Hilton complaint

[davefl]

Does anyone have an idea what compensation I should be asking for in a complaint where there was no wi-fi available for my entire 3 day stay.

I was there to work and had to pay for a day room at a different hotel so I could get all my meetings done.

Also whilst I was out, housekeeping completely ignored the DND sign on the door and completely refreshed the room.

[Supergers49]

There will be no fixed compo due, but I would’ve thought the cost of your day room + 1 free night comp’d would be proportionate.

[Froggee]

I’d say the biggest determinant would be what the property actually said to you when you were there.

If they said “sorry, Wi-Fi is broken” and you said. “Oh, okay” then very little.

I assume you raised this with the manager at the time? If so, what was said as after the stay has completed, it seems a bit strange to ask for much given the service recovery horsie has bolted from the service recovery stable.

[JDB]

@davefl if, as @Froggee says, you didn’t raise the issue at the time and give the hotel the opportunity to fix it, you really aren’t due much if anything. When asking these questions, a few key facts are necessary if you actually want help.

The hotel might not have had a wifi outage throughout the hotel so could have moved you or put you in a business meeting room and had an idea when it would be fixed. They aren’t to know you were working there all day. You could have insisted on leaving and moved to the other hotel rather than unnecessarily running up two room bills and hoping someone else would pay etc. Both parties have duties to act appropriately.

Re housekeeping – are you expecting compensation for that as well?

[davefl]

The outage was through the hotel. Nothing could be done. Front desk was despondent as it appeared to have been like that for some time

My room was prepaid, otherwise I’d have walked to the holiday Inn as soon as I found out. They’re not going let me cancel at check in on a prepaid booking

These are brand standards. Wi-fi is guaranteed and so is Hilton clean stay. Reject housekeeping by putting on you DND sign means DONT enter my room. The other side of the sign actually says service it. Couldn’t be more obvious

[Lady London]

Which Hilton? Please name it so we can avoid booking it.

Drainage problens, aircon problems, general tackiness, wifi not working…. Many, many hotels have these not working virtually all the time or for very long periods…But for each guest that complains, staff pretend it’s something new.

Important would be to find out how long it’s not been working. I’ll take a bet it’s not working today either. Then assuming wifi is advertised, complain to hotel management in writing, and The Advertising Standards Authority and Hilton. Especially if it’s been long enough not working so it can be called a fundamental not being geared up to meet their promises or brand standards or hotel is lazy, deceptive and negligent to keep advertising and not fixing it for so long.

Attach your bill for day room at the other hotel, transport costs to and from as a claim. And especially attach any food and beverage receipts at or near the other hotel mentioning this is ancillary revenue your booked hotel missed as your plan was to stay in and work and order everything in while working in the room. However their non-delivery of the advertised wifi meant you incurred unwanted expenses elsewhere.

TBH I never trust any hotel’s wifi and always carry my own or find put about backup options elsewhere (such as usually any Starbucks, lobby of an IHG Hotel, or, if really important and private, rent an office at Regus).

To give yourself better cover you could have written (re)confirming your booking and stating wifi sufficient to run video/whatever in order to complete work throughout your stay was of the essence and in the event of problems with this […would be needed]. Might not work (if I was a hotel mamager I would write back covering us), but does strengthen your position.

I suspect this hotel probably routinely has wifi not working and yet keeps advertising it, so they deserve to undergo a bit of stress. Depending on the level of hotel and the value of your booking you might get 5,000 to 15,000 points tossed at you.

Carry your own wifi next time.

[Super Secret Stuff]

Lady London wrote:

Which Hilton? Please name it so we can avoid booking it.

Drainage problens, aircon problems, general tackiness, wifi not working…. Many, many hotels have these not working virtually all the time or for very long periods…But for each guest that complains, staff pretend it’s something new.

Important would be to find out how long it’s not been working. I’ll take a bet it’s not working today either. Then assuming wifi is advertised, complain to hotel management in writing, and The Advertising Standards Authority and Hilton. Especially if it’s been long enough not working so it can be called a fundamental not being geared up to meet their promises or brand standards or hotel is lazy, deceptive and negligent to keep advertising and not fixing it for so long.

Attach your bill for day room at the other hotel, transport costs to and from as a claim. And especially attach any food and beverage receipts at or near the other hotel mentioning this is ancillary revenue your booked hotel missed as your plan was to stay in and work and order everything in while working in the room. However their non-delivery of the advertised wifi meant you incurred unwanted expenses elsewhere.

TBH I never trust any hotel’s wifi and always carry my own or find put about backup options elsewhere (such as usually any Starbucks, lobby of an IHG Hotel, or, if really important and private, rent an office at Regus).

