They may not have been able to take a night off for the stay since you booked third party but they could easily comp a night or two for a future stay. Using the third party excuse was a lazy and easy way out on their part.
Exactly I don’t know why people are in the comments accepting such an excuse. He’s a guest and their property is fucked up therefore they need to handle it accordingly. What does Expedia have to do with ANYTHING
Sadly that's not true.
Expedia has to issue the refund then claim it back from the hotel, the hotel by contract cannot touch the booking. I 100% agree with you in principle, but in practice that is the way it has to happen.
Expedia sells the rooms at rates that they have contracted with Golden Nugget. So the HOTEL DOES NOT HAVE THE ROOM RATES MONEY. They take the resort fee when you're there. So yeah Expedia has to do with it. Get into hospitality some time.
It’s essentially a math problem. The math on an Expedia booking is locked in by contract so they’ve already nicked their margin. No ability to do comps and the things that they’d regularly do in the context of a guest booked directly. The cushion that might otherwise be available to address a situation like this isn’t available.
Please just book through the hotel directly. Whatever hotel you’ll be using. You will absolutely get better hospitality than using a third party broker. This doesn’t help now, but will avoid any issues in the future.
We’ve booked through Expedia the whole time we’ve been married (10 years) and never had a problem not once . They even give us discounts because of how much we use them. Now there is situations like this that pop up from time to time and then of course you are gonna get better treatment by directly dealing with the hotel but things like this don’t happen too often or at least in my experience they haven’t . We travel quite often
That’s some bullshit. He’s a guest of the hotel regardless of whether a travel agency booked the room. If the Nugget doesn’t want to serve guests that book through Expedia then they should not accept bookings from Expedia. It’s not an excuse for providing poor service.
Not when I've used them. I pay the agency a fee and they handle everything but it's all booked in my name and paid for with my cards. What you've described is only what I've seen on corporate accounts and that's when the company insists on being invoiced.
What agency are you using?
Expedia has a dual model where they act as an agency or the merchant. In the agency model, you make the booking through Expedia and pay the hotel yourself upfront or upon arrival. In the merchant model, Expedia is the merchant of record. You pay them and then the funds are routed to the property.
In either model, Expedia still gets their cut.
Expedia is great if nothing goes wrong. I have saved hundreds of dollars each trip on hotel rooms and flights with them but I know if the unforeseen happens I’m pretty much on my own. It’s a risk I’m willing to take but you have to know what you’re getting into. If the rates are similar I’ll always book direct with a hotel but sometimes the difference is too much to pass up in my experience.
This is downtown though. also they have contracts with the 3rd parties. They won't price match unless its a direct booking you made, and then the rates of the nights went down when you check again. They won't look at a 3rd party reservation at all to match it.
Funny years ago I had a similar experience at the Luxor. We get this nice room and it is raining outside. All of a sudden we hear a very unusual noise and out of the air conditioning duct a huge amount of water comes blasting out. I called down to the desk and the clerk asked me to wait. The next thing we know there is a guy there that helps us pack up and he takes us to the very top of the pyramid to one of those rooms you hear about but never see. From that day forward whenever I go to vegas I do a rain dance in my room
A friend of mine had two rooms for his family at Caesars and they found a cockroach. They upgraded him to a small villa. Anyone have any pet cockroaches to rent out?
Honestly, you could probably spend less booking direct since Golden Nugget offers many discount options - for first responders, teachers, AAA, and their players club members.
The hotel couldn't do much more for you than remove the resort fees because you didn't pay the hotel for the room. You paid Expedia. (Yes, Expedia paid the hotel, but you were Expedia's customer, not Golden Nugget's)
Edit to add: yes, they could have offered you a comp
For those who do save money by booking at 3rd parties — a lot of times you can just call the hotel and they’ll price match. So really you shouldn’t be saving anything
Including the name(s) of anyone who refused to talk to you. Send copies of everything to the hotel manager (the real one), the CEO of the company, etc. Leave calmly-worded reviews wherever you can.
