MGM Resorts Check-in = absolute cluster

This is pretty amazing that MGM can let things get this bad. They will lose thousands of reservations because of this.

Mlife is showing me a confirmed itinery for a trip that I had cancelled a few weeks ago and isn't showing 2 upcoming itineraries.

 

Home from the trip. Looked like they had the computers up and running correctly when we left. FWIW I am moving to Wynn after this trip. After spending more than 2 hours standing in line there is really no comp that can make up for the wasted time and frustration.

 

Just a sample of the postings a REAL CEO should read. How much money did it cost them this weekend? Thousands? Millions? Tens of Millions?

 

I will not be staying in a MGM property any longer. I can guarantee you that.

 

Report from the Bellagio

I was there while this clusterfuck was happening, staying at the Bellagio. Here's my account of what happened:

Arrived at the Bellagio at around 11am on 6/7, with my sister and grandmother, tired from a morning flight from Seattle. My sister and I didn't get any sleep the previous night and couldn't sleep on the plane, so we decided to wait until we got in our room to take a nap. Bad idea.

We're told the computers are down and we can't check in, and they hope to have it up and running by 3pm. My sister, who is extremely tired, is pretty upset, but I try to keep the energy positive. They take our bags to the bell desk, and we sit down a bit and think of what to do. While we're sitting down, this guy next to us tells us he's leaving because he's so upset. He said he got to the Bellagio at 9am the day before and couldn't get into his room until 6pm. It's at this point we hear that this computer problem has been going on for 2 days. This came as a huge shock, as we were expecting an amazing experience (we'd stayed at the Bellagio before and loved it).

So we go get some lunch, my sister goes to the spa to get a massage, and my grandmother and I go gamble. 3pm finally rolls around and we go back to the check-in desk. The computers are still down, and they hope to have it up by 5pm. Now both my sister and grandmother are upset, but I'm still trying to find some positive energy in all of this. They blame me for choosing the Bellagio as our hotel (they wanted to stay at the Aria). Later we were to find out this was happening at all of the MGM properties.

As we're waiting, we notice that no one is being checked in at all. The people behind the desk were simply standing there and telling people to wait until the computers were back up. To us, this seemed odd, and we thought they could at least check people in by hand, but they weren't doing it. Then we hear that they will start checking people in manually at 5pm. It seemed ridiculous that they weren't checking people in manually to begin with, instead of standing around doing nothing and waiting while the crowds grew larger and more angry.

5pm rolls around and the lobby is a nightmare, packed with angry, tired, and confused people in line to check in or check out. The line moves at the speed of 5 minutes per person. When we get to the front desk, we see a female employee on the phone, crying. She is either emotionally distraught by the whole ordeal or just lost her job. We later heard that the other MGM hotels were checking people in manually the whole time, so we thought maybe some manager at the Bellagio made the stupid decision to wait until the computers were working to check anyone in. Maybe it was the crying lady on the phone who may have lost her job. We'll never know.

We finally got our room at 6pm (so that's 7 hours of waiting), just in time before our dinner reservations for Le Cirque at 8pm. That evening, and I think the next day, no one could do room charges.

Our trip would have been pretty awesome if it weren't for this little mishap. It felt like we wasted a day in a very stressful situation. Also, they didn't even comp us anything, and we were at least expecting a one night comp.

I'm a big fan of the Bellagio, and it used to be my favorite hotel, but MGM has kind of lost my respect for them now. I like their properties a lot, but there were just so many bad decisions made. I'm really curious to know how much money they lost, and for that matter, how many customers. I think I'm going to give the Cosmo or the Wynn a try sometime (I love their properties). Hopefully, I can give the B another chance sometime when MGM sorts out their shit.

(First post here btw, long time lurker.)

 

I love to hear all this hating on MGM and vows never to return. However somehow I don't think it will make a difference on their bottom line. The lobby and tables will still be full next time I'm there. For everyone who leaves there's 5 more who will replace them.

 

This is absolute BULLSHIT. I'm hoping since I'm staying at THE Hotel, there won't be as much demand on a Thursday night, but we'll see. The least they could do is comp you drinks right?