To give yourself better cover you could have written (re)confirming your booking and stating wifi sufficient to run video/whatever in order to complete work throughout your stay was of the essence and in the event of problems with this […would be needed]. Might not work (if I was a hotel mamager I would write back covering us), but does strengthen your position.

I suspect this hotel probably routinely has wifi not working and yet keeps advertising it, so they deserve to undergo a bit of stress. Depending on the level of hotel and the value of your booking you might get 5,000 to 15,000 points tossed at you.

Carry your own wifi next time.

I agree with LL except for carrying your own WiFi!

I would expect 5,000 plus costs incurred if its a double tree or similar. 10,000 plus costs if its high end. 15,000 or a free night plus costs if its a luxury type hotel

[yonasl]

Hostels have free wifi but when you ask why 4 and 5 stars hotels charge you for daily usage of their network there is always some IT guy that jumps and starts explaining how building a wifi for a whole building with good speed and reliability is not trivial. Well ,it is not that easy indeed as many seem to be down more often than not.

[JDB]

davefl wrote:

The outage was through the hotel. Nothing could be done. Front desk was despondent as it appeared to have been like that for some time

My room was prepaid, otherwise I’d have walked to the holiday Inn as soon as I found out. They’re not going let me cancel at check in on a prepaid booking

These are brand standards. Wi-fi is guaranteed and so is Hilton clean stay. Reject housekeeping by putting on you DND sign means DONT enter my room. The other side of the sign actually says service it. Couldn’t be more obvious

The issue is that if you seek compensation from a party (i.e. in this case the cost of another hotel with wifi) you have a duty to mitigate your loss. In this instance, although you were on a prepaid rate, you should have asked for a refund on the basis they weren’t offering a key contracted service and if this was refused (and contemporaneously documented) then you might have grounds for compensation (a refund of non cancellable rate), but gratuitously to be running two hotel bills is not reasonable and is really a consequential loss. In the circumstances I would be amazed if they paid any of the other hotel costs, for which they aren’t strictly liable, but they will bung you a few points on an ex gratia basis.

[davefl]

@LL

Sorry, difficult to follow all this on my phone. Tablet blew up on the way out from MAN, nightmare of a trip all the way with stuff getting cancelled, closed etc. This was the last straw after being screwed unexpectedly by virgin mobile for 60 quid as my phone strayed over onto a non inclusive network whilst I was on the sleeper train. £12.50/mb ffs

Hilton Zurich airport is the one. Broken when I checked in 4 days ago, still the same this morning. As a techie of 32 years in the IT industry, I know exactly what is wrong with it. The access points were all fine, the backend server that hands out the IP addresses wasn’t. It’s something that should take an hour to sort, not days. If id ever provided a service like that id be rightly sacked

As a Business style hotel it is “expected” that people are working from it. I’m not accepting any of the bull that certain other people have posted here today

In fact on Saturday there were over 100 delegates from Oman air checking in. I could see all the room keys.

Thanks for most people’s input on this, I’ll post what happens when I tackle Hilton customer support.

I’ll also post something separately about experience as “gold” later in the week at that one and another

[davefl]

Final update on this:

I submitted the complaint via the Hilton webiste on Friday morning, got an email yesterday from Customer Services saying it had been forwarded to hotel for comment.

Just got a reply from the AM at the hotel, apologising and awarding 10k points for the issues.

Matter closed as far as I’m concerned although I’ll still be well out of pocket.

[Froggee]

Thank you for reporting back. It’s incredible to think how internet has gone from being a luxury to an absolute necessity in 20 years. Indeed 20 years ago, a two week work trip to Asia saw the out of office email go on and that was that.

[davefl]

20 years ago I was designing and implementing what was probably the most widespread retail broadband rollout in the UK at that time. Chained to a desk with a daily commute by car.

Now my job involves demonstrating and advising on a product to customers on 3 continents from either the comfort of my sofa or anywhere in the world I have a quiet room and a net connection.

Times change.

[Carlos]

WiFi is free, so what compensation do you want from a free perk?

[Alex G]

Carlos wrote:

WiFi is free, so what compensation do you want from a free perk?

It’s not free. It’s included in the price. Along with hot water, lighting, toiletries etc

[davefl]

Carlos wrote:

WiFi is free, so what compensation do you want from a free perk?

Wifi isn’t free. It’s complimentary if you have HH status. There’s a huge difference.

It’s also a brand standard.

I specifically chose the property over the nearby IHG one because of those standards which ultimately were not met.