Is this enough compensation? A 50 percent discount for being bitten by something

Oh, I realize the headline will make this case look like a really bad Twilight sequel. (Is there any other kind?) But I’m serious, and so is Ed Lawrence, the victim.

Lawrence was a recent guest at a La Quinta property in Austin, Tex. — a chain, he says, that has “decent” service and was close to the his work site.

Last night I woke up around midnight. I wasn’t sure why I woke up, but I must have felt some irritation because my left shoulder felt itchy.

I got up to visit the bathroom, looked in the mirror, and saw blood on my shoulder, along with a nice big welt.


His first thought? Bed bugs.

I wiped the shoulder, put on a T-shirt and called the front desk. I requested they change every pillow and linen in the room the next day.

I wondered if I should change rooms. Should I sleep in the other bed?

I decided to put on a T-shirt and simply went back to bed. And I tried not to worry.

OK, timeout! He put the shirt back on and went to bed? Seriously?

Actually, I can believe that. Imagine being woken up at 2 a.m. Your first thought — maybe your only thought — is falling back into bed. I mean, it’s not as if you’re being lowered into a pit of vipers, Indiana Jones-style. It’s just a bite.

Still. I might have considered changing rooms.

The next morning, I went down to breakfast and spoke directly to the front-desk person. He was the person who took my call at midnight. He said he would follow my request.

He asked if I wanted to change rooms. I declined for the moment, but wonder if I should have.

If there are bed bugs, would I have many bites? If there are bugs in this room, would they be in other rooms?

Lawrence emailed me from the hotel and asked what I would do. I told him to get medical attention.

The hotel promised instead that it would change all the linen and inspect the room. A hotel employee told him if bed bugs were found, they would move him to another room.

When I returned at 5 p.m., I checked at the front desk. They told me they had changed all the linens and they had inspected the room. They found no bugs. They still offered to let me change rooms, and they gave me 50 percent off the previous night’s stay.

I stayed in the same room and encountered no problems.

So what was it? A bed bug? A spider? Fleas? No one knows.

“As long as nothing else bites me,” he says, “I don’t mind not knowing.”

Did Lawrence do the right thing by staying in the room and letting the hotel change linens? Or should he have insisted on a room change and a doctor’s visit?

More importantly, was La Quinta’s response appropriate?


  • Tom

    His behavior — going back to sleep, not requesting a different room, reporting no additional problems — suggests this isn’t a big deal.

    La Quinta’s behavior — immediately offering to change linens, move him to a different room, and offering to refund half his money as an opening gambit — suggests they have a continuing problem.

    Since he accepted their offer and continued to stay, I don’t think he has a complaint.

    He could also have asked them for $5,000, which they would gladly pay rather than have him report their infestation to the health department or posted La Quinta’s sanitary problems to Internet boards such as this.

    He made his choice and I’ve made mine. Never stay at La Quinta.

  • J

    From my experience, hotels never want to admit having bedbugs until they have to. Usually you can’t find them on the beds/sheets until the problem is *really* bad. I woke up with about seven welts on my legs once at a really, really nice property. I called them up, they inspected really quickly and didn’t find anything, but quickly offered a different room so I’d feel more comfortable. I didn’t even ask for it, and it was the fastest I was ever offered resolution.

    My guess is in the above case, they have been suspecting bed bugs for a while, but until they have a specific case of actually finding them (which is hard), they are not going to acknowledge it.

  • http://www.thetravelinggiraffe.com Crissy

    The hotel did all of the right things in regards to offering to change the room, and did what was requested by Lawrence. And other then a sting and a welt he doesn’t seem to have had any other impacts. I do think that a 50% discount was reasonable.

  • Walt Blackadar

    Probably a spider bite. The compensation was more than enough.

  • Mike Z

    Since he declined a room change and accepted the compensation then I’m going to say that it is plenty. He apparently was satisfied, though I would have gone to the doctor and found out what had bitten me.

  • Bruce Elliott

    A doctor’s visit?! You’re not serious are you? I’m intrigued – what do you think a doctor would offer in this scenario apart from a hefty invoice for the privilege?

  • Karen P

    It wasn’t bed bugs. I’ve been bitten by bed bugs on a few occasions and the bites don’t lead to big welts. It’s more a series of bites, usually in a line. It was likely a spider or maybe, since it’s Texas, a scorpion.

    I also don’t see their offering to change his rooms and give a discount as admitting guilt, rather they are just trying to appease him.