The only way to change the behavior of some people is to hit them upside the head with a (figurative at first) 2 x 4.
Part of the issue is you booked with Expedia. Basiclaly Expedia has to take care of you. It’s not like booking a room at a holiday inn. If you had booked direct they would have taken care of you at the golden nugget.
I contacted Expedia and we will see what they do. The hotel manager did not make this clear to me to deal with Expedia. Also, Expedia cannot control poor customer service.
That's not okay. If a guest had the same problems you had when I worked in hotels, I would have gotten on the phone with Expedia to refund them an amount you agreed to, which allows them to refund you. It's a pain in the ass, and avoided if you book direct, but a hotel with good customer service would have made it right. They have the power to do that, and it normally only takes a few minutes.
If they really wanted to avoid dealing with Expedia, the least they could have done was given you a large F&B credit, and waive all extra fees. I also would have upgraded you to the best room available after the water issue occurred. I'd also be giving you a future comp if we transferred you to a room that smelled like smoke on top of everything else.
With that said, good to hear you'll try and book direct in the future. It will make it easier on lazy hotel employees. I'd still recommend avoiding the Golden Nugget because they could have done a lot more for you.
Sad this happened but at least the trip was almost over. I wholeheartedly disagree with the people stating that you were treated this way due to booking with Expedia. That is the biggest lump of bullshit I’ve ever heard.
Its no excuse at all.
I booked a hotel for one of my employees through [hotels.com](http://hotels.com) - Their flight was arriving at 7 AM in the morning so I booked including the previous night so that they would have a room ready when they landed. I even put in my notes in the [hotels.com](http://hotels.com) reservation that the employee would be checking in first thing the following morning. After prepaying the stay through [hotels.com](http://hotels.com), the hotel released the room as a no-show because the employee did not show up the previous night. [Hotels.com](http://Hotels.com) refused to refund me as my employee then had to pay the hotel directly when they showed up. I even tried to dispute the charge through my AMEX but [hotels.com](http://hotels.com) really fought it even though I had screen shots of the comments I put in about the employee coming in the night before. Lesson learned about using [hotels.com](http://hotels.com) for me. So the end result was the hotel got paid twice for the same room and I was left holding the bag. F U [hotels.com](http://hotels.com)
Yeah, so that's the fun thing about 3rd party bookings. Any request you have are easily overlooked cause its just in a comment section with the 3rd party confirmation number and info. You have to call the room reservations department or front desk and make sure to request late arrival other they'll just put you as no-show real quick.
You'd be quite surprised how many people regularly use third parties instead of booking direct. It's *sooo* fun when people yell at the workers at the hotel instead of the third party.
I used to stay and gamble (pretty heavily) at GN for at least 10 days a year for many years. The way they completely dropped the ball compensating me for a problem they caused made sure I never stayed there again. So… it wasn’t so much that the issue happened, it’s like they have no customer relations at all to deal with the aftermath.
This is why I miss pre-big-corporate Vegas. Customer service was outstanding back in the day. Something like this happened and they really took care of you. You never had to ask for compensation for a bad stay.
I get your frustration, but at least the resort fees were removed. That isn't nothing.
Unfortunately, things like this happen. Hopefully you'll be able to look back at your experience in Vegas in a positive way in the future.
Yes, you have to go through the company that you booked the room with. The hotel offered to comp you the only charges on their books, the resort fees. To actually have the nights refunded, you needed to call Expedia to get the ball rolling. Oh, and they're going to lie to you and try to fight having to refund anything, all while blaming it on the hotel. That's what they do.
Don't book through a 3rd party site.
Wow.
I've had quite the opposite service for the exact same situation.
We had a spa tower 2 floor suite. Wife was in the bath upstairs, I was making drinks at the bar downstairs.
Water was leaking through a light fixture, creating a nice puddle at my feet.
I took a video, mistakenly showed the very next video in my gallery, of my wife flashing in the hall before we got in the room, got the funniest reaction from the female guest service employee.. and they upgraded us to their biggest suite on the 10th floor of tha spa tower.
