Hampton Inn 100% Satisfaction Guarantee – Or Not?

Posted by Nick on June 1, 2010

Over Memorial Day weekend, I was visiting family and stayed in a Hampton Inn that I had stayed at in the past. While this is a 100% non-smoking hotel, the first room my gf & I were given absolutely reeked of cigarette smoke. After declining their offer of letting them put an ionizer in the room, during which we would have to vacate for 1 hour, they moved us to another room. It smelled fine and overall it was a painless process.

After dropping our things off in the room, we went to visit with said family and did not return to our room until around 2 am. Upon using the bathroom, it appeared that half of the towels had what appeared to be beard trimmings from a previous occupant all over them. Further inspection brought notice of the same hair on the back of the toilet and the sink. The bathtub had plenty of assorted hairs in it, with a nice little hair pile on the floor beside the tub. If there is one thing I like seeing in a hotel, it’s other people’s pubes in my bathroom. Yum.

When preparing to get into bed at 3am, I discovered that the sheets on the bed had not been changed, for what looked like a really long time. Imagine as nasty of a bed as you can in a hotel room, your worst nightmare if you will, and that is what we had. It made the pube pile in the bathroom seem like nothing.

Since it was so late, I opted to go to the front desk and ask for new bed sheets and tell them the situation. The front desk clerk apologized, noted it on the account, and gave me all new clean sheets.

The next morning we were still skeeved about the whole thing, but had pre-paid for the room and really didn’t want to have to move to a new hotel. While my gf was filling out a birthday card at the desk in the room, she looked down to discover someone else’s pube on her hand. Yes, the room was indeed that nasty. That was when we decided to invoke the Hampton Inn 100% Satisfaction Guarantee and leave. Plus we are Gold Level HHonors members and have spent over a month total in hotel rooms in the past six months. In short, we thought there would be no issue with getting our money back for this atrocity of a hotel room.

We pack up and go downstairs. I take the stuff to the car while the gf asks for the money back. She tells the of the nastiness of the room and states that she would like to invoke the 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. They tell her no.

Did you get that? They said no.

Their reasoning? Because the room was prepaid. The Hampton Inn and Hilton websites mention no exclusions that prevent you from being able to invoke the 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. However, a quick search on the Flyer Talk forums shows that people have this sort of problem all the time.

The gf was expecting a fight and had anticipated their response. She told them “Fine” and that she would take it up with corporate.

So, today she has sent an email to HHonors support with photographs of the pube-covered room. Now we wait to see if our money gets refunded.

Update: After two emails sent to HHonors support, and just over a month passed, we got a call from the general manager of the hotel and all of the money was refunded!