    He got more than enough compensation since he said he didn’t even think it was a big deal.

  • http://nmdfreelance.com Nancy

    Given the OP didn’t ask for anything more with regard to the bite, I feel this is ample.

    He asked them to change the linens and they did.

    They offered him another room more than once, he declined.

    With regard to this non-event, I’d say the case is closed.

  • Aspendew

    He obviously didn’t have a severe reaction to the bite, and he decided to go back to bed afterward and declined a room change. Why did he even bother writing to you about this? It’s Texas, for gawd’s sake. There are bugs. The hotel did more than enough.

  • Steve

    I have to wonder why he even bothered emailing you. Not that waking up to find you’ve been bitten by something isn’t serious, but it sounds like he and the hotel came to an agreement about proper compensation, so I don’t see why he’d involve you.

    I think from the facts that we know, the hotel did enough. They offered him enough to make him happy, which is step one. Assuming that they actually did thoroughly inspect the room and didn’t find any bedbugs or evidence of some other kind of infestation, then they covered that base as well. (Obviously, if they knew about a bug problem and covered it up, that would be wrong, but without knowing more I don’t see any indication of that).

  • Brooklyn

    Not bedbugs – the bites don’t bleed. Probably a spider or a fire ant. I’d have asked for a room change because whatever it was, it was still there! And I’d have asked the hotel to fumigate so the next customer didn’t have the same problem. But this kind of thing does happen, particularly in the southern and south-western states, and the hotel can’t be considered at fault – it’s not like an infestation. I think half off the price of the room was fine. As for the doctor’s visit, I think he’d have known if he needed medical help; scorpions, fire ants, black widows and brown recluse spiders can make you very sick indeed.

  • Mimsy Rogers

    Probably a spider bite….I didn’t think beg bugs were big enough to cause bleeding, but then I’ve never been bitten by a bed bug that I’m aware of. I did have a horrid experience in New Orleans with termites though…I was sleeping on the pull-out couch while my friends were upstairs on the bed (it was a loft suite and actually would have been neat but for the bugs) and woke in the middle of the night to a veritable CLOUD of flying termites buzzing my face, crawling on my body, and even in my HAIR. Needless to say, the hotel staff was horrified and we were moved to another suite. However, there was a pile of dead termites on the window sill in that suite, whereupon we were promptly upgraded to the bridal suite and had our entire trip refunded, without question.

    The hotel manager said that New Orleans weather was perfect for breeding termites and if you didn’t use a specific wood, you were in for a long battle and they’d been fighting it for years. At least she was honest. I’m wondering in the La Quinta property knew it had a problem and was just waiting for someone to step forward.

  • DJP

    For it to be that bloody it had to be something else like a spider, fire ant, or something else.

    Personally after that I would have been searching to find out what it was.

    I would have taken them up on the offer on a new room.

    As for the hotel response they were fine.

    I have stayed at La Quinta’s many times and this sounds like a by the book reaction to the customer.

    I have stayed at a LQ when I did have problems and they were nice in offering me what the did when I didnt expect it.

  • Dave

    With apologies to someone (I think Shakespeare, but I’m not positive), “one bug doth not an infestation make.”

    It sounds like Lawrence (the subject of the story) was happy with the situation at the time, and now is just wondering if he should have done more. The hotel offered everything it could do and then some, so I think yes, their offer was more than adequate.

  • Suz

    This doesn’t sound like a case of bed bugs. More than likely an insect bite of some kind.
    If it were me – I would have asked to change rooms just to be safe.

  • Clifw

    As a survivor of the Great Northeastern Bed Bug Epidemic late last year, I can tell you that bed bugs bite in clusters of three (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and don’t bleed.

    La Quinta did everything it should have (and how do they know that the guest didn’t bring the bug in with him?!) and the guest accepted it all in good humour. I don’t even know why this is on the site.

    Its is very unlikely a doctor would’ve said anything other than “yep. that’s a bite alright. pain? no? well if it does anything dramatic in the next couple of days, come back and see me again.”

    Bring back outrageous car hire agencies or travellers who are disgruntled due to lack of servitude during Japan’s biggest natural disaster!

  • Clifw

    Actually, reading it again, why was the guest so sure it was a bite? Could he have somehow banged his shoulder on something? Just a thought. Skin irritation can do all sorts of wacky things. Not blaming-the-guest, just curious.

