A guest was banned from a Southern California DoubleTree hotel while visiting Disneyland after ruining towels that were in the bathroom. Their sister “cut herself while shaving her leg [and] used a towel to wipe and stop the bleeding.”
Rather than expressing concern for the guest (hospitality),
- The hotel charged $150 for the used towels
- And banned the customer
- Without so much as a word
Unaware why they charged me this amount I called them and they told me that it was a fee because they had to throw away the towels since they had blood on them, and the lady also told me that they would no longer be accepting me as a guest. So I asked why and they told me because of this incident I would no longer be able to come back I thought that was ridiculous. not only am I paying for the towels they’re also banning me. I would understand if I refuse to pay for the towels or if my card declined, but it didn’t. I paid for the towels I apologized, but they still put me on a DNR list.
This woman has been banned only from the specific hotel, and not from Hiltons worldwide or the Hilton Honors program.
Ironically, the guest says they’re a former Hilton employee and a Diamond member for the past six years. She figures she can “just make another Hilton Honors account and Gift myself diamond status or I could just put it under my sister‘s name and give her a diamond status and get the same perks.”
The reported amount – even for a set of used towels – sounds outrageously high. And occasionally towels get stained. Guests use them on messy foods when they don’t have napkins. Guests make far bigger messes – confining the blood to towels on the floor in the bathroom seems quite reasonable. And as a hotel, it seems like the first reaction ought to be care for the guest (‘are you ok?’).
Of course you can’t really expect any given DoubleTree to be in the business of hospitality. They’re not owned by Hilton, and there are very few brand standards even. It’s a conversion brand, with the whole thing tied together by cookies at check-in. The cookie was a really brilliant innovation back in 1986.
The towel cost them nopte than $5. Is it legal to arbitrarily charge a guest a $150 replacement charge when actual damages are $5? Seems like fraud to me. If they’re gonna ban you anyway, then why not dispute the charge?
Did a dog poop in the parking garage?
@ Gary — The simple solution is to file a claim with their insurance and file a lawsuit for the injury. It was clearly the hotel’s fault.
@ Gary — I was once legitimately injured due to a cracked toilet at a hotel, and I have never received so many phone calls, emails and letters following up on a stay. They took my injury much more seriously than I. They wouldn’t stop until I signed an affidavit stating that I wasnt going to hold them liable. It was ridulouus.
Sic DCS on them. He raves about Hilton so here’s his chance to prove the chain’s bona fides.
Haha! If you read the original Reddit post and her other post, she admits she’s a prostitute. And that they likely destroyed every towel in the room. Lot more to this story.
There has got to be more to this story.
@H2oman. I did read the original Reddit post Stop going all Fox News / Trump and making crap up. Fake news from you
Do a charge back on the credit card. $150 for a $7 towel from Macys Call the attorney general consumer protection for CA and file a claim
Good thing this didn’t happen in a Hertz rental car. They probably would have been arrested!!
If that comment is what passes for evidence of intelligence, then it’s truly a sad commentary.
The reported incident could have happened at any hotel of any chain in any country because the culprit — i.e., the hotel management — has as much intelligence and common as the author of the comment quoted above, i.e., none.
@DCS – Good to see you back to form with insults instead of answers. A solution from the most rabid Hilton partisan would be a lot more constructive. Will you offer some help to the person or would you prefer to continue with childish derision?
@Christian — I am not back in form for anything. You addressed me with yet another stupid comment and I called you on it. That I am the most rabid Hilton partisan does not excuse your stupid comments, so please get lost and avoid addressing me because there is little that you say that I am interested in or is of any value. In fact, it is the last time I will ever address you. You will keep at it, I am sure, but then will fizzle out, just like countless trolls and morons I have had to deal with in this space over the years.
Have a nice life.
With the amount of bitterness you show so constantly I am sure @Christian’s life is “nicer” than yours. Good grief, what an overreaction.
Based on word count, DCS got ratioed into the ground. When talking trash, less is more
@Tired of Idiots — With such a moniker it’s truly shocking that you aren’t yet tired of yourself! FYI: I envy trolls like you for being so completely free of the “ravages of intelligence” because, you see,…
…The reported incident could have happened at any hotel of any chain in any country because the culprit — i.e., the hotel management — has as much intelligence and common sense you, i.e., none.
