Last Tuesday my aunt died. I had a reservation here for Saturday night to celebrate something with my fiancee. I called the hotel to ask them to reschedule my reservation, and they refused because I made the reservation through Expedia. They told me to call Expedia, so I did. Expedia told me it is up to the hotel what can be done, expressed their condolences, and then surprised me with the 10% off voucher for my next trip or rental with them.

I called Holiday Inn back and someone named Alicia was particularly cold and unhelpful, but said I could email her manager, Amanda Rodriguez.

Amanda ignored my first two emails so I sent a third request, this time with the actual death certificate for my aunt attached. She finally replied the next day saying too bad, can’t help.

I told her that aside from being terribly inhumane and crass, that’s terrible customer service. She was again curt and completely unhelpful but said I could contact her manager, Ruben Duran.

Mow it’s Saturday morning. I’m getting ready for church for the funeral. Before contacting him, I called the hotel again and asked them if I could change the name on the reservation so someone else in my family could use it. They told me no, and that I had already asked for a refund so they rented the room to someone else! Insane! (not to mention that I didn’t ask for a refund, I simply asked to use my reservation on a different day because of my aunt’s passing.)

So while I was in Ohio in the snow at my aunts funeral, this Holiday Inn decided to keep my money and double dip by renting the room to someone else for the night I was supposed to be there — while lying to me that I was told I was getting a refund.

Next move was to talk to Ruben Duran. Guess what? I still have been completely blown off — no reply at all. Guess I’ll have to escalate again.

Everyone should know this story before doing business with the people that run this hotel. Super disturbing. I hope none of these people have to deal with this when they lose a loved one.,

I will update when I hear something. Not holding my breath. Absolutely disgusting.

12/20: responding to the reply that was added since Amanda has put more effort into trying covering her own a— over getting called out by name publicly than actually helping someone during a difficult time.

Yes, that was after I was blown off on the phone and you ignored the first two emails. Are you proud of that email? The rest of the world thinks your behavior is abominable.

Of course you can help: it is easily within management power to give me credit for a room for a future date. Now, your team decided to rip me off and then use my aunt funeral to sell the room to someone else so you could double dip. I’m pursuing it with Corporate-keep throwing fuel on the fire if you like! Or just do the right thing and give me a credit.

Where is Ruben? Still nothing. Emails and phone calls ignored despite, his staff saying he would help me… Still nothing.

Amazing that Expedia found a way to do something nice for my family despite policy. IHG and Holiday Inn are incapable of that? That’s not honest and we all know it.