I recently went on a family vacation, which was quite eventful (If you have seen my earlier post). Now, I need advice on this one.
I had booked 2 (a small and a large) rooms in a well-known hotel (branch name - T) directly from their official website. Check-in time was 3 pm on Mar 29th. When we reached around 10 pm - 10:30 pm, the people at the reception stated that they cannot give us rooms as they were overbooked, and our rooms have been given to someone else. They mentioned that its a known process across the hotel industry (I knew this happens with airlines), and we should have called to confirm our arrival. This booking was of course paid, and booked more than a month in advance.
Keeping a calm mind, with kids and 2 families in the car, I was looking for options like opting for 2 small rooms, talking with them to find out arrangements, why didn't they call to notify us, etc. Somehow, they offered to put 1 family in this branch T, while they can accommodate the other family in branch X which is 30 mins between X and T. Now, I was the sole driver, and this of course seemed mad. So, I asked them to check if both the rooms can be accommodated in the other branch X, rather than dividing us up, which worked in our favour.
I generally call up the airbnb bookings as they are mostly families, and sometimes, they may not be set for travellers on odd times, but for hotel chains, this seems absurd.
How do you experts generally tackle this kind of situation? What are the general guidelines on complaints? Any other advice?