My buddy and I can take turns waiting while the other one or two are gambling or buying drinks. If I hadn't already put a reservation down with money, I wouldn't be staying here. If I cancel I'm afraid they wouldn't give me my money back with all these problems even with it being refundable....

 

Damn sounds like a total cluster f%ck, what I wonder is this change going to be worth it in the long run for the problems it has created in the short run. They must have the same IT idiots we use at my job.

 

My buddy who's going out with me and I are computer guys, we said maybe if we can fix it they'll comp my resort fees LOL


This sucks, but let's put it in to perspective. Two years ago, we were flying from BWI to ATL to LAS. Thunderstorms held us up and we couldn't land. Then they needed to go to Charlotte to fuel up. We missed our connection and had to wait until 24 hours later until we finally made it to Vegas. While this sucks, it's not nearly as bad as what could have happened. I'll report live from my twitter @THELUSHLLFE on Thursday night at about 9pm, when I try to check in to THE Hotel. We'll see how it goes...

 

Why are you being an MGM apologist? There is no justifying such a mistake. I'm sure they treat you well, but you're a High Roller.

 

The only feelings I feel bad for are the people at the front desk. It's not their fault and they have to take the heat, because of some IT poor planning. IT should have had a backup that they could just switch back to the old servers using the old system. I hope MGM loses quite a bit from this.

 

Let me tell you that if it was me, I would get a comp - and really great one too. Once at the Bellagio they gave away a suite on the 36th floor that they had promised to hold and that I had waited all day to check in to (If I want a certain floor I don't mind checking my bags with the bell desk and waiting until the room is ready because I am there for ten days)- and I demanded to speak to the hotel manager and (after an initial offer of a $100 hotel credit, which I rejected) ended up in a wraparound suite (lower floor but gorgeous). You need to contact the Guest Relations Manager at Bellagio and DO NOT take no for an answer - they ruined a whole day of a trip you paid a great deal of money for and they need to do something for you on a future visit to compensate.

 

I figured you as more commercially aware than this. It's hardly a great way to run a business, regardless of whether or not it will affect profit.

 

Shit happens. Its not like the computers are down like this every month.

I had 2 rooms booked. 1 at Monte Carlo and 1 at Cosmo this past weekend. We got into town around 8:30 and we didnt have much time to get ready so we can get in Marquee by 11. Fortunately all the check ins went quick for us.

Checked in my friend at MC VIP and we got our keys within 5min. I checked in at Cosmo took also 5min. Worked out great for us. Didnt even know there was that bad of delay this weekend. Vegas was crazy packed! Good thing we got our rooms quick.

 

I'm not an apologist just a realist. It's bullshit that they can't hire somebody to get their IT figured out but it obviously isn't really affecting the bottom line or they would be forced to.

 

It is sad so many people have to suffer because another group screwed up. And, in the end, it was probably only a few people. Somebody making some bad decisions on testing, backup, rollout, etc. I would put big money some of the programmers knew what could have happened, but some "know it all" manager made their own decisions. Or, as I might expect, the mgmt structure with MGM is such that people can not speak the truth to higher ups, and bad things happen.

After all, how could the mlife computer messes exist over a year into it?

 

I recently booked a pretty sweet offer at Aria for my trip next month (and I was going to cancel my Cosmo stay). How ironic is it that I’m going to have to keep my Cosmo reservation as the “safe bet” just in case everything at MGM goes FUBAR again? :confused2:

 

That's not really true. It can affect the bottom line without killing the business.

MGM won't go bankrupt because of this, but they could lose some business. Even if none of the vegas repeat visitors threatening to walk do so, this will likely cost them millions in both staff time and goodwill comps to affected patrons.

 

Its rarely that easy. Its great to have backups, and I bet MGM had them. But when you have a large real time transactional system, rolling back to a backup means dumping everything (check-ins, check-outs, billing, new reservations, comps) that happened in the new system since you switched.

So its not necessarily that they didn't have a backup. Its that someone decided going back to the backup was a cure worse than the disease.

You can still dump on their IT, but probably more on their testing methodology and implementation plan than on their lack of a backup.

 

So is this still an ongoing issue?