Can I ‘merge’ consecutive room bookings made online without penalty?

[Norman21]

Hi,

I’ve searched the forum, and can’t find an answer to this question, so have joined and this is my first post.

My Mum had a morning hospital appointment, so I booked a room in the nearby Hilton to mitigate possible delays caused by traffic and/or roadworks. I used a mixture of points and money. So far so good.

A few days later I was notified that I had to attend an online meeting on the afternoon of the hospital appointment, so decided to stay another night so that I could have the meeting in my hotel room rather than a noisy coffee shop. However, I couldn’t extend the existing booking, as any changes were would result in cancellation and loss of the points allocated to the stay. So, I made an additional booking for one more day.

On check-in I explained the situation, and was told not to worry, I could stay in the same room. However, on returning from the hospital appointment it was clear that someone had packed my belongings, presumably to move them to storage. I asked reception about this (the same person, fortunately) and after a profuse apology was told this should never happen.

On another occasion at another Hilton, I had a similar thing happen, except that I was told to vacate the room and check into another. Why they did not check me into a room that did not need to be changed is strange, as they would have saved on the cost of housekeeping.

So, my question is this: can I ‘merge’ consecutive bookings made online at different times without penalty?

Thanks,

Norman.

[davefl]

No you can’t.

Hilton (I think are unique) in varying their cash pricing depending on the check in day and length of stay. Sometimes you can game that. For points booking the rate can vary considerably between the day you book and the day you arrive.

What happened to you in the first one should absolutely not have done so and I’d be asking for compensation in the form of points at least. But I have heard of it happening.

if this is something that you do in future, I would recommend leaving the do no disturb sign on the door, also leaving a large note in your room on the bed or table notifying housekeeping the booking has been extended and to check with the front desk.

[Go197]

You can’t and should never need to do any merging. It’s very normal to make multiple consecutive bookings. I do it all the time to allow for rebooking or cancelling individual nights due to changing plans or prices.

Normally the hotel spots consecutive bookings. If not, a quick word at check-in should be sufficient. Sometimes I might email before the stay to point it out, especially if I have something complex like reward nights in a standard room followed by paid nights in a suite, for example.

You should not normally have to change room, unless you have booked different room types, but even then I would expect a discussion about options at check-in. ie take this room type and stay put, or have this type then that type after changing room.

For them to turf you out of your room is very poor indeed, and clear grounds for a complaint.

(also note that consecutive bookings at the same property are always treated as one “stay” by reward schemes that count stays rather than nights)

[gtellez]

That reminded me a time in a Holiday Inn in Paris when the second night (same booking) I arrived to my room, the key didn’t work and at the same time someone opened the door and said it was his room. I quickly went to reception and they said they had to move my belongings and change my room because there was a maintenance issue (obviously false as they gave the room to someone else). Very bad situation after a long day of work. I complaint to IHG and they gave me something like 25k-30k points, if I remember correctly.

[John]

From experience, on the morning when a booking is due to end and another to begin, always reconfirm with the front desk that the person on shift that day is aware, so they don’t check you out by mistake.

I’ve never not been able to stay in the same room, but I’ve never been able to avoid having to get the key card recoded (not tried this at a property with digital key yet).

The only time when my belongings were removed was when I tried to merge a redemption from my account with a redemption from my wife’s account, I did tell the front desk but housekeeping got confused.

[Norman21]

Thank you all for your advice – I’ll try these suggestions next time I find myself in this situation.