Complaint Manual for a Hotel Guest:

Even if you stay in a 5 stars Hotel from a mayor hotel brand you may encounter diverse problems and situations. In this list that I will mention you´ll find a “how-to” deal with diverse situations and most important to whom you should speak to obtain an accurate and fast response regarding the dimension of these 5 different situations:

1) Let´s start by check-in: it´s very common that in some destinations and in certain seasons Hotels are fully booked. In addition, many guests many times extend their stay for a couple of extra days and many do not communicate that to Front Desk, because of this when you arrive to the Hotel your room might be occupied. The first thing to do is try not to be keep calm in a very diplomatic way making a full statement that you are beyond exhaustion and that you are also extremely hungry because you had a long journey (even if you just had an hour flight) and that you wish to have your room immediately. This could lead to two roads with a probable wait line of an hour or two tops. The first is that you might be given an immediate room upgrade. The other one is that you´ll be given a complimentary meal while you wait. If the Front Desk employee tells you: “sorry Sir, your room is still not available (it´s way beyond the check-out time) and that they invite you to wait in the lobby” just ask how long do you have to wait. If the reply is “not long, housekeeping is cleaning the room” you´ll just have to hang around in the lobby for proximally 20 minutes. If those minutes passed and you still don´t have any response go back to the Front Desk and ask “what happened to my room?”. If they still tell you that you´ll have to wait, tell them that you wish to speak immediately to the Front Desk Manager and communicate to that person that “you are beyond exhaustion and that you are also extremely hungry because you had a long journey (even if you just had an hour flight) and that you wish to have your room immediately”. The most probable thing that could happen is that you´ll get your room with a small complimentary gift (bottle of champagne, box of bonbons, free meal voucher, etc.).

2) If the bell-boy brings your bags to your room and you are 100 % sure that the bag was in perfect conditions when you gave it to the bell-boy in the entrance and now it´s not, ask to speak immediately to the Concierge Manager in front of the bell-boy. Inform the Manager that you are 100 % sure that your bag was in perfect conditions when you gave it to the bell-boy at the entrance and that now it´s not. If the Concierge Manager doesn’t give you a complimentary “something” in regards of the broken bag ask to speak to the Guest Manager of the Hotel. Explain him / her the situation in a firmly tone making emphasis of the lack of responsibility of staff when performing duties. If he / she don't take any action concerning the situation ask to speak with the Hotel Manager. If you still lack of response write a letter to the Hotel Central explaining the circumstances using full names of all the staff that were involved in the incident and also attach a photo of the broken bag. Before leaving the Hotel leave a copy to the Hotel Manager and ask him to sign an extra copy in which you are gonna keep.

3) If you get food-poison: it is a very common “thing” to all travelers from every part of the world and in general terms it´s very difficult to detect the cause. Something that really shocked me is the fact that housekeeping generally cleans the tea cups or coffee mugs of your room only with a fast small water wash with no soap. That cup or mug might have been already used hundreds of times before you and in each occasion it might have been “cleaned” only by 2 sparks of water. As crew I have to really take care of my health and the first thing I do when I arrive to a Hotel is fill the sink with hot water, add shampoo and immerse the cup or mug for 15 minutes and then rinse it with boiling water from the kettle (that kills more bacteria and germs than just a small wash of cold water).  Another thing, if you get food-poison tell immediately to Front Desk or Guest Service, they must communicate what is happening to the Outlet Manager (the big boss from all the restaurants and bars from the Hotel) and you must insist that they ought to double check the health and hygiene of all the kitchen stations (each section of the kitchen). It is very common to find that the brigade du cuisine don´t wear masks or copings (the small doctor´s hat they use to prevent hair in your food) just because it´s uncomfortable to them. Internationally speaking all well renowned Hotels have the same safety, health and hygiene protocols for their kitchens and that includes: washing hands with soap and clean water, washing all dishes with soap and clean water, wear the copings or chef´s hat at all times, don´t show up to the kitchen if sick so on and so on. Also, if you see any of this and you are not sick just ask to speak with the Outlet Manager and inform him / her about what you saw; this small action might prevent you or others to get food poison.

4) Sometimes, even in a 5 star Hotel, housekeeping might be rude and totally out of place. For example you are in the bathroom minding your own business and housekeeping knocks your door even if you have the “do not disturb” sign on. You kindly tell the personnel to “return in another moment, please”. Then you hear a second knock and they tell you “okay madam, do you need anything else?” and then you reply “no, thank you, return later please”. A third knock is heard claiming that “they need to re-check the mini-bar” and you tell them again “return later please”, nevertheless they open the door and somehow you manage to fully close the bathroom with a matrix kick. Not only they might have walked into your room even if there are verbal and visual signs that clearly states “do not come in” but sometimes they even might leave the room dirty. If you want to make a complaint of the situation (or a similar one) go to the Front Desk and tell them that you wish to speak to the Housekeeping Manager or the Executive Housekeeper, any of them are in charge of the overall housekeeping duties and cleaning operations in the Hotel.

5) When you check-out sometimes you´ll find that in the invoice there are certain charges and expenses that shouldn´t be there (you never made them). If that is the case the first thing to do is to ask a clear copy of the invoice and check if the room number, name, date and signature corresponds to yours. If that is not the case tell the Front Desk clerk that the charges are wrong and that they must delete them from your invoice. The most probable thing that may happen is that the clerk asks the authorization from the Front Desk Manager to do so. Then you´ll have to explain once again to the Manager that the signature, the room number, the date and the name doesn´t correspond to yours and that they should double check future invoices and charges to prevent similar situation. Not very long time ago a very well known Hotel in Maldives gave me an invoice with a ridiculous charge of an extremely expensive dinner that I never had. When I explained that I never had that dinner the clerk didn´t believe me and kind off forced me to pay something that I never had. When I showed the clerk and Manager that the date in which the invoice was done was 1 day prior to the date of my arrival they just deleted the expense from my account and pretended that nothing happened. 

(I don´t own the above picture)