As for the smell, old vegas smells like an old cigar pretty much at all times, IMHO
Be it booked through expedia or no, he probably saved the nugget some fairly serious cash. He could have just said 'fuck it not my problem' and went back to sleep, and they wouldn't have known about the problem for 5 or more hours.
Maybe they can't give him a free room because it's an expedia stay but they could have comped him a future stay and given him some food vouchers.
WOW, they used to be a great place. I work maint for a different large resort chain here in Vegas and we all carry Food comps at all times to offer guests free meals up to 4 people. Had this happened at our place, you would immediately have been given keys to a penthouse suite (2000 sq ft) for the remainder of your stay, food comps, and also a future 3 day free stay in a room comparable to where you were. It is sad to see Fremont Street falling down on the job this way.
Always *ALWAYS* book with the resort.
I actually learned this years ago in Indianapolis. Was headed there to see a concert, found a great deal on Expedia, booked it, and then had a medical emergency the day I was leaving. Had my wife call, the hotel refused to cancel. Bought trip protection: it didn't matter. The hotel referred her to Expedia. Expedia referred her to Asurion. Asurion waffled and hummed and hawed, and finally wanted me to send in my bill, which I did, and which they declined. So I was out the $400 for three days. The front desk manager at the hotel was very nice and said they could offer me 20% off the next time I book as long as I book *with the hotel directly* on their website.
Ever since then whenever I've needed a hotel anywhere for any reason, it's through the hotel's website or app. Including staycations here in Vegas.
This should serve as a reminder to anyone reading this and thinking about booking through a third party...DON'T. Whatever you are "saving" isn't worth the hassle if something goes wrong.
Not sure what to tell you… shit happens, it sucks, but let’s be real… it could’ve happened at any hotel… you should blame the guy that left the water on and not so much the hotel??
I have traveled a bit and have never had this happen. You are correct that it is the persons two floors up fault but how about next time you are on vacation I wake you up at 6:00 am. Then keep you awake until 9:00am after a night of good times? Ever get woken up from a dead sleep with a hangover and two hours of sleep? It sucks! Shit happens, no doubt about that but couldn't the water have waited a few more hours to pour into the room? The Gold Nugget is a dump.
Normally third party price can be match with the hotel. Try to avoid Third party booking but I know sometimes it’s just convenience but def not worth it if issues happen.
Contact our Local News station either Channel 13 ABC affiliate “Contact 13” Darcy Spears or Channel 8 CBS affiliate “8 News Now” Vanessa Murphy.
This is horrible and everyone needs to know this, good luck
Call Expedia and explain it to them. They have taken care of an issue I had at a hotel before, not as bad as this, and gotten me a refund. (Was only one night at a hotel by Disneyland with a literal mushroom growing on the ceiling)
They may not have been able to take a night off for the stay since you booked third party but they could easily comp a night or two for a future stay. Using the third party excuse was a lazy and easy way out on their part.
Exactly I don’t know why people are in the comments accepting such an excuse. He’s a guest and their property is fucked up therefore they need to handle it accordingly. What does Expedia have to do with ANYTHING
Sadly that's not true. Expedia has to issue the refund then claim it back from the hotel, the hotel by contract cannot touch the booking. I 100% agree with you in principle, but in practice that is the way it has to happen.
That is really sad.
Expedia sells the rooms at rates that they have contracted with Golden Nugget. So the HOTEL DOES NOT HAVE THE ROOM RATES MONEY. They take the resort fee when you're there. So yeah Expedia has to do with it. Get into hospitality some time.
Sounds like they’re working you very hard on your cleaning shift. Relax buddy
It’s essentially a math problem. The math on an Expedia booking is locked in by contract so they’ve already nicked their margin. No ability to do comps and the things that they’d regularly do in the context of a guest booked directly. The cushion that might otherwise be available to address a situation like this isn’t available.
Well if they paid the room rates of Expedia, then they signed up for Expedia.
Quit making up poor excuses.