  • Clare

    I’ve read horror-stories on Trip Advisor about places with bed bugs and they described being totally covered with bites by morning. Doesn’t fit the profile. I’m kind of impressed by the hotel’s reaction; they listened to the guest, took the problem seriously, and offered multiple sorts of compensation. Offhand, I wouldn’t mind staying there–I wonder how many hotels there are on earth that don’t contain even ONE biting critter in one of their rooms somewhere?

  • Allison

    La Quinta did a lot more for the gentleman than the Mirage in Las Vegas did for me a few years back when an extremely large cockroach decided to snuggle next to me in bed. Although I was not bitten, having to have housekeeping completely strip the bed in the middle of the night to look for the creature (who finally crawled out from under the bed–housekeeper said it was the largest roach she’d ever seen) was not my ideal of a quality night at a property that thinks of itself as a higher end property. I was not allowed to change rooms nor was given any partial refund–this in a town where rooms are frequently comped and most casinos’ business models consider rooms a loss leader…

  • Arizona Road Warrior

    @ Karen P – “It was likely a spider or maybe, since it’s Texas, a scorpion.”
    - – - – - – - -
    If it was a scorpion, the OP probably would have been in great pain for at least a few hours if not longer plus there would have been no blood or bite marks since a scorpion stings not bite. One of the boys of our next door neighbor was bitten by a scorpion last year and he went to ER; the pain lasted nearly 24 HR as well as being sick to his stomach.

  • http://www.cockam.com ajaynejr

    >>> a veritable CLOUD of flying termites buzzing my face, crawling on my body, and even in my HAIR.

    That was the termite queen’s annual mating (you could call it a honeymoon) and it lasts a day or two. All the boy termites are after her. Only one gets her and they all drop off their wings all over the place.

  • Monica

    I think the compensation was enough. He only asked for linen changes and a search, which the hotel provided. The hotel also took the extra step and offered a discount and a change of rooms.

    Personally, I would have moved rooms. Whatever bit me was probably still there and I would be a little paranoid about getting bit again. Especially if it was something causing bleeding and welts!

  • http://badbadwebbis.wordpress.com badbadwebbis

    At the risk of turning this into an entomology discussion, I want to argue that it probably wasn’t a fire ant bite either, since they don’t usually bleed. The bites generally leave hard, pustulent bumps, and there is generally more than one fire ant present. They travel in packs.

    But I think the compensation was adequate. although it does seem a tad strange that they were so prompt with the offer to move him and compensate his stay. Or is it just that poor customer service has become so much the standard that we are aghast by prompt and proper attention to problems?

  • Mimsy Rogers

    @ ajaynejr —–ew, just ew. I seem to recall being told something like that, actually. Kinda makes me wonder where the queen was at that time.

  • Thalassa

    It sounds like a mosquito bite to me. This is hilarious!

  • MichelleLV

    I think La Quinta handled this perfectly (and generously with the 50% discount) and I’m glad the guy who got bit by an insect (not bed bugs) did not over react. No one should go running to the ED because they got bit by an insect unless they are having an allergic reaction or EXCESSIVE swelling. I also don’t think that a hotel should be responsible for medical care bills unless they are ignoring an infestation. For all we know the guy brought in the insect with his own luggage or clothing. Kind of like the person who brought the norovirus on the cruise ship and became sick within hours of arrival. There is nothing the hotel could have done about it.

  • http://www.singleparenttravel.net John Frenaye

    Who is to say that he did not bring this bug (or whatever) into the room from the outside?

    And really, after being bitten, having your room cleaned and inspected, offered 50% off, and an offer to move rooms–you decide to email an ombudsman to see if it is OK? Seems kind of strange to me.

    But LQ did a great job. They did not give him a hard time. Took him at his word. Did what he asked. Offered to go a step or two beyond. And then without asking took that additional step by giving him 50% off.

  • http://www.picsof.asia Lemerou

    Reminds me of that night in Southern Thailand i woke up feeling a pain on my belly, only to find a half dozen bugs that had bitten me several times.
    And when i got up of bed to chase the bugs i saw four enormous cockroaches crawling on the floor…

  • Kim

    My skin is crawling just reading this discussion :)

  • John Clement

    I think it was bedbugs. Have you ever squished one? I have, and they are bloodier than a mosquito. When he reached to itch the bite he squashed the bug. I think he could have got full compensation if he’d asked for it.