Nobody fears a prepaid third party reservation more than a front desk agent.
*Rant*
Each day that I see a third party reservation that’s already been prepaid.. I lose a year of my life. Accidentally booked the wrong date? You might get charged a fee regardless if the hotel says the third part can waive it. Every time I say they can waive it. Even the managers say that they can waive it. Problem with the room or have a family emergency and need to leave? You have to go thru the third party hassle to get a partial or full refund.
The first guests that walked in were a couple. Of course when I see that I don’t see their prepaid reservation, it’s always either they booked it for the wrong date or wrong location. I saw that their reservation is for next Sunday. Of course the culprit is the third party. So they had to wait for a good twenty while third party goes thru their process of talking to the guests, then calling the hotel, then calling back the guest. At that point the guest had gave up with third party and just booked directly with us. Usually something like this happens, I just give them some type of discount to make their lives easier.
Now this second guest was an older lady and she actually got on my nerves just a tad. I tried to also offer her a discount for her room if she booked with me directly because of the inconvenience of the third party had caused. At first she said no. So I had to explain the whole process of what happened with her reservation. She had me do everything with third party on her phone until she got to the calling part. I had to deal with the chat agent for ten minutes straight. The moment when the agent actually calls her on the phone, she somehow misses the call. 🫠 she tried to call them back and got the automated agent on the phone. It took another ten minutes just to get somebody on the phone. The agent is talking about cancellation and rebooking fees. They charged this lady’s card three separate times while trying to edit her reservation dates on their end. Finally, the third party woman says that they have an “error” and just refunded all her money. That’s when the guest finally decided to just book her room directly with me.
The same exact thing happened last night. A family had booked our suite room. Problem is. The family had their reservation booked for next weekend too. Also, someone else was already renting out the suite. The third party was also trying to charge them an $85 cancellation fee because of course the suite wasn’t available last night. All they could do was just change the room to a standard room or pay the $85. Even though we already said to waive it. Thats when the family just decided to take the standard room, and we (the hotel) comped them a second room.
What gets me even more is the fact that it’s always the same third party that does this. Of course I can’t say the exact third party on here. I really don’t have this problem with any other third parties. Sometimes I wish third party reservations weren’t a thing.. at least the prepaid ones. Unfortunately, my hotel uses them though.