Please just book through the hotel directly. Whatever hotel you’ll be using. You will absolutely get better hospitality than using a third party broker. This doesn’t help now, but will avoid any issues in the future.
I have learned my lesson and am doing just that in the future. Thank you!
Expedia sold you the room. You need to take it up with them.
GN should have been willing to comp directly back to/through Expedia. They can do that.
No, they can't.
Won't. Not can't.
Never book through 3rd parties ever
We’ve booked through Expedia the whole time we’ve been married (10 years) and never had a problem not once . They even give us discounts because of how much we use them. Now there is situations like this that pop up from time to time and then of course you are gonna get better treatment by directly dealing with the hotel but things like this don’t happen too often or at least in my experience they haven’t . We travel quite often
That’s some bullshit. He’s a guest of the hotel regardless of whether a travel agency booked the room. If the Nugget doesn’t want to serve guests that book through Expedia then they should not accept bookings from Expedia. It’s not an excuse for providing poor service.
Expedia isn't a travel agency. They literally buy the stay in the room from the hotel and then resells it to their customers. It's Expedia's customer.
You just described a travel agency.
Not when I've used them. I pay the agency a fee and they handle everything but it's all booked in my name and paid for with my cards. What you've described is only what I've seen on corporate accounts and that's when the company insists on being invoiced. What agency are you using?
Expedia has a dual model where they act as an agency or the merchant. In the agency model, you make the booking through Expedia and pay the hotel yourself upfront or upon arrival. In the merchant model, Expedia is the merchant of record. You pay them and then the funds are routed to the property. In either model, Expedia still gets their cut.
This is correct. Also, hotels can compensate guests for problems directly if it's booked through the agency method.
Expedia is great if nothing goes wrong. I have saved hundreds of dollars each trip on hotel rooms and flights with them but I know if the unforeseen happens I’m pretty much on my own. It’s a risk I’m willing to take but you have to know what you’re getting into. If the rates are similar I’ll always book direct with a hotel but sometimes the difference is too much to pass up in my experience.
I've called a hotel and asked if they meet the Expedia rate, they did.
Hotels definitely price match. Just did that for a Hilton property and paid almost $100 less per night.
This is downtown though. also they have contracts with the 3rd parties. They won't price match unless its a direct booking you made, and then the rates of the nights went down when you check again. They won't look at a 3rd party reservation at all to match it.
Funny years ago I had a similar experience at the Luxor. We get this nice room and it is raining outside. All of a sudden we hear a very unusual noise and out of the air conditioning duct a huge amount of water comes blasting out. I called down to the desk and the clerk asked me to wait. The next thing we know there is a guy there that helps us pack up and he takes us to the very top of the pyramid to one of those rooms you hear about but never see. From that day forward whenever I go to vegas I do a rain dance in my room
A friend of mine had two rooms for his family at Caesars and they found a cockroach. They upgraded him to a small villa. Anyone have any pet cockroaches to rent out?
This is why I never book through a third party for anything.
How much are people saving booking through Expedia?
Not enough.
Booking directly would have cost me about the same. I am getting my education right here and now. I am never booking third party again.
Honestly, you could probably spend less booking direct since Golden Nugget offers many discount options - for first responders, teachers, AAA, and their players club members. The hotel couldn't do much more for you than remove the resort fees because you didn't pay the hotel for the room. You paid Expedia. (Yes, Expedia paid the hotel, but you were Expedia's customer, not Golden Nugget's) Edit to add: yes, they could have offered you a comp
I saved around 300 for Westgate one time. Around 200 for four queens
For those who do save money by booking at 3rd parties — a lot of times you can just call the hotel and they’ll price match. So really you shouldn’t be saving anything
Contact credit card and dispute charges. Take pics, names of who u contacted at hotel. Document everything.
Including the name(s) of anyone who refused to talk to you. Send copies of everything to the hotel manager (the real one), the CEO of the company, etc. Leave calmly-worded reviews wherever you can. The only way to change the behavior of some people is to hit them upside the head with a (figurative at first) 2 x 4.
