"1) Don't ever do the hotel booking through Hotel.com (aka Expedia) because they lock in their own customer service policies, obliging the hotels to abide by what Expedia thinks of human relations. And believe me, Expedia does not give a happy carp about your stay. They got their fee when they made the booking, and their interest in you ended at that point. They don't care. They really don't.
2) I was appalled to learn that Holiday Inns was willing to lock themselves into such ridiculous Customer Service policies, even as their staff kept saying "we'd like to help you, but we can't. We're not allowed to." Say what?? Who is operating the hotel: Holiday Inns, or Expedia? How short-sighted is Holiday Inns to let a third party tell them how to run things. It was really disappointing to encounter such blame-shifting from the organization.
Oh, the staff gave every indication of wanting to help us with our difficulty, but ultimately they were unable to do anything, even though they were always pleasant and sympathetic about it. I understand that the local staff has no ability to change policies which were set at the corporate level, and I do not fault them in this. So again, that Holiday Inns at the corporate level would agree to be bound to terms which they had to know were incompatible with what customer service really means, was an eye-opener about their short-sightedness and profit-seeking."
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