Don Draper
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- Aug 10, 2008
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Had a guest purchase one of our gift certificates for a two night stay in June, 2007. Our certicates expire one year from date of purchase. The woman who purchased the GC booked the two night stay for she and her husband for October, 2007.
Last October the guests showed up to check in, very flustered because they had just received a call that her brother had had a stroke and they had to get on a plane to Phoenix, AZ. Our cancellation policy within 72 hours is that you are responsible for the full room charge, so it was within our "rights" to consider the GC as payment, but obviously because of the distressing circumstances, I told them to just go, they could keep the gift certificate and call to redeem it when things were settled down.
The woman calls two weeks ago (a full year later) to redeem the GC. I look up the number and tell her that it is expired as of June, 2008. She reminds me that I told her she could reuse it because of her brother being ill. I explain our policy for expired GC's is to honor them at 50% of the face value. She agrees and books a two night stay, understanding that she will have to pay for one, and have the other covered by her GC. Great, we are on the same page.
Or so I thought, until the woman's daughter called us in the middle of breakfast today to tell us everyone in the family's life story (after the stroke their was a death, an adoption of a Chinese baby, and a bout with breast cancer...I kid you not this went on for 15 minutes until I interrupted to ask what I could do for her)...she basically said she wondered if there was "anything we could do for her monther since it's been such a tough year".
I explained what we are doing in terms of honoring the GC and she got very angry that we wouldn't honor the full GC amount and hung up on me. Waiting for these folks to check in now, should be interesting!
Last October the guests showed up to check in, very flustered because they had just received a call that her brother had had a stroke and they had to get on a plane to Phoenix, AZ. Our cancellation policy within 72 hours is that you are responsible for the full room charge, so it was within our "rights" to consider the GC as payment, but obviously because of the distressing circumstances, I told them to just go, they could keep the gift certificate and call to redeem it when things were settled down.
The woman calls two weeks ago (a full year later) to redeem the GC. I look up the number and tell her that it is expired as of June, 2008. She reminds me that I told her she could reuse it because of her brother being ill. I explain our policy for expired GC's is to honor them at 50% of the face value. She agrees and books a two night stay, understanding that she will have to pay for one, and have the other covered by her GC. Great, we are on the same page.
Or so I thought, until the woman's daughter called us in the middle of breakfast today to tell us everyone in the family's life story (after the stroke their was a death, an adoption of a Chinese baby, and a bout with breast cancer...I kid you not this went on for 15 minutes until I interrupted to ask what I could do for her)...she basically said she wondered if there was "anything we could do for her monther since it's been such a tough year".
I explained what we are doing in terms of honoring the GC and she got very angry that we wouldn't honor the full GC amount and hung up on me. Waiting for these folks to check in now, should be interesting!