I’ve never had to argue a hotel bill. I avoid the ridiculous phone call rates and use my mobile, unless it’s included I won’t use the internet for much the same reason, I steer clear of the stupidly overpriced mini-bar and pay as I go for food and drinks where possible, and it should go without saying that there’s no way I’m going to watch their ruinously expensive porn channels. So when I’ve checked out I’ve not had to do much more than check the number of days I’m being billed for and that room service is for what I ordered and nothing more.

I’ve never stayed in a hotel that got hit by an earthquake either, but it wouldn’t have occurred to me that it would be a reason not to pay even for things I did have.

A guest trapped in Christchurch’s earthquake-hit Hotel Grand Chancellor for nearly four hours feels “kicked in the guts” after being billed $NZ300 for his stay.

Well, if the earthquake had prevented him from staying there then fair enough, but that’s not how it was.

[The] man and his wife, who declined to be named, were trapped on the central Christchurch hotel’s 22nd floor and escaped hours later by braving collapsed staircases, smashing down doors and crawling on to the roof of an adjacent car park.
[…]
He received a $NZ300 bill from the hotel for his two-night stay, including an $NZ18 parking fee for a car that took more than two months to recover.
[…]
When the February 22 quake struck, the couple were watching a movie for which they were billed $NZ15.20, in their 25th-floor room.

Okay, so since they were in their room watching a movie and their car was parked downstairs I think it’s safe to say that they’d checked in.

The couple have been unable to get an insurance payment for the $NZ15,000 worth of luggage stuck in the hotel because their insurer says the belongings could still be recovered.

Now it might be a bit shitty of their insurer to deny a claim for possessions that are stuck in a damaged building to which there is no public access and which has been scheduled for demolition, but that’s not the hotel’s fault. The point is that the couple were in the hotel and using its services – parking, TV (hopefully not some Roland Emmerich disaster porn) and accommodation – at the time.

So what’s the problem with being billed for it? The earthquake trapped their possessions and their car, and presumably they didn’t see the whole film, but it didn’t undo their use of the hotel facilities. It was desperately bad luck compounded by an unsympathetic insurance company (is there another kind?) but the hotel company was unlucky too – they now have a large and unusable building just sitting there plus the expense of demolition and reconstruction to look forward to, and their insurers are probably no better. The quake wasn’t the hotel’s fault and about the only thing you can criticize them for is the time it’s taken to send out the bill. Even then…

[Grand Chancellor Australia and New Zealand group manager Frank Delli Cicchi] said many guests who checked into the hotel just before the quake had received their bills in the past few days because the company had only recently gained access to the accounts, which were trapped in another quake-damaged building in the city.

I’m finding it harder and harder to understand why it is that the hotel shouldn’t be paid for the services provided up to the point the quake hit. Even more confusingly the hotel company has caved in and waived some of the bills, including that of the anonymous couple, but not all of them. It now depends not on whether the guests used the hotel’s services but on whether they were inside or outside when it struck.

Guests who were not in the hotel when the quake struck were still expected to pay their bills, [Delli Cicchi] said.
“They legitimately incurred costs.”

And how did people who were in the hotel not legitimately incur costs? How does whether a guest popped out for a stroll around Christchurch or kicked back to watch a film in their room alter whether they legitimately incurred costs? And what happens if one member of a couple was in the hotel but the other had gone out? Do I have to lick a special kind of toad to make sense of this or what?

Above all, why are those who’ve been let off having to pay for goods and services they did in fact receive still complaining?

After contacting New Zealand’s The Press, the man received a phone call from a Grand Chancellor accountant who said the bill would be waived.
The man said he was still upset.
“I would never send something like that.”

I can’t think why not, I honestly can’t. If I’d done some work for someone and was about to send him an invoice when I heard that a tree had fallen on his car and written it off I’d be sympathetic to the poor guy. I’d probably phone him first and talk to him about it, maybe see if he needed a little flexibility on my part. But if he told me that he thought I shouldn’t get paid at all I’d say that I hope his chooks turn into emus and kick his dunny down as well.* I’d feel for the guy and I’d try to help out if I could in his time of misfortune, but whatever had happened, even if he’d been in the car and narrowly escaped unharmed, it wouldn’t undo the work I’d done for him.

Is it heartless of me to think that victims of bad luck should still expect to settle any debts they owe? And if not does it make a difference whether the bill comes from a small business or an international company with a dozen or so hotels?

* An Australian curse I came across not long ago. You’ve got to love what Aussies do with the language.

 The Angry Exile

Angry
Exile July 8, 2011 at 04:25

Thanks for the cross post, SBML. And where did you find that picture?
That’s gold.

SadButMadLad
July 8, 2011 at 09:32

Lots of searching for “hotel earthquake” and combinations thereof with
some other words and ignoring all the samey pictures of destroyed hotels.
Finally found on adhdproductions.org

binao July 7, 2011 at 09:39

Agree 100%.
Having sympathy for someone that’s had a bad experience is
fine, but there is nobody at fault, so tough, take it on the chin.
Any
services used or available up to the point of the ‘quake clearly must be paid
for. Once the hotel became unable to deliver the contracted services however,
the game changed.

Ciaran July 7, 2011 at 09:16

I’m not inclined to argue with the rest, but there’s no way they should
have to pay for the film they didn’t get to watch all of.

Livewire July 7, 2011 at 08:43

When I worked in aviation, not dealing with customers thankfully, the
established principled was that withdrawal of a service had 2 categories,
‘company’ (technical faults & staff shortages etc) where they coughed up
hotel & meal vouchers & paid the difference for alternative travel,
and ‘AOG’ (adverse weather, reported riots at the destination etc) where the
punters got a polite ‘tough shit’.
Harsh but fair, and seems to apply to
hotel bills. A bit of gallows humour, in the Honeymoon Suite was “did the
earth move for you?” heard?