Complaints

• Initial Complaint

  06/09/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  We reserved 2 rooms at the Best Western Waterfront Hotel in Windsor for the night of June 26 (holiday fireworks). They contacted us early in the year and said that they would be closed for remodeling for several months so they would change our reservation to the Holiday Inn Express located down the street. We accepted the reservation but after reviewing the website information decided to cancel our stay at the Holiday Inn. We received neither a confirmation number or cancellation number at any time. Unfortunately, we did not record the name of the person who took our cancellation. We were assured that there would be no charge.When we received our ******** Express bill we were charged for the following rooms:21028884 ****** (CA dollars) ****** (** dollars)66060277 ****** (CA dollars) ****** (** dollars)The hotel manager says that we did not cancel our reservation and that it was nonrefundable but our friends who also cancelled their stay for that night were able to cancel with no charge and did receive a cancellation number. The manager insists that we did not contact the hotel.For many years in the past we have stayed at the Best Western Waterfront Hotel on fireworks night and were happy with the service. We feel that these charges from the Holiday Inn Express are unfair. Whoever took our verbal cancellation failed to cancel the rooms even though they assured us that there would not be a charge. ******** Express contacted the hotel and they refused to make an adjustment. ************************************** ***************************************** ************************ ************ ************ (cell)

  Business response

  22/09/2023

  Good afternoon,

  *************** to the complaint filed by *************************** and providing supportive information.  ****************** initial reservation was at our sister property the Best Western Plus and due to hotel being closed reservations were transferred to our property Holiday Inn Express with ****************** consent.  Fireworks is our biggest night of the year bringing guests locally and from other areas like Michigan and *******.  For this day, we have specific cancellation policies advising guests that credit card provided will be charged for room and tax (1 night), 7 days prior to arrival.  Any reservations cancelled prior to this will be cancelled at no charge.  ************** had 2 reservations for June 26, 2023, that were a NO SHOW, meaning he did not come in and had not cancelled.  ************** called a few days later after fireworks and advised that he had not come as he saw rooms were not up to his standard and was demanding his money back.  He also stated that his daughter was not able to make it and therefore he could not come.  We advised ************** that unfortunately he did not cancel within the cancellation period and since he did not notify us, his credit card was charged.  He then called back to say he did cancel and that he had spoken to our front desk but that they did not cancel the rooms.  Our system shows when anyone opens the reservation screen and therefore, we are able to see if he had called with any type of inquiry with respect to his reservation and like he says that he called in April our system would have cancelled reservations and populated a cancellation number like it did for his friend.  ************** then disputed the charges with his credit card company and money was returned to him. ************** came into hotel on September 12th,2023 and I spoke to him and advised what our policy was and explained to him that since he had disputed his charges with his bank, that he needed to contact them as his money had been returned and that from my end, I could not do anything. 

  I am attaching our Fireworks policy for next year for reference to show that we advise guests when booking, also attached are folios of charges and disputed charges received from bank.

  Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain our side and hope that you can understand that there was never any wrongdoing from our end.  Please accept my apologies for delay in responding but email was not sent to me and guest services had not forwarded this important email until a few days ago.

  Please contact me at ********************************** or call me at ************ ext. "0".

  Have a wonderful day.  

  Kind Regards,

  ************************* / General Manager

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