Monday, March 10, 2008
You may remember that I experienced grief with the so-called high-speed Internet connection at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Texas. I’m currently staying at the Hilton in Jackson. The wireless high-speed is fast enough, but there’s another problem.
The service is apparently provided by Nomadix. I can tell because a small browser window that remains open all the time I’m online tells me so:
This graphic refreshes every couple of minutes with a very audible “click.” If the laptop volume is on, this click becomes part of what you’re listening to. Since I’m about to record my podcast over Skype with my co-host, that click will become part of the show.
Was nobody using their brains when configuring this service?
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
I’m part of a group that gets together semi-formally to talk about employee communications. Most of the members work for Fortune 100 companies and their travel is covered by their employers. There are a couple of us, though, who were invited to participate based on our expertise; we were also involved in creating the group. So, when the group meets, I pay all expenses on my own nickel.
This time around, the meeting was in Atlanta. It was a lock, a set date. I even coordinated a presentation with another participant. Then, last minute—that being today, with the meeting on Friday—the meeting was postponed. Too many people canceled due to illness or work or personal emergencies.
Rescheduling my flight was one nightmare, costing me about $500 in change fees and fare differences, but that was offset by the unused portion of my original itinerary being put in a bank for my use any time during the next year. With my schedule, I’ll probably use it within the next week. The real killer was the hotel. I booked with the Hilton Suites Atlanta Perimeter. Since I’m using my own money, no reimbursement, I opted for the special non-refundable web rate, pre-charged to my credit card. I called to cancel and found there was no accommodation at all. No putting the money in a bank for another night. No points to my Hilton Honors account (I’m a Silver HHonors VIP, whatever the hell that’s good for), no nothing.
I’m not blaming Hilton, mind you. It was clear when I booked it that it was non-refundable. But I will never, ever, avail myself of that option again. This meeting was a sure thing and yet it isn’t happening, and I’m out $250.80, just because I wanted to save $20 or $30 over a refundable rate. I’d rather pay the higher rate and be able to cancel than risk losing it all. My advice: Stay away from these offers. Under the circumstances, I have to question why the hotels even offer them.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
When I was at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas last week, I paid $10.95 for high-speed, broadband Internet access, a hard-wired ethernet connection in the room. I needed it to record my podcast—my co-host, Neville Hobson is in the U.K., and Skype is our method of recording.
The Net connection was so bad, so slow, that we could not hear each other over Skype, and we finally gave up. Then I tried to get my email. The connection was so slow that I couldn’t get one message. I disconnected from the hotel line and popped in my Sprint wireless broadband card and got my email with no problem.
When I checked out later, I told the clerk at the front desk how awful the connection was. “I’ve heard that,” he said. “Sorry.” He did not offer to refund the $10.95.
The Hilton Anatole is a nice hotel. I won’t be staying there again.
And can somebody explain why the pricier hotels charge for Internet access while the cheaper ones (like Fairfield Inns) do not? Especially when they’re managed by the same groups (Hilton, Marriott, etc.)?
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
The Hilton Garden Inn in Kimberly, Wisconsin has a nifty service. Visit the PrintOn website, select the right hotel, and print any document to the business center. Which I did. I went down to the business center to get my documents, but the printer was out of ink. When I mentioned this to the front desk, and they told me they wouldn’t get new cartridges for two more days. Slick.
Monday, July 16, 2007
I’m at the Embassy Suites in downtown Minneapolis, which has free high-speed WiFi. Except they don’t; it’s not working. I called the number for tech support and got a message informing me that all the tech support reps were busy. I was asked to leave a message with my number and they’d call me back as soon as they could. That was four hours ago. Thank goodness I have my Sprint wireless broadband card. Not as fast as a true broadband connection, but it works. Embassy Suites does not.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Andy Abramson has a business travel blog, “Working Anywhere,” and posts a list of his requirements for amentities hotels should offer business travelers. The list is good (if a bit food-heavy), and the comments offer even more ideas to which hotels would do well to pay attention.
One item missing—even from my own comment to Andy’s post—would never have occurred to me until last night. I’m at the Marriott Courtyard in Zurich, Switzerland. I got into bed and prepared to set the clock radio alarm, until I discovered the room had no clock radio! An automated wake-up call system works fine, but what I missed was the glowing LED readout of the time. When you wake up in the middle of the night and it’s dark, you want to know whether you should just get up or go back to bed. The absence of the clock radio made it hard to do that, and by the time I was able to fumble for the button that lights up my watch, I was more awake than I wanted to be (and it was only 3 a.m.).