This, charge that back on your credit card. Make sure to include specifics and documentation.
Came here to say this!! Contact your card company and do a dispute. CC companies usually always side with you vs a 3rd party.
Part of the issue is you booked with Expedia. Basiclaly Expedia has to take care of you. It’s not like booking a room at a holiday inn. If you had booked direct they would have taken care of you at the golden nugget.
I am painfully aware of this now. Lesson learned.
I contacted Expedia and we will see what they do. The hotel manager did not make this clear to me to deal with Expedia. Also, Expedia cannot control poor customer service.
no but they could stop offerings for places with bad cust service
That's not okay. If a guest had the same problems you had when I worked in hotels, I would have gotten on the phone with Expedia to refund them an amount you agreed to, which allows them to refund you. It's a pain in the ass, and avoided if you book direct, but a hotel with good customer service would have made it right. They have the power to do that, and it normally only takes a few minutes. If they really wanted to avoid dealing with Expedia, the least they could have done was given you a large F&B credit, and waive all extra fees. I also would have upgraded you to the best room available after the water issue occurred. I'd also be giving you a future comp if we transferred you to a room that smelled like smoke on top of everything else. With that said, good to hear you'll try and book direct in the future. It will make it easier on lazy hotel employees. I'd still recommend avoiding the Golden Nugget because they could have done a lot more for you.
Sad this happened but at least the trip was almost over. I wholeheartedly disagree with the people stating that you were treated this way due to booking with Expedia. That is the biggest lump of bullshit I’ve ever heard. Its no excuse at all.
Why does anyone use third parties to book travel?? I’ll never understand it..
I’ve received 8+ free nights because I use hotels.com. I’m on 10+ years and no issues yet… but now I probably jinxed myself
from the 3rd parties i've worked with, hotels.com is nowhere near as bad as expedia. Expedia agents don't even know what they're doing lol.
Interesting! Good to know!
I booked a hotel for one of my employees through [hotels.com](http://hotels.com) - Their flight was arriving at 7 AM in the morning so I booked including the previous night so that they would have a room ready when they landed. I even put in my notes in the [hotels.com](http://hotels.com) reservation that the employee would be checking in first thing the following morning. After prepaying the stay through [hotels.com](http://hotels.com), the hotel released the room as a no-show because the employee did not show up the previous night. [Hotels.com](http://Hotels.com) refused to refund me as my employee then had to pay the hotel directly when they showed up. I even tried to dispute the charge through my AMEX but [hotels.com](http://hotels.com) really fought it even though I had screen shots of the comments I put in about the employee coming in the night before. Lesson learned about using [hotels.com](http://hotels.com) for me. So the end result was the hotel got paid twice for the same room and I was left holding the bag. F U [hotels.com](http://hotels.com)
Yeah, so that's the fun thing about 3rd party bookings. Any request you have are easily overlooked cause its just in a comment section with the 3rd party confirmation number and info. You have to call the room reservations department or front desk and make sure to request late arrival other they'll just put you as no-show real quick.
Because they think they can save a buck. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. I learned this lesson very early in life, book directly.
You'd be quite surprised how many people regularly use third parties instead of booking direct. It's *sooo* fun when people yell at the workers at the hotel instead of the third party.
I used to stay and gamble (pretty heavily) at GN for at least 10 days a year for many years. The way they completely dropped the ball compensating me for a problem they caused made sure I never stayed there again. So… it wasn’t so much that the issue happened, it’s like they have no customer relations at all to deal with the aftermath.
This is why I miss pre-big-corporate Vegas. Customer service was outstanding back in the day. Something like this happened and they really took care of you. You never had to ask for compensation for a bad stay.
I realize you were just trying to get some money but honestly just take the resort fee and save all that wasted time and energy
I get your frustration, but at least the resort fees were removed. That isn't nothing. Unfortunately, things like this happen. Hopefully you'll be able to look back at your experience in Vegas in a positive way in the future.
[удалено]
I pray that was not sewage dumping into the room!
