I thought I'd start a little section called "Tip of the Hat, Wag of the Finger" to highllight extremely good or extremely poor businesses. Unfortunately, we start off on a bad foot. In order to not boost this establishment's Google rankings I will not be linking to them.

 

Recently I traveled to Nevada on a business trip. My company gave a credit card to the hotel (Mandalay Bay) to pay for my two night stay. Now, I might add the hotel is extremely nice, and the rates for the nights showed this! Keep in mind this was not your $35.96 per night hotel. When I arrived I was asked for a credit card to cover things such as the in-room mini-bar, pay-per-view TV, damage to the room, etc. No problem... I'm not planning to use any of those things so I gave them my credit card. At no point was I told that anything else would be charged to my card except for items I was physically in control of during my stay. Upon checking out I was told everything was all paid up, and I was good to go. I left.

 

Today I checked my credit card statement and noticed a charge for $129 on my credit card! I called to find out what this was all about and discovered they charged me for the second night! I protested saying that I never gave authorization for my card to be charged for the second night, nor was I told the card would be charged. I was told, "we're sorry sir but the charge is already done and your account is closed, you'll have to talk to accounting on Monday". I explained very nicely to the lady (whom I found out was a manager) that if she could not reverse the charge I would be issuing a charge-back, and coming from the business world myself I knew Mandalay Bay probably would not appreciate that. So the choice were she could refund my account, or I could do a charge-back. She refused to budge and said she could not refund the charge.

 

So now, I have to see if I can talk to the accounting department on Monday to get the charge removed from my personal card used for deposit, and placed onto the company card used when the reservation was made. As if to add insult to injury, this comes after I gave them a little 'nasty gram' in my check-out, and filled out an on-line survey they sent to me in my e-mail asking me how my stay was.

 

Actually, it was awful! After paying $129 a night to stay, they wanted me to pay an additional $14.95 per 24 hour period for Internet access (oh well, there was my excuse for not checking e-mail), and they closed the pool early without telling anyone who was staying there! (There was massive grumbling among the guests, as could be heard if you just walked around the general pool area after it closed... no one seemed to have any idea the pool was going to be closed, as guests came outside in bathing garb only to hit the closed gates and speak to each other about the closed pool). Mandalay Bay - You get a wag of my finger . Not only do you gouge your customers for services that other hotels of lesser stature provide for free, but you then go and charge the credit card given for in-room services for the remaining stay time!