If you travel a lot, scoot on over to Andy’s blog and add your own requirements to the growing list.
Friday, November 17, 2006
I was delighted to get an email from John Wolf, senior director of media relations for Marriott International, in response to my complaint about getting poker ads served up on web pages (including my own blog) while using the Superclick service that hotels like Marriott use to provide guests with Internet access. This occurred while I was staying at the Renaissance in downtown Toronto, both in my room and in the meeting room where I was presenting a workshop. These ads showed up despite the fact that I was paying for the service, and Ragan Communications was paying for access during the two-day session I was teaching.
John’s email first of all noted that Marriott follows my blog, which by itself puts them head and shoulders above most companies. They recognize that customers will talk about their experiences—good and bad—on their blogs. He then explained the circumstances that led to my getting those annoying ads:
Marriott’s relationship with the Internet service provider Superclick includes an agreement to exclude all popups on our high-speed service. However, Superclick explained to us that whenever upgrades are made to the system, pop ups are automatically activated and need to be manually turned off. Apparently, we got upgraded and were unaware of it until you notified our front desk. At that time, we notified Superclick and the pop ups were immediately turned off. We are talking with Superclick to ensure that they alert us about all future upgrades.
John apologized, expressing regret for the inconvenience, and assured me Marriott is taking steps to ensure there is no repeat of the experience.
If I thought companies would pay attention to blogs, I would simply articulate my complaint and wait for a reply. But you can’t make that assumption (although now I can about Marriott). I like the idea, originally broached by Christopher Carfi in response to one of my earlier posts, that companies assign every product and service a tag that customers could use when posting items about their experiences, making it easy for companies to track what customers are saying about them—and to respond.
In the meantime, Marriott is back on my “good guys” list.
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Monday, November 13, 2006
I’m at the Renaissance Toronto Hotel Downtown, and until a few minutes ago, I was pleased with the hotel. I was upgraded due to my Marriott Rewards status to a nice split-level suite that overlooks an empty SkyDome. The food is good. The service is good. However, I am now disgusted with the hotel, and with Marriott in general. Here’s the story:
I noticed earlier that spam-like banner ads were showing up in my browser. I would navigate to a page that I knew had no ads, and one would appear anyway, mostly touting online poker. Curious, I clicked on over to my own blog, and the same ad showed up there (see image below).
I assumed I had picked up some adware. Since the laptop is new, I haven’t had a chance to install spyware/adware software, so I paid for AdAware Pro and ran it. The ads kept showing up. A little investigation determined that all these ads link to a company called Superclick. I visited their site and learned more than I wanted to, enough to get my blood boiling. Superclick provides a guest interface for hotels that includes in-room services, which is fine. But it’s also dishing up these ads. So anybody staying at a property using Superclick who visits my blog will see an ad associated with it. I would never take advertising from an online poker site, and if I did, I’d expect to get some of the revenues.
Instead, I’m paying $12.95 per day to see these ads.
That’s right; that’s what the internet connection costs.
The graphic below is from the Superclick site, listing presumably satisfied customers. Before I book a reservation at any hotel in any of these chains, I will ask if the broadband connection for which they will charge me is going to serve up any ads I don’t want to see. If the answer is yet, I’ll book elsewhere. I’ll stay at a freaking Motel 6 before I put up with this kind of crap.
Unbelievable. Talk about a lack of respect—even outright contempt—for your customer.
Posted by Shel in
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Tuesday, September 26, 2006
$12.95 per day for high-speed access in your hotel room is outrageous enough, but it surpasses outrage when the “high-speed” access is more comparable to the speeds obtained through a 56.6 kbps modem. Yet that’s what I’m paying here at the Eastside Marriott Hotel in New York. I just ran a speed test on the connection. In fact, my download speed was 200 kbps and my upload speed was actually better, at 246 kbps. What a promotion that would make: “Surf the web four times faster than with regular dial-up!”
What a rip-off.
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Friday, September 22, 2006
I just checked out of the Millennium Knickerbocker Hotel in Chicago. Just before checking out, I dropped by the business center in the lobby. The most prominent thing about this business center is a sign that says, “Print boarding pass here.” Terrific, I thought; I’ll be able to save some time at the airport. So I stepped in and started typing.