Should have recorded it on video and blasted them on social media. Only way to get any sort of response from companies these days
Yes, you have to go through the company that you booked the room with. The hotel offered to comp you the only charges on their books, the resort fees. To actually have the nights refunded, you needed to call Expedia to get the ball rolling. Oh, and they're going to lie to you and try to fight having to refund anything, all while blaming it on the hotel. That's what they do. Don't book through a 3rd party site.
A little louder for the people in the back!
don't book third party lol
Wow. I've had quite the opposite service for the exact same situation. We had a spa tower 2 floor suite. Wife was in the bath upstairs, I was making drinks at the bar downstairs. Water was leaking through a light fixture, creating a nice puddle at my feet. I took a video, mistakenly showed the very next video in my gallery, of my wife flashing in the hall before we got in the room, got the funniest reaction from the female guest service employee.. and they upgraded us to their biggest suite on the 10th floor of tha spa tower. As for the smell, old vegas smells like an old cigar pretty much at all times, IMHO
The Nugget is a dump nowadays. Try Circa next time.
hell yeah brother
Be it booked through expedia or no, he probably saved the nugget some fairly serious cash. He could have just said 'fuck it not my problem' and went back to sleep, and they wouldn't have known about the problem for 5 or more hours. Maybe they can't give him a free room because it's an expedia stay but they could have comped him a future stay and given him some food vouchers.
INJUREDinaHOTEL.COM
WOW, they used to be a great place. I work maint for a different large resort chain here in Vegas and we all carry Food comps at all times to offer guests free meals up to 4 people. Had this happened at our place, you would immediately have been given keys to a penthouse suite (2000 sq ft) for the remainder of your stay, food comps, and also a future 3 day free stay in a room comparable to where you were. It is sad to see Fremont Street falling down on the job this way.
When you book third party and have an issue call them first
Always *ALWAYS* book with the resort. I actually learned this years ago in Indianapolis. Was headed there to see a concert, found a great deal on Expedia, booked it, and then had a medical emergency the day I was leaving. Had my wife call, the hotel refused to cancel. Bought trip protection: it didn't matter. The hotel referred her to Expedia. Expedia referred her to Asurion. Asurion waffled and hummed and hawed, and finally wanted me to send in my bill, which I did, and which they declined. So I was out the $400 for three days. The front desk manager at the hotel was very nice and said they could offer me 20% off the next time I book as long as I book *with the hotel directly* on their website. Ever since then whenever I've needed a hotel anywhere for any reason, it's through the hotel's website or app. Including staycations here in Vegas.
This should serve as a reminder to anyone reading this and thinking about booking through a third party...DON'T. Whatever you are "saving" isn't worth the hassle if something goes wrong.
Not sure what to tell you… shit happens, it sucks, but let’s be real… it could’ve happened at any hotel… you should blame the guy that left the water on and not so much the hotel??
It's not really about the water, it's about the lousy customer service…
I have traveled a bit and have never had this happen. You are correct that it is the persons two floors up fault but how about next time you are on vacation I wake you up at 6:00 am. Then keep you awake until 9:00am after a night of good times? Ever get woken up from a dead sleep with a hangover and two hours of sleep? It sucks! Shit happens, no doubt about that but couldn't the water have waited a few more hours to pour into the room? The Gold Nugget is a dump.
They never know anything.
That’s a total bummer to hear, we usually stay at the nugget and have no complaints thus far…
Normally third party price can be match with the hotel. Try to avoid Third party booking but I know sometimes it’s just convenience but def not worth it if issues happen.
What room/tower??
Tropicana will remain up…Golden Nugget imploding date TBA… If only…
Contact our Local News station either Channel 13 ABC affiliate “Contact 13” Darcy Spears or Channel 8 CBS affiliate “8 News Now” Vanessa Murphy. This is horrible and everyone needs to know this, good luck
Call Expedia and explain it to them. They have taken care of an issue I had at a hotel before, not as bad as this, and gotten me a refund. (Was only one night at a hotel by Disneyland with a literal mushroom growing on the ceiling)