Made any travel mistakes lately?

[Bazzi]

Where shall I start!

You know those lovely photos on its website - although say non-binding but its reasonable to assume they are indicative of the hotel given it is newly opened and what the rest of the chain look like? Well forget them completely as that is a lovely fantasy world. Instead go look up Le 300 on TripAdvisor or their website. The photos shown there are EXACTLY what you get. Given these photos are readily available it seems Accor is willing to deliberately mislead and deceive people. Hotel tells me they have been telling head office to change the website as people are complaining but to no avail.

And - there is only paying cable Internet - no free wifi which was advertised when we booked. Stay between 3-7 days and there is no cleaning. Linen is old and thin and almost grey. If you're lucky your blanket (note blanket not doona) will not be ripped. Expect absolutely no information in the room on how to work any controls, the phone or even how the breakfast room works (its cheaper to go to a cafe and have a petit dejeunner complet). No alarm clocks either.

On the plus side - quite street, a couple of lovely bistros/ brasseries nearby (Le coin and l'artisan), Boulangerie handy and easy few minutes walk to Bastille, Ledru Rollin and Gare de Lyon.

There is a Holiday Inn by Gare de Lyon which looks nice (noting the HI chain in Europe is a lot different than what you get here).

We were stuck there - it was 2 days after we checked in before the manager was back and it was a bad week for Paris accommodation - could not get 4 nights in one place that did not cost over $300 a room and the Friday night was up to $600!

After much deliberation and considering your post we decided to be brave and try the Adagio Access Paris Bastille. I've posted a review in the 'hotel experience and review' discussion board if you are interested.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Just realised that I booked accommodation for our Sint Maartin side trip from the US for June 1st -4th not for July 1st - 4th. Only realised when I was sent an email asking me to rate my stay. Expensive little mistake.

I know the feeling! i got the same 'rate your stay' and had no idea of the mistake until then. hurts especially for a $400 basic room at a hotel in india. (while they accepted it was a genuine mistake they refused to change the night so I lost everything).

recently I made a series of four consecutive bookings (all within 10 minutes) but somehow booking #2 was for a non refundable rate (same room type for all bookings but #1,3,4 were refundable).

three parties cancelled but of course the booking I wanted to keep was refundable, and one I needed to cancel was not. olotels came to the party and allowed me to amend the non-ref booking with a change of name to the party still travelling, saving $700. it took 4 days for them to go back to the supplier and make the changes... but they provided top class customer service.

happy customer (and I recommend olotels!)

 

[Boris spatsky]

Booked AAA rate for Hilton in Perth but forgot my NRMA card. At check-in got hit with best rate of the day instead of AAA rate, almost double. Ouch.

 

[boomy]

Booked AAA rate for Hilton in Perth but forgot my NRMA card. At check-in got hit with best rate of the day instead of AAA rate, almost double. Ouch.

That's harsh. No one at home to fax a copy of the card or send a photo to your mobile? I wonder if they would accept that.

 

[amaroo]

Booked with Air Canada for a flight last week (first flight where I've not had status for many a year) and didn't look at the luggage/fare structure.......got slugged a baggage fee of $175.

Trap for an old flyer that is use to status!


Also noticed over the past 5 weeks that booking/paying early is not always the best thing. Flights and Hotel prices dropped as we got closer to the day.....couldn't do anything about the flights but had a few wins with the hotels.

 

[Princess Fiona]

Booked AAA rate for Hilton in Perth but forgot my NRMA card. At check-in got hit with best rate of the day instead of AAA rate, almost double. Ouch.

The same thing almost happened to me at the same hotel until I did a bit of grovelling and the AAA rate stuck.
OT I have been staying at various Hilton chains in the US for the past 32 days on AAA rates and never once been asked for the card (which I made sure I tucked into the wallet) :?:

 

[Boris spatsky]

I grovelled but the manager was on the card was in my wife's wallet.

 

[Bazzi]

Booked with Air Canada for a flight last week (first flight where I've not had status for many a year) and didn't look at the luggage/fare structure.......got slugged a baggage fee of $175.

Trap for an old flyer that is use to status!


Also noticed over the past 5 weeks that booking/paying early is not always the best thing. Flights and Hotel prices dropped as we got closer to the day.....couldn't do anything about the flights but had a few wins with the hotels.[/


Our trips are usually 4 weeks duration and the 'outline' planned up to a year out. I hate paying for anything in advance so book our preferred hotels at a rate I would happy to pay at the best available/fully cancellable rate. This allows some peace of mind that we have 'something' booked but also allows some flexibility to change if a better rate/option presents itself. About 3 months out I start bottom feeding, as I call it, and start looking for cheaper rates to lock in with all of our accom finalised about 2 weeks prior to departure. Personally, I don't think it is worth my travelling time to try and better those rates while on the road (we try to use each trip as a tech rest as much as possible). My best 'save' this past trip was the Hyatt City Gate Abu Dhabi which was listing as $300+ per night, way outside our budget, which I managed to get on a 'deal of the day' for $130 inc taxes and didn't have to pay for until check out.

My tactic with flights is to monitor the cost over a couple of months (sometimes in the same time frame preceding year) and then just book when I think the fare is reasonable. Trains - book as soon as they open the bookings as my experience is that these just increase in cost from day 1.

 

[amaroo]

Got burnt with AA LAX-LAS-LAX and ViaRail one way train ride from Toronto to Montreal......booked a couple of months out - Combined the prices dropped by around $1,000.....(family of 4).

