Cal "walking" guests

What makes you say this? While comped stays are non-rev for the room, they are guaranteed-rev from gaming. Why is that a lower priority?

 

I'm sorry to hear this is happening --- it must be a fiasco for them, but they still have a responsibility to make things right with their guests. Being walked is a big deal. Industry standard (hotels) for walking guests is making a booking at an alternative hotel that is comparable and close by, paying for the nights at the other hotel, and providing transportation if needed between the two hotels. Some hotels also give a certificate to come back and stay at the original hotel for free. I have some sympathy for hotels that have been struck with an act of God type emergency, like a hurricane. Failing to appropriately plan and manage a renovation project (like building in appropriate contingency time) does not inspire my sympathy. The situation is a bit more complicated because it's a comp room, but to me it seems similar to having a booking on points with a chain hotel --- the room is free based on your existing relationship, but the hotel still has an obligation to honor it.

I'd call back with a list of options that would be acceptable to you. Figure these out before you call and be firm that these are the only acceptable solutions for you. And as @LilyJDragonfly said, be kind to the person on the phone and acknowledge that the situation isn't their fault and you appreciate them helping you to find a mutually acceptable solution. These poor customer service people are stuck dealing with the fall out of their management's decisions all day -- and instinctively they want to help someone who is nice to them.

If I were in your shoes, here are the options that would be acceptable to me, yours might be different:

• Accommodation in a comparable room at a hotel downtown (whether that be a Boyd hotel or a non-Boyd hotel).
• Accommodation in a higher-level room at a Boyd property that is not downtown along with reimbursement for any transportation taken (cab or limo) between the new property and downtown.
• Cancelling the trip with Boyd reimbursing for any out of pocket costs incurred that are not refundable (airfare, show tickets, etc).

And in any of these cases I would expect some consideration in the form or a future offer, F&B credit, or freeplay to compensate for my inconvenience.

 

Not sure about the reliability of the calendar on line. Gave a bunch of dates last week for upcoming trips. October 11-13 looked sold out (one day each) at California and MSS. Host told me to call back this weekend and she could tell me what they told her as to the request.
I checked the offers on my homepage to see and sure enough Thursday at MSS showed sold out and Friday at California the same. Kept checking thinking worst case was SAMs town for 3 nights and move downtown Saturday. Friday I checked again and booked Wednesday - Friday on an offer. Going to call the host today to see how she fares and give her my confirmation number to work with or cancel if she was successful.
Not sure what the calendar shows today but weird the window opened narrowly for my dates but it could be the last room too (next to the broom closet). Will report back if I "walk the walk".

 

Compared to a cash customer who will potentially generate revenue from food/bev and gaming, some hotels are going to treat see a customer on a comp as a lower priority. My general observation is that most will still try to be fair to customers on comp as they are repeat customers and more important than some of the reservations from third party companies.

 

comped room is always "subject to availability", when the hotel is full, then availability is zero.

 

Going through our host in 20+ years I have never been told there are no comped rooms available. That is probably 100 trips. We are there for all the 3 day weekend holiday crowds, along with Thanksgiving, Christmas & NYE.

 

This sucks. It's a great way to lose me as a customer but I'm pretty sure they figured it out as no loss to themselves.

 

You are The King of MSS. So that's not a regular case.
If someone just got a teaser offer from a busy casino, he most likely won't be treated so well under certain conditions.

 

People - this is a little nuts. Read the fine print...."Management reserves all rights to modify or cancel this program without prior notification". The fact that they offered an alternative at all is totally optional on their part. The alternative may not be to your liking, but they certainly have no obligation to find you a room at a competitor property. This is no different than an airline that overbooks a flight. Those who paid the most for their tickets usually stay on board, but those traveling on non-revenue tickets (miles) are going to get bumped first. If this were a revenue room it would be a different story, but even in that case, my bet is that there is an escape for them in the fine print.

 

Much appreciated and thank you for the foresight. Also a good question to share, OP.

