y ago
Sadly, many (if not most) hotels will oversell their capacity. I'm now a Marriott Platinum member and one of the benefits of being Platinum is that they are bound to pay a premium to me if they oversell my room. IIRC it's 200%, meaning they don't charge me, buy me a comparable nearby room AND give me a credit for the original reservation price. I would sometimes need to arrive to check-in really late, like 3 a.m. If the hotel was nearly full I'd actually get a call on my mobile phone from the desk manager around 10p or 11p asking if I was still going to be checking in. I'm sure it was only because the hotel would get dinged by corporate for having to pay me out if they gave away my room. Too bad they don't care enough to do that for everyone before selling out their room from under them. An alternate strategy I use with other chains when I'm concerned there might be an oversold situation is to call the hotel around the normal check-in time (~3p) and get the front desk to check-in my room while I'm on the phone and insist on getting the actual room number. That way, it'll be some other poor schmuck who trying to check in at midnight that will get shafted.
- jaclaz 7y ago
  Maybe there is something different where you live (I presume the US). Here (Italy) you make a reservation, and if you do that through one of the portals such as booking.com you surely already provide your credit card number and the authorization to either bill the room price or bill the "no-show", which usually is one night unless you cancel 24 or 48 hours prior your reservation. For the hotel it is a win situation, as the room you reserved will have no costs attached (laundry, maid, cleaning as it will be not used) and no costs for (the actual ingredients of) your breakfast, while the hotel will cash the same money. Not only, a few (again according to my personal standards dishonest) hotels will bill you the "no show" and sell anyway "your" room to someone arriving late, thus doubling the income.
muse900 7y ago
>Now, I make some consulting work for a small, independent, hotel, and - luckily enough - even if it is "cheaper" to overbook, the management holds the care and respect for the customer well above that. Overbooking and caring about the customer is a completely different thing. Overbooking is about running a business. We are almost on 2020 and currently its a stats game for any business out there. In order to min/max my own business I have to overbook, that's how i'll turn profit. Caring and respecting the customer - anyone that is not doing that shouldn't be running a hotel imho. (Ryanair as an example should never ever run a hotel) Also on hotels you do have ratings nowadays, service is not something you can compromise on. If you are having unhappy customers then that will show on your tripadvisor, booking.com, hotels.com and whatever have you. Then you'll have to drop your prices, meaning making less and devaluing your product. Customer service/happiness should be the number one priority for any hotel out there. My kind of hotel allows me to make a profit by capitalizing on overbookings. I've kept the hotel on 4 stars whilst is an actual 5 star hotel with all the amenities a 5 stars hotel has. I kept it that way because the expectations of the customer are lower when they visit a 4 star hotel vs a 5 star hotel. The pricing nowadays doesn't go by stars anyways it goes by rating. The higher your ratings and publicity the higher your price. There is less than a handful of 5 stars around me that can be more expensive than I am. The rest of them are cheaper due to their ratings/size etc. When a customer arrives and learns that his room has been overbooked, he also learns that he'll be staying at a close-by hotel that usually is of 5 stars. The quality of the hotel that I'll put my customer because he remains my customer is either similar or higher than my hotel. If the customer check the prices also for that hotel, he'll find that they are the same as the room he booked. (I get them cheaper through the hotels I do business with and that's where profit comes from). But I'll never have the customer feel that he is getting less than he paid for, or have his holidays ruined or altered. 8/10 times he'll stay at a slightly cheaper hotel than mine but of similar or higher quality/star rating. 2/10 i'll go in the bank and i'll be putting the customer on a more expensive hotel than mine. Again its a stats game but I won't compromise on customer service and that's running a hotel. Also personally let me tell you that I am not very keen towards returning customers in my area. My experience has shown me that returning customers expect the hotel prices and offers to remain the same and the hotel is currently on a developing area which has its prices going up yearly. I had returning customers asking why I was X more expensive this year than their last visit in 2016. For me its straight forward: inflation and the market prices around me will set the prices to where they need to be. For the customer is a bit more complicated and the customer will usually believe that my hotel is just becoming more expensive without a reason. Again this thing on the returning customer is totally personal and it affects my area as its highly touristic and not a business area and my hotel being of a certain boutique size. I am aware that most hotels out there have loyalty programs and they do make their money of returning customers. Again as a hotelier I'll never ever compromise on quality and try to capitalize on someones holidays by ruining them or making them feel awful. If there is no room available at my price point around the area, the customer is going to stay at a more expensive room than mine and me going out of pocket on that.

by jaclaz 7y ago

mantap 7y ago

Thankfully we have websites such as booking.com to sniff out fraudulent operations like GP's. Reviews where guests have been turned away with a valid reservation are the reddest of red flags for me. Dirty rooms can be cleaned, cockroaches can be eradicated, but intentional overselling indicates an incurable dishonesty at the heart of management.

