Keeping track of hotel screw-ups

Spending 200+ nights per year means I have plenty of amazing hotel experiences (see some of my reviews). On the other hands, I encounter plenty of hotel screw-ups – dirty rooms, privacy issues, missing points, etcetera. This is a continuously updated list of hotel and hotel loyalty program screw-ups.

Full 2017-2018 – incorrect name, address, company

At a certain point, out of my last 25 IHG stays, close to 90% had wrong address details, name, company, home country (UK, even Azerbaijan), which drove my accountant close to insanity.

September 2nd 2018, Brussels – my sad birthday experiment

On my birthday, I tried to see how hotels would react on a loyal member (Diamond at Hilton, Spire Elite at IHG) staying at their hotel. No reaction – I wrote a dedicated post on my experience: my sad hotel birthday experiment.

September 3rd 2018, Brussels – data privacy issue

When checking out at a hotel, the front desk employee informed another person’s email address was connected to my account. As of January 3rd 2019, I am still waiting for an explanation to what happened and any compensation. I will write an extensive post on my experience later.

November 2018 – loyalty program application not working

I wrote a separate blog post on my Intercontinental Ambassador experience, but when applying for the program (as an IHG Spire Elite already), the site didn’t work, I was asked to contact via email, then via phone and finally couldn’t choose the date on which my subscription started.

Full 2018 – stays not posting

At a certain point during 2018, 7 out of my last 9 stays had not posted to my IHG account (totalling 13% of all my stays that year). I had to contact customer service several times to fix this and it took more than 5 tries to finally solve the issue. In the process, multiple of my mails were ignored and once a customer service supervisor hung up on me.

Compensation: 5000 points.

January 1st 2019, Aalsmeer – dirty bathroom, dirty replacement room

When checking my bathroom, the sink was full with hairs on tooth paste / mouth wash. I asked for a new room, got another room with (again) hair in the sink, candy wrapping on the sidetable and stains on the floor.

Compensation: 50% off night.