This thread is really making me re-think my loyalty to any particular casino lately. This subject has been on the back of my mind for the past few trips, mostly because of some experiences with the services and overall demeanor of the employees of certain casinos.

The Cal is probably my favorite hotel/casino and their current situation with construction and renovation is somewhat understandable when unforeseen circumstances forces them to not honor bookings due to room shortages.

This situation with the OP and previous experiences I've had in the past is making me think of trying other places off-strip. At least until the smoke clears at the Cal renovations and then I'll give it another try.

Their renovations are nice and welcomed, so while they get on with ditching all their old stuff I hope they don't ditch their Aloha Spirit in the process.

 

Maybe I am reading it wrong, but folks are confusing the "subject to availability" or "can cancel" clauses with a real problem - NO ROOMS DUE TO CONSTRUCTION DELAYS.

Totally different mess they are in. They planned and guessed on room completion. They were wrong.

 

We have rooms reserved for 5 nights starting Tuesday. I called to confirm we won't be walked as the only other Boyd hotel showing availability for all 5 of our nights is Sam's Town. Uh, not just no but hell no. Like the casino enough, but I don't want to be there in the hotel.

I talked to reservations who transferred me to a front desk manager (Eric) who told me our reservations are safe and not in jeopardy of being walked at this time. We land around 1pm, and will be headed straight to the hotel to check in and will have our fingers crossed this is still the case upon our arrival.

Wish us luck!

 

Thanks all for the thoughts. Doesn't sound like anyone has had this issue. My stay dates 7/27-7/30 are supposedly the most overbooked days. It you're staying longer you are probably okay from what they said. They said they are choosing based or arrival/stay dates and started with people paying for rooms first, then I guess they worked their way down the list to include others. Strange thing is that I have a friend booked the exact same days and he wasn't contacted...that we know of. I play enough to get comp rooms but not big enough as players like Joe and others. I usually get rooms by calling the pit and don't use a host. This time I used the mail offer which is sometime easier than calling. Not sure if that has anything to do with it. I respectfully disagree with some of the people who posted comp rooms are the people who would normally be bumped. Casinos should be exactly the opposite of a normal hotel or airline. The reason you get a comp is because your are a revenue source to the casino whereas someone paying for a room may not play at all and that's the only revenue they will get from them.

from what they said the construction was supposed to be done at the beginning of July. They did not say when it would be done other than not next week. Fremont or Main Street and overbooked as well sounds like from overflow from the issue at Cal.

 

This is technically true, but horrendous business. People have to book flights/etc. to get there. If a casino/hotel did this to me they would have lost a customer for life unless they put me downtown.

Yes, businesses have all sorts of fine print ways to break their deals, but businesses like this are incredibly dependent upon repeat business. They would be idiots to rely on this with any sort of regularity for customers good enough to get comped rooms.

Your revenue room comment to be is even more off point - they are giving a free room because they think you are work so much revenue elsewhere that they can afford to give you a free room. Hence why they are suggesting you take a free room elsewhere in their captive, off-strip casinos (where they can get all of your revenue) vs. putting you somewhere else downtown.

And the airlines owe you money under Federal law if they overbook you (most people don't realize this and take sucker offers for transit vouchers, but the law mandates cash). Not a remotely comparable situation.

I would basically go nuts at them until they put me somewhere acceptable downtown. Come on. If Harrahs walked me from the Flamingo to the Rio I'd go nuts on them unless gave me an incredible deal like a huge suite or good food comp.

Boyd has two other joints downtown. It's absurd for them to not overflow there first. It's them taking advantage of people who booked comp offers pure and simple. They think they can get you in Sam's Town and get all of your gaming play and incidental spending. Whereas if they put you at MSS you might have the audacity to wander to the Plaza and play a little.

If they didn't put me downtown I would cancel my comp and pay to stay somewhere else to start a new gaming relationship. For instance, I'd contact Fe'Adolphus on here before staying off strip. They have made it clear that they don't value you at all if they don't keep you DT.

