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| Help! The Hotel I Booked Online Became a Homeless Shelter and No One Told Me. | Help! The Hotel I Booked Online Became a Homeless Shelter and No One Told Me. |
| (about 5 hours later) | |
| Last month, I was to attend a friend’s Saturday wedding in Manhattan and then catch up with my husband at his family reunion on Sunday in Atlanta. So I booked a room at the Queens County Inn and Suites in Long Island City via Booking.com, not far from LaGuardia, where I would catch a 6 a.m. flight Sunday morning. But when I arrived at the hotel around 11:30 p.m., I found it had been converted into a homeless shelter. Alone and nearly five months pregnant, I felt very unsafe in the neighborhood and finally got an Uber so that I could wait at the airport as I contacted Booking.com. The representative did not seem to appreciate the gravity of the situation, and told me she needed to email the hotel and give them 30 minutes to respond before she could help. Over an hour later, the representative, who told me no supervisors were available, said I would receive an email with new lodging arrangements. I never did (and the hotels I tried were all booked because of the U.S. Open tennis tournament). Meanwhile, LaGuardia was closed, so I waited outside — in a wheelchair a kind maintenance worker provided — until the doors opened at 4 a.m. The hotel didn’t charge me, so money is not an issue. But I’d like Booking to take another look at their customer service and safety procedures. Can you help? Anna, Atlanta | Last month, I was to attend a friend’s Saturday wedding in Manhattan and then catch up with my husband at his family reunion on Sunday in Atlanta. So I booked a room at the Queens County Inn and Suites in Long Island City via Booking.com, not far from LaGuardia, where I would catch a 6 a.m. flight Sunday morning. But when I arrived at the hotel around 11:30 p.m., I found it had been converted into a homeless shelter. Alone and nearly five months pregnant, I felt very unsafe in the neighborhood and finally got an Uber so that I could wait at the airport as I contacted Booking.com. The representative did not seem to appreciate the gravity of the situation, and told me she needed to email the hotel and give them 30 minutes to respond before she could help. Over an hour later, the representative, who told me no supervisors were available, said I would receive an email with new lodging arrangements. I never did (and the hotels I tried were all booked because of the U.S. Open tennis tournament). Meanwhile, LaGuardia was closed, so I waited outside — in a wheelchair a kind maintenance worker provided — until the doors opened at 4 a.m. The hotel didn’t charge me, so money is not an issue. But I’d like Booking to take another look at their customer service and safety procedures. Can you help? Anna, Atlanta |
| Arriving to find the hotel you reserved doesn’t exist is a nightmare scenario for any traveler, let alone one who is pregnant and in an unfamiliar neighborhood late at night. I’m glad you’re OK. (Also, the next time someone complains to me about spending the night in the airport, I’m going to tell them they were lucky they weren’t locked out of it.) | Arriving to find the hotel you reserved doesn’t exist is a nightmare scenario for any traveler, let alone one who is pregnant and in an unfamiliar neighborhood late at night. I’m glad you’re OK. (Also, the next time someone complains to me about spending the night in the airport, I’m going to tell them they were lucky they weren’t locked out of it.) |
| Who is at fault here? I’m going with “pretty much everyone.” You get a partial pass, though the Booking.com reviews of your hotel — a 5.9 average that is among the worst in Queens and worse than all but one hotel in Manhattan, when I checked recently — should have raised some alarms. Still, even if you chose a place reviewers called “dirty,” “creepy” and “funky” and (as a quick Google News search revealed) had more bedbug reports in the 2010s than any other hotel in the city, it should have been open when you arrived. | Who is at fault here? I’m going with “pretty much everyone.” You get a partial pass, though the Booking.com reviews of your hotel — a 5.9 average that is among the worst in Queens and worse than all but one hotel in Manhattan, when I checked recently — should have raised some alarms. Still, even if you chose a place reviewers called “dirty,” “creepy” and “funky” and (as a quick Google News search revealed) had more bedbug reports in the 2010s than any other hotel in the city, it should have been open when you arrived. |
