reamed by hotel when visiting California

[skinnerd]

Wow....can hardly sit down right now.

Besides the Holiday Inn costing an arm and a leg....near Universal Studios.
They charged me $14 to park in the hotel parking lot.
No free TV....you know things like ABC, NBC, CNN, Fox, etc.
Could only rent movies at $13.99 plus tax a pop or taped TV episodes at $6 a show.
What the H...l?
On top of that I was charged something outrageous like 14% tourist occupancy tax.

Needless to say I didn't eat dinner or breakfast in the hotel or watch any TV.
Is this California's grand plan to try to be welcoming to tourists and visitors to the state?

[legion]

California's attitude seems to be "we know you want to come here, so we know we can make it expensive".

I think we all know how that ends.

[Christien]

Sounds like NYC. We were then back in 2001. Hotel only offered valet parking, $25/day. We knew we had to pick the car up by whatever time, so we got there 5 minutes early, and gave the valet the ticket. Took him 7 minutes to find the car, so they tried to bill us another $25 for a complete 24-hr period. No effin' way. But it took 10 min. of arguing with the hotel manager to get them to drop it.

[futuresoptions]

The sad thing about this is that upper management (Commerical/Gov't) somewhere along the way will say..."Ya know, they have been doing this in California for some time now, and I feel if we were to implement this yada yada..." and it continues to go down hill from there...

[looneybin]

only $14 to park your car??
try parking in San fran.
you got off easy

[TechnoViking]

My company has a web-based software program for doing expense reports. There are 3 cells for hotel room taxes, to be used when itemizing the hotel receipt.

Last one to San Jose had:

Tax #1: Occupancy tax
Tax #2: CA Tourist Tax
Tax#3: HBID assessment
Tax#4: CCFD tax

Uh oh...what now?

[stevepaa]

use Priceline to get a better deal
call ahead to find about any parking charges

nearly every municipality charges lodging taxes, even some Oregon cities charge 9% tourist tax at motels.

[McLovin]

California is the land of the reaming.

I got reamed for $160 for 2 adults and 1 child for dinner at some horrible place in California called The Melting Pot last night. Basically some fondue place, so for the money you get a melted pot of cheese and some chunks of bread for an appetizer, and some raw chicken (about $2 worth) and raw steak chunks (maybe $3 worth) that you have to cook yourself, and a bad bottle of wine.

It literally gave me nightmares last night. I pretty much felt like I was victimized/robbed at gunpoint (which I probably would have preferred, at least I'd have had a fighting chance).

[stevepaa]

Melting Pot is a nation wide chain out of Tampa, FL
The Melting Pot
http://www.menusearch.net/menus/444general.pdf

Did you look at the prices before hand

YELP is your friend.

[LakeCleElum]

In Calgary, I paid $15 a nite to park a motorcycle a few months ago......

[McLovin]

We were with a small group, nothing we could really do, except bend over at the end of the night when the bill was "divided" up.

[Hugh R]

No free TV at a Holiday Inn. Wow, I think motel 6 must give you free TV. I notice that the expensive hotels charge for WiFi, but I see adds on the cheap hotels that say its free.

[stevepaa]

wifi is free at Hilton Garden Inn but costs 10 at Hilton Hotel within 300 yards of each other??

that's why I choose the HGI.

[pksystems]

$6 to watch taped tv eps??? sounds like a copyright infringement to me

[JavaBrewer]

Originally Posted by skinnerd

Wow....can hardly sit down right now.

Besides the Holiday Inn costing an arm and a leg....near Universal Studios.
They charged me $14 to park in the hotel parking lot.
No free TV....you know things like ABC, NBC, CNN, Fox, etc.
Could only rent movies at $13.99 plus tax a pop or taped TV episodes at $6 a show.
What the H...l?
On top of that I was charged something outrageous like 14% tourist occupancy tax.

Needless to say I didn't eat dinner or breakfast in the hotel or watch any TV.
Is this California's grand plan to try to be welcoming to tourists and visitors to the state?

There's your answer. Have you ever stayed in a D.C. area hotel? How about renting a car from airport and paying $60+ in area taxes and fees. You probably could have stayed in a much nicer (and cheaper) place just and freeway exit or two further away.

+1 on Hilton Garden Inn vs. Hilton. Save's $25/night immediately on WiFi and parking and the rooms/beds are just as nice.

[gprsh924]

Did anyone force you to stay at that hotel?

[Ronbo]

I travel all over Calif. for work and usually stay at a Comfort Inn. They're clean, inexpensive, have free cable TV including HBO, free WiFi, and free breakfast. Deals are out there but you have to do your homework.

[skinnerd]

No one forced me.
It was recommended....saying I could be close to Universal Studios, if I wanted to take a peak (ended up eating at a decent brewpub there) and also close to the Burbank airport which I was flying out of the following morning.

Next time I'll research it a bit more.

Guess I'm just not used to paying for parking....don't do that with Oregon hotels.

The TV system was something called Lodge Net.
A big ripoff if you ask me.
Half of it was pornos, all the movies were $13.99 plus tax, the taped TV was stuff like Dexter, etc.
Zero regular networks like ABC, NBC, ESPN, etc.

The room itself I have no complaints about.

All I'm really saying is that I don't think most businesses (including hotels) want their customers grumbling about this kind of stuff.
Doesn't sound like it's good for business or repeat customers.
JMHO

[strupgolf]

Try parking in Chicago, about $25 to $50 per day. Yea, we want you to have fun and come back.

[ODDJOB UNO]

i would call "AHH-NOLDS" office and complain directly to "AHH-NOLD". maybe even write a nasty gram to "AHH-NOLD" personally,with your return address.


"AHH-NOLD" is da "TERMINATOR" he vill git thangs dunned!