Got the swing affect on the hotels and picked that up and some.

Pays to keep an eye on things!

 

[BadgerBoi]

Booked with Air Canada for a flight...

Rookie mistake to end all rookie mistakes right there.

 

[OATEK]

Booked a flat in London through the Tripadvisor offshoot Flipkey. the day before we were to arrive from Krakow in Poland we got an email stating that there were "problems" requiring maintenance at the flat we chose, but fear not they had one even better - just look at the attached photos.

Ah, well the photos were of course from the last time the flat was sold and bore no relation to what we found. It turns out that some unscrupulous people are renting flats for domestic purposes (supposedly as far as the landlord is concerned) and then sub-let them as holiday lets.

It seems the landlord had repossessed the flat we originally chose on Flipkey, and we were lucky that we were given an alternative. The mistake was to book a rental property that did not have guarantees from the Website that the person offering the property was the owner!

 

[Awesom Andy]

Rookie mistake to end all rookie mistakes right there.

Don't really have a choice sometimes. e.g. SYD-YVR. There's the choice of non-stop on AC, transit in the US, or take the long way around via HKG, NRT, or AKL.

 

[amaroo]

Rookie mistake to end all rookie mistakes right there.

Actually it was a pretty decent flight DCA-YYZ with friendly crew.....saved about $1,000 and 4 hours including a painful transit in ORD or JFK compared to AA.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Just the usual hotel stuff up in HNL. back in April 2013 I'd booked self & SO into The Ilikai & parents into the Ilikai Marina as I didn't realise there were two different hotels with the word 'Ilikai' in them.

Last November I was convinced I'd booked the Hilton Hawaiian Village not the Hilton Waikiki Beach (formerly Prince Kuhio). I was that sure I didn't even bother to check the Tripit app which of course had the correct information in it!

So we turn up at HHV & no booking then look at Tripit which revealed the oversight. We ended up sticking with the HWB as SO thought as a HH Gold we probably would've been allocated a decent room ie high floor which turned out to be correct.

Full marks to the HHV though as they offered to book us in there instead (although rate was USD50.00 more per night) & checked that the HWB would not charge us a no-show or cancellation fee as just about all Hawaiian hotels have a 72 hour cancellation policy.

The HHV also gave us a cab voucher to take us to the other property which IMHO was above and beyond the call seeing as though it wasn't their fault.

I'm now on a hat-trick.

 

[legroom]

Once I was walking to my hotel in Barcelona after the bus trip from the airport.

Walking past another hotel, I recognised the name from somewhere deep in my in memory but could not know why it occurred.

Coming home and checking the CC statement, there was a no-show fee from that forgotten hotel - booked some time ago but completely gone from memory.

Now, for every pre-booking I need to enter it into a check list which I will set a reminder to check some 3-4 weeks prior to the actual departure trip to avoid that no-show charge.

 

[erkpod]

Not a mistake but a protip for next time for public transport in San Francisco.

Muni have a 1, 3 or 7 day passport available. While it is available from Walgreens etc, they sell the ticket in the form of what looks like a large scratch lotto ticket. But if you go to the Muni machines in the downtown subway stations, you'll get the same thing on a Clipper smartcard.

The passports are available for Muni buses, trolleybuses, light rail & streetcars. Is also valid on cable cars. Great value for cable car rides because that is a $6 flat fare compared to $2 flat fare on Muni.

My mistake was following the hotel's advice & getting the passport from Walgreens.

 

[Clivem]

Just noted mention in an earlier posts that the 'Novotel Brisbane Airport' was 400m form the terminal ....assume domestic ...... scaling it roughly off the BNE main runway on google earth surely its got to be well over 2 km from the dem. terminal more like nudging 3km ish ????? will check it out accurately next week.

 

[Rox]

My mistake was following the hotel's advice & getting the passport from Walgreens.

It's funny how often places that tourists are most likely to ask for help, ie hotels, tourist information bureaux are the worst for advice on local public transport. ( I'm looking directly at Sydney with the latter comment)

 

[BadgerBoi]

It's funny how often places that tourists are most likely to ask for help, ie hotels, tourist information bureaux are the worst for advice on local public transport. ( I'm looking directly at Sydney with the latter comment)

People often ask for advice at my local newsagent when they buy their tickets, which drives me nuts when I just want to buy a paper on my way to work, but the girls there really seem to know their stuff. I'm inner city and there are a few serviced apartment places nearby so a lot of people seek help.

 

[ShaneN]

Not a mistake but a protip for next time for public transport in San Francisco.

Muni have a 1, 3 or 7 day passport available. While it is available from Walgreens etc, they sell the ticket in the form of what looks like a large scratch lotto ticket. But if you go to the Muni machines in the downtown subway stations, you'll get the same thing on a Clipper smartcard.

The passports are available for Muni buses, trolleybuses, light rail & streetcars. Is also valid on cable cars. Great value for cable car rides because that is a $6 flat fare compared to $2 flat fare on Muni.

My mistake was following the hotel's advice & getting the passport from Walgreens.

I have not had any problems with the scratchie type passports available from Walgreens and the like, most recently in May 2013. I buy them from the information desks at SFO. Just show them to the bus or streetcar operator, or the conductor on cable cars. Only disadvantage may be the need to go through the staffed gate at the downtown Muni stations.

I agree that Muni passports are a must for visitors to San Francisco.