ALL OF THIS. This is good customer service. Boyd is offering a terrible deal from the beancounters who think they can con you into staying on a property where you are a captive.

And I heartily agree with treating the CSR nicely! It isn't their policy! I'd probably be less nice if I somehow got on the line with a bigwig at the Cal, though...

When did this happen? If so, why on earth didn't they call the OP earlier if they knew this awhile ago?

I'm going to go out on a limb and say they'd walk a lot of paying customers before walking a lot of the people they have on comps. if this isn't true, they should fire whomever is responsible for this not being the case.

Next time don't call - email and get a paper trail.

 

HI everyone,
I see there are some issues with another property. It is very unfortunate to have to "walk" hotel guests on comped reservations. If you find yourself in this situation please feel free to give me a call. 702-481-8447.

 

You should try some of the off strip places. You will like some stuff like great odds but miss the craziness of downtown. Probably won't miss some of the buskers and slotzilla.

TomTWI

 

This is a little concerning; I have one night at the Cal (August 13th, my birthday) and it's showing sold out. I don't really mind staying somewhere else as long as they give me enough advance notice... I'd hate to arrive (late afternoon, after driving from northern Arizona) only to be told that we're being put up somewhere else. I've never stayed at the Cal but have always wanted to. I have stayed at MSS a couple of times and it's fine but the walk for a decent cup of coffee in the morning is a long one. (Their little coffee cart had horrible coffee.) I'd take a night at any of their non-downtown locations if they gave me a decent meal comp.

 

You have to understand, for comps they will have to pay out of pocket to move you to a non-boyd hotel. That's why they are pushing comped guests to the other boyd properties like Orleans and GC (sam's town, etc.). They may lose some revenue for the room but at least they don't have to pay another competitor to house a comped guest. I can see if it was a regular paying customer, they can use the payment to book a non Boyd hotel and pay the hotel with that but with a comp the money comes out of their pockets.

I think they underestimated the asbestos problem and found it best to just close down the whole east wing. That way no guest will be affected by asbestos but unfortunately that means that they will have a room availability problem for a few of months. Once the asbestos is removed I guess they could reopen the east tower floor by floor but until that happens the east tower is closed.

Yes that is unfortunate but something that couldn't be helped. We saw a similar problem with Binions so this isn't something out of the ordinary. I wonder if the Fremont and MSS also have these types of problems. MSS not as much because the building was renovated in the 90's but I would think that the Fremont would have the same problem.

Also unfortunate that Boyd has their Vacations Hawaii charters so many of the Cal rooms are already taken so rooms aren't that easy to come by.


This isn't like the airlines. It isn't an overbooking, it's because of a problem with the rooms. Do airlines do anything for you when they cancel flights? They will just try to rebook you on another flight or airline but in this instance we are talking about a non paying guest on a comp so that is another story entirely.


Heck yeah it is a bad move to walk comped guests but this was a special situation that wasn't under their control. They are hoping that the comped guests are understanding of the situation and will come back but I don't think any other hotel would have handled this situation much differently (JMHO). But luckily Mlife and Harrahs have many other properties to move their guests, not as much the other hotels on the strip (like hooters, Trop) and the Wynn and Venetian hotels are newer so not prone to the asbestos problems.

As for me, I was planning on a January CES trip but was looking at staying at MSS since the rooms at the Cal were more expensive.

 

If airlines overbook you and it is their fault they have to pay you for the inconvenience under Federal law. That is not a good comparison. This is 100% the fault of the Cal. This is not some act of God. This is them being too aggressive with booking rooms during a construction project.

 

Read my post. I mentioned if an airline cancels a flight are they responsible for the situation? Same as this, it wasn't an overbooking, it was a closure due to asbestos. Yes, bad management decision to not anticipate this but it isn't about aggressiveness. It as about not realizing the extent of a problem they have with asbestos.

I wonder how many posters who spout off actually stay at Boyd hotels or just spout off? I hate people who spout off but don't even stay at those properties.