lotsofpulp 7y ago
Marriott/Hilton/IHG/Accor/Choice/Wyndham/Hyatt, everyone overcooks. The systems are set to allow a certain number of rooms to be overbooked every night, since there is a high probability of a certain percentage of people not showing up or wanting to cancel every night. The more rooms a hotel has, the more they can overbook. Although all the major brands have a policy of providing a free room night and transportation to an equivalent quality hotel nearby. All the airlines do it to, too. Also, if a VIP comes in wanting to spend a month at the hotel and the hotel has to overbook a couple nights, they’re not going to turn away thousands in revenue. Even the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan cancels reservations when the Saudi royal family is in town.

mrandish 7y ago

Sadly, many (if not most) hotels will oversell their capacity. I'm now a Marriott Platinum member and one of the benefits of being Platinum is that they are bound to pay a premium to me if they oversell my room. IIRC it's 200%, meaning they don't charge me, buy me a comparable nearby room AND give me a credit for the original reservation price. I would sometimes need to arrive to check-in really late, like 3 a.m. If the hotel was nearly full I'd actually get a call on my mobile phone from the desk manager around 10p or 11p asking if I was still going to be checking in. I'm sure it was only because the hotel would get dinged by corporate for having to pay me out if they gave away my room. Too bad they don't care enough to do that for everyone before selling out their room from under them. An alternate strategy I use with other chains when I'm concerned there might be an oversold situation is to call the hotel around the normal check-in time (~3p) and get the front desk to check-in my room while I'm on the phone and insist on getting the actual room number. That way, it'll be some other poor schmuck who trying to check in at midnight that will get shafted.

jaclaz 7y ago
Maybe there is something different where you live (I presume the US). Here (Italy) you make a reservation, and if you do that through one of the portals such as booking.com you surely already provide your credit card number and the authorization to either bill the room price or bill the "no-show", which usually is one night unless you cancel 24 or 48 hours prior your reservation. For the hotel it is a win situation, as the room you reserved will have no costs attached (laundry, maid, cleaning as it will be not used) and no costs for (the actual ingredients of) your breakfast, while the hotel will cash the same money. Not only, a few (again according to my personal standards dishonest) hotels will bill you the "no show" and sell anyway "your" room to someone arriving late, thus doubling the income.

muse900 7y ago

>Now, I make some consulting work for a small, independent, hotel, and - luckily enough - even if it is "cheaper" to overbook, the management holds the care and respect for the customer well above that. Overbooking and caring about the customer is a completely different thing. Overbooking is about running a business. We are almost on 2020 and currently its a stats game for any business out there. In order to min/max my own business I have to overbook, that's how i'll turn profit. Caring and respecting the customer - anyone that is not doing that shouldn't be running a hotel imho. (Ryanair as an example should never ever run a hotel) Also on hotels you do have ratings nowadays, service is not something you can compromise on. If you are having unhappy customers then that will show on your tripadvisor, booking.com, hotels.com and whatever have you. Then you'll have to drop your prices, meaning making less and devaluing your product. Customer service/happiness should be the number one priority for any hotel out there. My kind of hotel allows me to make a profit by capitalizing on overbookings. I've kept the hotel on 4 stars whilst is an actual 5 star hotel with all the amenities a 5 stars hotel has. I kept it that way because the expectations of the customer are lower when they visit a 4 star hotel vs a 5 star hotel. The pricing nowadays doesn't go by stars anyways it goes by rating. The higher your ratings and publicity the higher your price. There is less than a handful of 5 stars around me that can be more expensive than I am. The rest of them are cheaper due to their ratings/size etc. When a customer arrives and learns that his room has been overbooked, he also learns that he'll be staying at a close-by hotel that usually is of 5 stars. The quality of the hotel that I'll put my customer because he remains my customer is either similar or higher than my hotel. If the customer check the prices also for that hotel, he'll find that they are the same as the room he booked. (I get them cheaper through the hotels I do business with and that's where profit comes from). But I'll never have the customer feel that he is getting less than he paid for, or have his holidays ruined or altered. 8/10 times he'll stay at a slightly cheaper hotel than mine but of similar or higher quality/star rating. 2/10 i'll go in the bank and i'll be putting the customer on a more expensive hotel than mine. Again its a stats game but I won't compromise on customer service and that's running a hotel. Also personally let me tell you that I am not very keen towards returning customers in my area. My experience has shown me that returning customers expect the hotel prices and offers to remain the same and the hotel is currently on a developing area which has its prices going up yearly. I had returning customers asking why I was X more expensive this year than their last visit in 2016. For me its straight forward: inflation and the market prices around me will set the prices to where they need to be. For the customer is a bit more complicated and the customer will usually believe that my hotel is just becoming more expensive without a reason. Again this thing on the returning customer is totally personal and it affects my area as its highly touristic and not a business area and my hotel being of a certain boutique size. I am aware that most hotels out there have loyalty programs and they do make their money of returning customers. Again as a hotelier I'll never ever compromise on quality and try to capitalize on someones holidays by ruining them or making them feel awful. If there is no room available at my price point around the area, the customer is going to stay at a more expensive room than mine and me going out of pocket on that.