To whom this may concern,
Recently I stayed at the Country Inn and Suites Long Island City location with a business colleague of mine and I am sorry to report that the entire experience was dreadful. Our company is comprised of insurance adjusters who traveled MANY hours to New York to assist the victims affected from Superstorm Sandy.
Immediately at check-in, my colleague and I ran into problems with the staff at the front desk. Specifically, the name on my colleagues Driver's License read Richard as his name, but the staff would not accept his business credit card as the name on the card said Rick. Therefore according to the front desk staff the names did not match and they would not accept. My colleague finally paid with his personal debit card. The next morning I asked another attendant about the same who said that was ridiculous and that she never would have treated us like that.
The attitude and professionalism displayed by the hotel staff at the front entrance was deplorable, however due to thousands being displaced by Sandy, we had nowhere else to go. I think they used that to their advantage or we would have walked right out. Additionally, as many rooms located in and around New York City were being booked, I personally made an additional reservation that would have extended my stay for an additional three (3) days into the weekend. Fortunately, during that time before the weekend, I found another hotel, which was much closer to the disaster area, ultimately allowing me to assist more people as I did not have to make the 4 hour commute. Upon checkout, I was provided an invoice for my stay and verbal agreement from the front desk that they canceling my additional reservation.
In hindsight, I should have requested a cancellation number or asked for a copy of the cancellation reservation because the hotel never did follow up with their agreement and subsequently charged me for an additional 3 days even after I formally checked out of my room. I attempted to contact the hotel manager regarding the same, but to no avail as they never returned my calls.
In closing, I feel taken advantage of and was not even provided the courtesy of having the front desk or Country Inn and Suites management explain why they charged me for a room that I cancelled and did not stay in. This unfortunate event may very well be a "sign of the times" as this particular facility appears to be all about the money, not customer satisfaction. Let this serve as a warning to those traveling long hours or displaced by Superstorm Sandy to not be caught off guard when checking in or out of this hotel.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC.
November 27, 2012
We are very sorry to hear about the billing problems that you encountered at our hotel. We do appreciate you taking the time to post this review and we will take your comments very seriously.
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This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of TripAdvisor LLC.