My Letter of Complaint to Choice Hotels

Dear Sir/Madam

I recently joined the ‘Choice Privileges’ as I travel allot in Asia and felt that your hotels were suitable for my stays.

I started off recently with the ‘Hotel Comfort’ at Centrair Airport, Japan. The stay was fine and well within my expectations except for the fact that no reward points were given for this particular stay or hotel.

I then booked into the Comfort Hotel in Dumai, Indonesia. Please let me start with this hotel by saying it was the worst hotel experience I have ever been through.

Over my twenty five years of constant travel worldwide the Comfort Hotel in Dumai put new meaning to the word ‘discomfort’. 

I will list some of the items that I found in your hotel:

1.       During the evening there were three blackouts in the room. Power was restored only after ten minutes the first time.

2.       Cockroaches were at infestation level. They were in my coffee cup, on the bed, in the shower and I even brought one home with me that had snuck into my rucksack. Cockroach excrement was everywhere and obviously did not factor into the cleaning schedule. The spare pillow which I was going to use from the closet was dotted with evidence of a serious cockroach infestation.

3.       The music started at 1700 hours. You know, that loud dead beat that gives everybody a headache? Boom, boom, boom. All night. I eventually fell asleep at 0100 hours so cannot quite inform you what time it stopped at.

4.       In the morning my bathroom was filled with ants.

5.       After cleaning the ants away I found that there was no hot water – only a cold shower to start the day.

6.       Then I found that the coffee in the packets was all glued up and like a sheet of sandpaper.

7.       After looking out of the window and seeing a big rat on the restaurant roof, I decided to skip breakfast so cannot make any comment as to the mornings fare.

8.       And of course no points were awarded for my stay.

Seriously, is this your hotel? Whilst you may tell me that this is not a Choice Hotel as guests cannot book online, obviously there is some connection as the photographs may help to show.

Thanks for taking this under your wing.

Cathay Pacific Annoys me Again

I flew with Cathay Pacific from Singapore to Centrair International Airport in Japan via Hong Kong a couple of days ago. I previously vowed to never complain about airlines again but somehow Cathay Pacific just rub me up the wrong way. They have a certain knack for doing so.

Here's the first issue: If you book an economy class superior ticket you can then choose your seat on-line without checking in. I did this and chose a window seat near the back of the aircraft (all those forward were middle seats only). Unfortunately my table broke before take-off (honest sir) and I had to be moved to an economy class seat in the forward cabin.

Now (if you are still with me), I noted during this change that the economy class seat at the back had two inches less of leg room. This makes all the difference to me.

The issue here is that I booked a 'superior' economy ticket yet I end up with a seat that has two inches less leg room. I paid 350 SGD extra for that ticket - in other words I paid 350 SGD for two inches more leg room that I nearly never got if fate had not intervened.

Then: I was asked to fill out a CP question-air - this is not an ordinary 1 page effort but eight pages of repetitive, read-the-question-carefully rubbish. Once completed the stewardess then handed me a 5 HK dollar voucher, to be used when spending over forty dollars on-board - what an insult. I don't want to spend forty dollars just to justify the receipt of the voucher. Normal people do not shop on long haul flights!

You see, despite vowing never to run word-riot on an airline again here I am and I have more: no chicken left for lunch, the magazines are sealed in plastic (environmentally disastrous apart from the fact that it costs money to do so) and their seats break apart with little effort.

Anyway, I must now go and compile that letter of complaint once again.

Take your Island paradise with you!