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Sheraton Can't Be Bothered With Your Erroneous Bill Or Your Silly MSNBC Friend

Go To The Hotel's Web Site Where: 5115 Hopyard Road [map], Pleasanton, CA, United States, 94588

September 25, 2008 at 2:30 PM | 4 Comments

Our buddy Chris Elliott is a columnist at MSNBC and also has his own site at Elliott.org. Most of the time he acts as a mediator for travel disputes between customers who have been wronged one way or another by airlines, car rental companies, airlines, hotels, airlines, online booking sites, oh yeah, and the occasional complaint about an airline.

We travel a lot too - so naturally we keep an eye on his site, but we have to say -- most things he writes about doesn't really surprise us, since people do dumb things and some companies are even dumber. Particularly airlines.

Until this week's post about a customer (Mike Black) who reserved and then canceled a room at the Four Points by Sheraton Pleasanton in CA and was assured by the hotel that there would be no charges for the room or cancellation.

So of course, Four Points charges Black's credit card $150.

Black then left voice mails for the manager disputing the charge. Three times. No response from the manager.

Then Black contacted Starwood Corporate Customer Service, still no response.

Finally, Elliott, on Black's behalf, contacted Starwood. After one week, a reply came back saying someone would follow up on the issue shortly. That was a month ago.

Elliott says:

So here's my sad conclusion: Sheraton apparently doesn't care. It won't answer a customer's question, either at the customer-service or managerial level, and it apparently doesn't give a hoot about what the press thinks of it.

I hope I'm wrong. Sheraton could set me straight by having the courtesy to contact Black.

We also hope Four Points/Starwood sets the record straight and contacts Black. We've never heard of an instance where a customer and a member of the press get completely ignored when they had a problem.

What gives Four Points/Starwood? We think you owe Mr. Black an apology, a refund and an apple peeler.

: / / /

Author Photo: AndrewC by AndrewC

4 Comments

Return to » Sheraton Can't Be Bothered With Your Erroneous Bill Or Your Silly MSNBC Friend

  1. Jenna

    HotelChatter Editor
    September 25, 2008 at 2:34 PM




    HOW RUDE!

    As Stephanie Tanner would say: How ruuuude. Oh, and also? Last night, John McCain snubbed David Letterman, and Letterman totally spent a few good minutes of his show totally going off on him and saying stuff about how he "smells funny." Never piss off people in the media. But maybe we're just saying that because we like to think we can threaten hotels into being nice to us because we have keyboards and the Internet. Sigh.

  1. Jenna

    HotelChatter Editor
    September 25, 2008 at 2:35 PM




    Oh.

    Oh, and by "smells funny" i mean he said something about his actions smelled funny. not him personally. though i'm sure he doesn't smell like armani cologne. or maybe he does. whatever. i wonder what kind of toiletries john mccain prefers?

    [ Parent ]

  1. kjb

    HotelChatter Member
    September 25, 2008 at 2:57 PM




    McCain Toiletries

    Probably Ben-Gay

  1. bangerang

    HotelChatter Member
    September 25, 2008 at 3:09 PM




    toiletries

    wow. that was an interesting little blogtacular diatribe miss jenna.
    im guessing john mccain uses that new, super manly axe loofah/ man scrubber with his toiletries, whatever they are.

Return to » Sheraton Can't Be Bothered With Your Erroneous Bill Or Your Silly MSNBC Friend

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