Langkawi (III): Hotel Woes

[Note: This posting was cut out from the previous post and reposted as an individual post due to complain from readers that the previous posting was too long to digest.]

So the girl at the reception called the "agent" and finally got hold of a Malay girl named Malar, who spoke poor English. 24 was told that we have been transferred to Hotel Helang, which is just right next to the airport. Great. So we drove all the way to Kuah town, only to find that our agent has transferred us to a hotel next to the airport without informing us! Malar couldn't give us an explanation on why the transfer was made. She was told us that we need to check in at Hotel Helang, which at that point, got 24 even more furious.

Our booking was made in early November when we planned the trip, and as our "agent", they are supposed to inform us should there be any changes in our hotel bookings. Especially when it is clearly stated that our package booking CANNOT BE CANCELLED, REFUNDED, CHANGED, EXCHANGED, how is it possible for our hotel to be changed without us knowing it?!

The commotion that the three of us were making at the counter caught the attention of the manager, who came to our help stating that he will be able to help us solve the problem, and was asked to sit and wait in the lobby's waiting area. At the time, Irene was already having a gastric attack. I ran out and bought her some biscuit, while we waited for an answer.

Half an hour later, the manager introduced us to a lady named Mashita, who claims to be the Front Desk Manager. She explained to us that our agent did in fact book the hotel with them but they later cancelled it. Again, we weren't given the reason to why our booking was cancelled. 24 was getting more and more agitated and demanded that Mashita call the agent once again and he wanted to speak to the manager of the agency.

A Ms. Fan talked to him, and 24 was told that the hotel that they have transferred us to is a 3-Star hotel which offers better facilities than the current one. But our main problem with the arrangement was: We wanted to stay close to town! Not somewhere next to the airport!

While 24 was talking with Ms. Fan on the phone, I talked to Mashita. I told her that I am a journalist and I wanted to know what is going on and I promise that I will not use her name should I decide to lodge a complaint. The minute I gave her my card, everything changed. Not for the better but for the worse. She became cocky and began to diss out dirt about our agency, and even said it many times, that it was ok for me to quote her and use her name. So here goes:

According to Mashita, that was not the first time it happened. The agency apparently had had other unsatisfied and raging customers coming to Bella Vista only to find out their booking had been cancelled and was already transferred to another hotel. Mashita also said that, they always try their best to help the walk-in customers find out from the agency where they had been transferred to and divert them there. The reason that those customers were not checked-in by Bella Vista is because the money had been wired directly to the hotel the customers had been transferred to, so (according to Mashita) as much as Bella Vista would like to help, they can't.

I began to get more inquisitive, and at that point Mashita suddenly divert her attention to 24, who is still arguing on the phone with the agency and said that we can't use the hotel phone line anymore and gave us the number of the agency and ask us to call them ourselves.

After we took the number from Mashita, I turn to her and asked, "If they (the agency) are not able to find us a place that is close to town, would it be possible to put us up here?"

The reply we got immediately pissed me and 24 off on the spot. Mashita rudely replied to us, "Can. IF you can pay us then I'll be glad to help." Excuse me?! But do we look like a bunch of people who cannot afford a night at a cheap 2-Star hotel like yours?! Her attitude totally killed it for us. I told 24 to get a hold of Ms. Fan from the agency and I wanted to speak to her directly. When 24 called, we were told that she was engaged on the other line and she will call us back as soon as possible. At that point of time, all of us were already stressed out, hungry and pissed. It was already past 4pm and all of us still haven't taken our lunch.

10 minutes later, Ms. Fan from the agency called 24 and told him that we have been changed to yet another hotel. This time, it's City Bayview. Now I'm really pissed. They've been kicking us from one place to another for the whole afternoon! I demanded to 24 that I wanted to speak to this girl on the phone.

The minute I got hold of the phone, I could've sworn that everyone at the hotel lobby stared at me. I screamed at this Ms. Fan. You can add in every four letter words you can think of. She kept saying that she is not dumping us to hotels but giving us an "upgrade" and that they are not doing anything wrong, as they have problem locating our contact. But everytime I tried to speak, she would cut me off. So When she finally stopped talking, I said politely into the phone. "Ms. Fan, I hope you know what you're saying. Please do know that you are talking to an editor from a travel magazine. Everything you say here might just be published in our upcoming issue. If you want my name card, I have already passed one to Mashita at the hotel reception. Now, again, Ms. Fan, why were we not informed that we have been dumped to another hotel?"

The reaction I got from her later, was a total opposite of what I got earlier. She became very very extremely polite. I was told that the transfer was due to an internal problem. Ms. Fan explained that when Air Asia submit our bookings to her agency, it did not come with our contact numbers - the system could only show her our name and our credit card number, so she couldn't possibly contact us.

When I told her that Mashita from Bella Vista told us that this was not the first time the agency is giving them problems like this and seek for an explanation, Ms. Fan told me that it wasn't true and that their bookings with the hotel was changed from December onwards due to that "internal problem" that they were having. So we waited for almost 3 hours just because the hotel had an "internal problem" with our booking agent?! Correct me if I'm wrong, but we didn't pay so much money to get caught in a dispute between a hotel and a booking agent!!! It's none of our freaking business!!

Before I hung up, I gave a warning to Ms. Fan: "This will not be the last you hear form me. When I get to that hotel, it better be as you said - an upgrade. And when I open my window I better be able to see the sea." And I hung up.
I am not sure if it was my language that freaked them out, or none of them have seen me pissed prior to this, 24 and Ang Ku Kuih were both staring at me when I hung up. 24 kept telling me o calm down, Ang Ku Kuih just sat there, puzzled… and Irene, acting as if nothing happened, asked me, "So, what's the plan?"

[NOTE 2: I managed to extract more information from Ms. Fan , including those about the dispute, but as I have promised her not to publish it, I will have to honor that. The information will be sent in a complain letter to Air Asia.]

[Pictures from the trip can be seen at http://gambit3.multiply.com/photos/album/44.]

- jessism © 23122007 -