| It turns out the hotel’s problems run deeper than bedbug-stained mattresses: It was one of three Queens properties owned by Kaushki Patel and Chandresh Patel, who were accused in a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Labor in 2018 for not paying overtime and not keeping payroll records. In a consent judgment, they were ordered to pay more than $720,000 in back pay and damages to 83 employees. | It turns out the hotel’s problems run deeper than bedbug-stained mattresses: It was one of three Queens properties owned by Kaushki Patel and Chandresh Patel, who were accused in a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Labor in 2018 for not paying overtime and not keeping payroll records. In a consent judgment, they were ordered to pay more than $720,000 in back pay and damages to 83 employees. |
| Let’s award the Patels — whose relationship to each other is unclear and who did not respond to phone messages, emails listed on their hotels’ websites and an email to the law firm that represented them in 2018 — a big part of the blame. I couldn’t nail down what date your hotel was closed and became a shelter because the city’s Department of Homeless Services wouldn’t comment. But when it did, the management didn’t inform Booking.com, according to Mario Herran Muro, a senior relations specialist at the company’s headquarters in the Netherlands. | Let’s award the Patels — whose relationship to each other is unclear and who did not respond to phone messages, emails listed on their hotels’ websites and an email to the law firm that represented them in 2018 — a big part of the blame. I couldn’t nail down what date your hotel was closed and became a shelter because the city’s Department of Homeless Services wouldn’t comment. But when it did, the management didn’t inform Booking.com, according to Mario Herran Muro, a senior relations specialist at the company’s headquarters in the Netherlands. |
| He stressed Booking.com’s role is as an intermediary. “We don’t own the properties,” he said. “We have some options to guide them, but at the end all the information has to be provided by them.” He told me that as far as he can tell, you were the first person to report a problem with this property, and over the next few days, a Booking account manager confirmed it had become a shelter. On Sept. 8, Booking removed it as a hotel, though you can still find it on their map as a “point of interest,” represented by the same Ferris wheel icon that denotes Six Flags parks. (Maybe not inappropriately — they did take you for quite a ride.) | He stressed Booking.com’s role is as an intermediary. “We don’t own the properties,” he said. “We have some options to guide them, but at the end all the information has to be provided by them.” He told me that as far as he can tell, you were the first person to report a problem with this property, and over the next few days, a Booking account manager confirmed it had become a shelter. On Sept. 8, Booking removed it as a hotel, though you can still find it on their map as a “point of interest,” represented by the same Ferris wheel icon that denotes Six Flags parks. (Maybe not inappropriately — they did take you for quite a ride.) |
| Mr. Herran Muro acknowledged that the system is imperfect, and “creates some pain points” in cases like yours, especially because of the 30-minute wait time the company needs to confirm the hotel cannot accept your reservation. Mr. Herran Muro, by the way, is the same “Mario H.” who wrote to you after I got in touch with the company, offering you a $150 credit from Booking and an apology. | Mr. Herran Muro acknowledged that the system is imperfect, and “creates some pain points” in cases like yours, especially because of the 30-minute wait time the company needs to confirm the hotel cannot accept your reservation. Mr. Herran Muro, by the way, is the same “Mario H.” who wrote to you after I got in touch with the company, offering you a $150 credit from Booking and an apology. |
| I think the bigger issue here, though, is why, once you explained the urgency of the situation, Booking didn’t have a system in place to make sure you were safe and then take the hotel offline within 24 hours at most. Although you may have been the first person to report the problem, you were not the only one to have it. I found six reviews in English, Spanish and French on Booking.com from guests who were turned away, all in early September. | I think the bigger issue here, though, is why, once you explained the urgency of the situation, Booking didn’t have a system in place to make sure you were safe and then take the hotel offline within 24 hours at most. Although you may have been the first person to report the problem, you were not the only one to have it. I found six reviews in English, Spanish and French on Booking.com from guests who were turned away, all in early September. |
| “I couldn’t find any other hotel at first night, and go back to airport for stay for first night,” said Okan, from Turkey. | “I couldn’t find any other hotel at first night, and go back to airport for stay for first night,” said Okan, from Turkey. |
| “A stressful experience when we thought we would have to sleep on a bench in Central Park,” said Erica, from the United States. | “A stressful experience when we thought we would have to sleep on a bench in Central Park,” said Erica, from the United States. |
