Hotel New Otani Tokyo The Main

Dishonesty & Lack of Intergrity of Hotel Staff

My wife and I had a terrible experience with the staff of this hotel. We checked out at around 9:30 am on 20/5/2023. I asked a female hotel staff standing in front of the checkout counter for taxi service to the airport, the Haneda Airport. She just repeated my word HANEDA and then bring our baggage very quickly to the hotel entrance where a yellow taxi was waiting there. We went straight into the taxi and so could not hear what the staff spoke to the driver about our destination outside the taxi. As such, I told the driver to go to the Haneda Airport after he got in.

The travelling time from the hotel to the airport should be at most 30 minutes. However, about half an hour time, the taxi seemed not to going in the direction of the Haneda Airport. I then open the google map of my phone to check our location and noted that the driver drove us in a direction far away from the airport. We immediately told him to turn back to the Haneda Airport. But he hesitated to our request and continued to drive in the wrong direction for another 15 minutes before returning back to the direction of the airport. Finally, we arrived at the Haneda Airport with travelling time of at least 70 minutes. The driver then required us to pay 22,000 yen as shown on the meter reading. We were only willing to pay 7000 yen which was the normal price for uber taxi from the hotel to the Haneda Airport (as shown in the uber app).

We reported immediately the dispute to a police station at the International Terminal 3 of the airport. The police officer made a phone call to the hotel to ascertain with the female staff what was the exact destination I had spoken to her. The officer told me the staff replied that I had told her NARITA airport, not Haneda airport. She had also asked and confirmed with me 3 times it was Narita airport before she went outside the hotel and told the driver to Narita airport. It is really unbelievable (it is obvious that a normal hotel staff will not ask again and again to confirm 3 times with her guests about which airports they shall go). The driver also insisted that I told him to go to the Narita airport. He might intend to pay tricks on us in a bid to let us pay more! It’s really frustrating. On the other hands, the English pronunciation of HANEDA & NARITA are completely different. How could they mix up the 2 words! The English listening standard of the staff could be so poor for such a large and traditional Japanese hotel? Or, the staff did not willing to take any responsibility for her mistake and to shoulder the blame? Instead, they just told lies to cheat the police in order to avoid any responsibility and put all the burdens to the hotel guests.

The police officer told me both the staff and the driver claimed that I told them the destination was Narita. The driver required me to pay the whole bill of 22000 yen. I insisted that I really spoke HANEDA to both of them and would only willing to pay 8000 yen. The check-in time for our flight was approaching after prolonged argument inside the police station. We could only settle the dispute unwillingly by paying 10000 yen to the diver. It caused us to have an extra travelling time of 40 minutes inside the taxi and over 1 hour standing inside the police station explaining what was happening to the officer. It was definitely a disgusting experience. It ruined our good mood at the end of the journey.

As a large and renowned traditional Japanese hotel, how can its staff management be so poor and low-quality, tolerating its staff to tell lies and make false statements to the police in a bid to escape from responsibility?? During my stay at the hotel, I noticed that over 70 percent of the hotel guests were foreign travellers. I hope that the hotel should try their best to improve staff management and the staff English communication skill so that its guests, especially foreign travellers, will not encounter with any similar suffering.