An attendant stopped me: “Can I help you?”
“I want to print my boarding pass,” I said, pointing to the sign.
“There’s a charge for that,” she said.
“A charge? How much?”
“Five dollars.”
I swear, some hotels would charge you for every toilet flush if they could. Five dollars to print a boarding pass when the business center computer already has a Net connection and the cost of a single sheet of paper is a couple cents? Please. That’s just greedy. Needless to say, I opted to wait until I get to the airport to get my boarding pass. And my view of the Knickerbocker’s concern for its customers has taken a hit.
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Monday, July 03, 2006
Sheraton Hotels & Resorts has relaunched its website with social networking features, providing space for travelers to share stories, tips, and pictures related to their travel experiences. An article on Eye for Travel quotes Sheraton marketing veep Chad Weitzig: “Our new site reflects the way people shop and research travel today.”
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Tuesday, May 16, 2006
I spent 15 minutes this morning standing by the shoe shine stand downstairs at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC, right under the sign that listed the stand’s hours beginning at 8 a.m. When I finally went upstairs to find out what was going on, I was told that the stand opened at 9. “He’s an independent contractor and he changed his hours,” I was told. Fine. Change you freakin’ sign. This came just hours after I went downstairs to the gift shop that was open until 11 p.m. At 10:40, it was closed. I was able to get the hotel to open it up again, but sheesh. Posted hours should stand for something more than an estimate when customers count on them.
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Wednesday, April 26, 2006
What does “high speed” mean to you? For the $11 or so per day the Chicago Hyatt Regency for high-speed access, I expect it to be, well, high speed. Trying to make Skype calls from my hotel room with the ethernet cable jacked in, I got audio I could barely translate. It wasn’t any better listening to my voice on the other end of the line, according to my wife.
So I ran a speed test using a local Chicago server, and found I was getting downloads of 100 kbps. For $11-plus dollars. That’s an outrage. I also have to record the podcast tomorrow morning using Skype, but the operator assures me I should be fine because in the morning, fewer people will be online. Having said that, she also suggested I try the WiFi instead of the ethernet line.
If a miracle doesn’t occur and I find myself with healthy download speeds in the range of at least 4-5 Mbs when the morning rolls around, I’ll be asking for my money back. 100 kbps I can get by using my Treo 650 cell phone’s Bluetooth connectivity.
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It seemed my day of travel to Chicago would be flawless. I took BART from Concord to SFO without incident. My flight on United boarded on time and, because my upgrade cleared, I had a seat in the last first-class row on a Boeing 757 (my favorite plane for 3-4-hour flights). I got my meal choice. The flight went without incident (I was even able to write an entire chapter of the book I’m working on) and landed exactly on time. I took the Blue Line from O’Hare into the City and it took only 20 minutes to walk to my hotel, the Hyatt Regency, from the Clark/Lake station.
But trouble awaited. After standing in a fairly long check-in line, I was greeted by the front desk clerk, LeRon, who spent a few minutes looking me up on the system only to inform me my reservation had been canceled—and the hotel was sold out.
I explained that I had not canceled my reservation, that I was a keynote speaker at a conference at the hotel the next morning. LeRon vanished into the offices behind the front desk. I called my contact with the organization hosting the conference, who said she would call the hotel conference manager with whom she was working. It wasn’t necessary. LeRon came back with a room—a junior suite. I’m not sure if that was a gesture to make up for the inconvenience of the cancelation that should not have happened or if it was the only room available. It turns out somebody had mis-entered my name (I was Sheila Holt), and when no such name matched the list of conference attendees, the reservation was dumped. But the hotel made it right quickly, and LeRon was a model of front-desk efficiency and graciousness. It should be so at all hotels.
Technorati Tags: Hyatt
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Page 1 of 3 pages 1 About
I travel for work. I have no fear of flying. I have a paralyzing fear of baggage claim. No matter how successful any given trip may be, there's always some travel provider -- an airline, a hotel, a cab company, somebody who will add a bit of misery to the experience. It's inevitable. I need a place to vent, to kvetch, to complain. This is it. Welcome to my life on the road. If you need to know any more than this, I have a business web site and a blog dedicated to the work I do, and you're welcome to visit either or both. But this blog, this blog is just about business travel. And it isn't pretty.
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