| And María, from Argentina, made it seem like the number was probably greater than seven. “The people in charge, who I believe were government employees, told us that travelers frequently appeared looking for the hotel,” she wrote in Spanish. | And María, from Argentina, made it seem like the number was probably greater than seven. “The people in charge, who I believe were government employees, told us that travelers frequently appeared looking for the hotel,” she wrote in Spanish. |
| It is hard to tell how to divide the blame between the service representative you spoke to — according to you, at a call center in a faraway country — or the system that trained her. According to Mr. Herran Muro, the company’s record of the call shows that you declined their offer to find alternative reservations. An email I got from the Booking media relations team stated this even more clearly: “Our team supported the guest with relocation options, which were ultimately declined by the guest who opted to wait at the airport for an early flight,” it read. | It is hard to tell how to divide the blame between the service representative you spoke to — according to you, at a call center in a faraway country — or the system that trained her. According to Mr. Herran Muro, the company’s record of the call shows that you declined their offer to find alternative reservations. An email I got from the Booking media relations team stated this even more clearly: “Our team supported the guest with relocation options, which were ultimately declined by the guest who opted to wait at the airport for an early flight,” it read. |
| When I wrote back to say you had not in fact received any relocation options, they changed their tune and offered you an apology, noting the situation “was not handled correctly and did not meet our high standards of customer service experiences.” | When I wrote back to say you had not in fact received any relocation options, they changed their tune and offered you an apology, noting the situation “was not handled correctly and did not meet our high standards of customer service experiences.” |
| At the very least, Mr. Herran Muro told me, you should have been passed along to a “second-line” representative who might have then elevated it to a supervisor. | At the very least, Mr. Herran Muro told me, you should have been passed along to a “second-line” representative who might have then elevated it to a supervisor. |
| Let’s take a step back to look at how other travelers might reduce the risk of the experience you had. It turns out you slipped through a particularly treacherous version of the biggest crack in 21st century travel: our reliance on online travel agencies, or O.T.A.s, like Booking.com and TripAdvisor and Expedia. Many travelers fail to realize these are mammoth middlemen who often have only superficial knowledge of the services they’re selling and inadequate systems to intervene if something goes wrong. | Let’s take a step back to look at how other travelers might reduce the risk of the experience you had. It turns out you slipped through a particularly treacherous version of the biggest crack in 21st century travel: our reliance on online travel agencies, or O.T.A.s, like Booking.com and TripAdvisor and Expedia. Many travelers fail to realize these are mammoth middlemen who often have only superficial knowledge of the services they’re selling and inadequate systems to intervene if something goes wrong. |
| Booking.com, of course, disagrees. A spokeswoman for the company, who asked not to be identified by name because of company policy, said in a statement that “in the overwhelming majority of cases, everything does work seamlessly. In the very rare instance that something doesn’t go as expected, our aim is always to ultimately do whatever we can to make it right.” | |
| And they are extremely useful middlemen, making it easier for consumers to compare prices and read reviews and for underdog companies like local inns to reach a worldwide audience. So here’s a tip that benefits travelers, innkeepers and even travel columnists: Use the O.T.A.s to do your research, but then book directly with the travel provider. They’ll avoid paying a commission to the O.T.A., you’ll have an easier time getting a resolution, and I’ll have an easier time getting through my trippedup@nytimes.com inbox, since you won’t be writing in. | And they are extremely useful middlemen, making it easier for consumers to compare prices and read reviews and for underdog companies like local inns to reach a worldwide audience. So here’s a tip that benefits travelers, innkeepers and even travel columnists: Use the O.T.A.s to do your research, but then book directly with the travel provider. They’ll avoid paying a commission to the O.T.A., you’ll have an easier time getting a resolution, and I’ll have an easier time getting through my trippedup@nytimes.com inbox, since you won’t be writing in. |
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