The soapbox is yours; go ahead and knock yourselves out.
Gary you got to stop taking first person anonymous accounts of sensationalist stories at face value. Do a little research before blasting out false stories.
I fell for it this time, but no more. She’s a prostitute, which is why she was banned, and you cannot seriously believe her sole account that a single bloody towel was the only damage causing the charge. Your site is becoming gross.
I was at a hotel this fall where I had jut checked in and was on my way to the room. I noticed the floor outside my assigned room was wet and that there was a loud floor/air operating in the room next door. So I went down and asked for a change of room. Two days later I was at another hotel with the same owner and I ended up taking to the joint manager for the properties. The manager told me that a guest had fallen asleep in the shower and that is how the rooms got flooded and water leaked between floors too. I had assumed the person had a health problem or was in a drug-induced stupor, but I wasn’t sure about that and didn’t get around to trying to finding out if there had been a police or other emergency services response at the “wet” hotel on the day of my check-in or the night/day before. If the hotel or hotel chain would have tried to ban the guest, it would have been pretty easy to avoid a ban since self-service check-in worked even without presentation of credit card or ID when the reservation was prepaid. Also, the bans are typically name-based; and so if they don’t remember your face, a slight modification of name of guest in booking or a legal name change and new ID will get around the ban.
$150 seems reasonable. A single high quality towel costs $40-&50 these days
The hotel towel suppliers to such hotel aren’t really sending over “the good stuff”. The hotels are ordering the cheap stuff and/or ordering in bulk whatever overpriced cheap stuff the hotel franchise agreement may require. Some fraction of towels get tossed pretty much every month since very frequent washing and drying on top of the higher levels of wear and tear from customer use at hotels than at homes means that a few bloody towels from injury or menstrual bleed/period intercourse is a drop in the bucket of towels being tossed each and every day by hotels and linen-related product/service suppliers for the hotels.
Looks like Doubletree is in the Hostility business instead of Hospitality business.
I’m not usually this type of person but I would have just gotten some ambulance-chasing attorney and let them file an injury lawsuit against the hotel for their shower causing me trauma and injury. They would likely settle it pretty quickly.
Why did the guest not run warm water over the towels to remove the blood? I’ve cut myself while shaving and it’s not terribly difficult to run towels under warm water. While the hotel does seem to be overreacting, these days, housekeeping staff has a lot of sway regarding their working conditions and may have found it too unpleasant to work with biohazardous materials.
Someone mentioned that the woman works as pro. Should this change anything? If she had been engaging in criminal activity at the hotel, fine ban her, but if she’s just a guest she’s no different than you or I.
I’d like to ban trump voters from all establishments, but I realize that this would be impractical, and also, you know, illegal.
Yet again, anyone who dares to even invoke the name of DCS is insulted and belittled if he doesn’t approve, which goes to show that he still hasn’t gotten help for his NPD.
I’m glad to see that some things have never changed, I guess.
That towel could not have costs $10 at tops. Not to mention if they ran it through scalding water the stain would have probably come out.
Why would anyone believe this ridiculous story? Perhaps someone who has never left home in 40 years? And if there’s a grain of truth in the story, why would anyone want to stay in this hotel again?
@George N Romey:
> Not to mention if they ran it through scalding water the stain would have probably come out.
Not the recommended handling of a blood stain!
I don’t particularly mind the charge, I very much mind the charge + the ban. Things happen, so long as the person makes good the cost it should not negatively impact future relations.
This is why, I use my own; in all. Rooms, saving face or faces of the Hotels brand is so not important, since stopping bleeding is.
I’m going to side with the hotel on this one. If you use a towel to stop bleeding, great. But then remove that towel. Throw it away somewhere other than the room. To leave a bloody towel for a housekeeper to have to deal with is absurd. Be thoughtful of that person. Hotels don’t count towels. You can throw a few away and they won’t charge you. The issue here is leaving a bloody towel in a room. Have some respect.
Clean up of blood is now a hazmat thing.