Brandon L.
Yelp
I would like to tell you a little about my Saturday day and night on 2/22/2020.
My pregnant wife is in Detroit Michigan for a Garth Brooks concert and I'm in Grand Rapids for a special event. We live in SWMI. My wife's friend booked a 2 queen room through Priceline months ago around the same day they purchased the concert tickets.
Saturday afternoon after a 5 hour drive, they arrive at the Hotel St. Regis Detroit and proceed to check-in right around 3pm. They are told by the hotel staff that their room is no longer available and they'll need to stay 40 minutes away. They worked with them and there was nothing they could do. So myself during the middle of my event 150+ miles away call Priceline to get it fixed. After almost 1 hour on the phone, Priceline lets me know that the hotel was able to find them a different room within the same hotel. It would be a 1 king bed room which wasn't convenient, but was better than driving so late at night all around town. By this time, the girls couldn't wait to check-in to the room as they needed to get to the concert, so they told the hotel staff they would be back after the show to check in.
Fast forward to 1am the next morning. I get a call from my wife saying that the concert was over, they went out for some food, and went to check-in, only to find that the hotel gave their room away again. At this point, the hotel is now 100% sold out and the only way they could give a room away would be to wake someone up and kick them out. As you can imagine, I am utterly furious at this point at both Priceline for allowing this to happen, and St. Regis for giving a paid for room away TWICE. I called priceline right away and was told my expected wait time would be over 25 minutes. While holding, my wife called and said to not worry about it, they've lost patience, and are driving.
There were 3 major events in the city on Saturday night and a cursory search showed all the hotels were booked for the evening. In the end, priceline gave my friend a full refund, but I am extremely furious for more than a few reasons.
1. They booked a room well enough in advance that there should not have been any issues.
2. St. Regis not only gave away their room once, but TWICE.
3. After driving all morning to get there, go to a concert, and find out so late that the second room was given away, my PREGNANT wife had to stay awake even longer to drive again.
4. The lack of sleep and not having a room to stay in put my wife at danger, my wife's friend at danger, and my unborn child at danger.
I have a theory of what happened. My wife's friend booked the room in November. She noticed a couple days later that the room prices surged, likely because of the events going on. When the hotel went to check them in originally, they noticed the much smaller fee they were paying and knew that there would always be someone willing to come spend more, so they booked the room. Either sometime through the night, or for whatever reason, someone later showed up, offered to pay full price for the hiked rates, and they saw that they still hadn't checked in, so booked the high paying customer instead. So until I get a better explanation of why the room was given away twice, this is what I'm going to believe.
This pisses me off. My wife's friend, wife's, and unborn child's lives were put in danger for $200-$300 by the hotel. I'm furious with St. Regis for allowing this to happen not just once, but twice. I'm furious with St. Regis for not finding a closer place. And I'm furious with Priceline for not correctly fixing it the first time and getting them a 2 queen room at a neighboring hotel after the first cancellation.
I will never give St. Regis any of my business as it's apparent you can't rely on them. Most people get a room. But there's always that chance that your room won't be there when you're ready to stay. I will also make sure that my family, friends, and business partners know about this incident and suggest they look elsewhere.
I'm also mad at Priceline and we may need a break. I did enjoy how they attempted to help on the phone and even the person I talked with seemed frustrated that the hotel would just cancel a reservation like they did. However, like I said before, they should have found a neighboring hotel right away and put them in that one. Instead, myself and the original person who booked each spent an hour on the phone only to get a lesser room... which also got cancelled.
I hope people that actually take the time to read this story take what we've experienced before deciding to book with St. Regis Detroit.