They didn’t leave the light on for me

Question: I’m having a problem with a hotel voucher that has turned out to be useless, and was hoping you could help me. Last summer, I took my daughter and 4-year-old granddaughter to San Antonio to visit SeaWorld. We stayed at the Motel 6 on Market Square, where I had been a guest more than a dozen times in the past.

Unfortunately, my granddaughter found a makeshift crack pipe that a previous guest had fashioned by breaking the energy-efficient CFR light bulb provided in the room. It was hidden in the light fixture so, understandably, the housekeeping staff overlooked it. Fortunately, my grandchild was not cut or injured by this glass shard.

The office staff and the national customer service people were extremely conciliatory about the incident. The local Motel 6 staff in San Antonio mailed a free room certificate as compensation for our discomfort.

A few months later, we planned a short trip to a town near my home in Dallas to visit relatives. Ordinarily we would have made this a day trip but decided to stay in Tyler, Texas, to use our free room voucher. The staff at the Tyler, Texas Motel 6 refused to honor the certificate because the San Antonio hotel did not correctly fill it out. I had no choice but to pay for the room.

After making calls to Motel 6 corporate and checking with the San Antonio office that issued the voucher, we were sent a letter from a supervisor that basically told us to get lost. I am stunned that a company as big as Motel 6 with its “we’ll-leave-the-light-on” philosophy would treat customers like this. Can you help? — Ellie Pope, Lancaster, Texas

Answer: If Motel 6 wanted to compensate you with a free room night, it should have sent vouchers you could use. It appears the ones you received were not valid, and the property in Tyler was well within its rights to refuse them.

But I’m not sure a hotel should be giving you a free night because of something a previous guest left in the room. Should the cleaning staff have found the crack pipe? Absolutely. But they didn’t put it there. If you’re staying at the kind of hotel where there’s drug paraphernalia to be found then an apology and an offer to move you to another room would have probably been sufficient.

Based on your previous experience at that property, I take it this wasn’t the kind of hotel where there’s drug paraphernalia to be found, which accounts for your shock and the management’s reaction, which was to offer room vouchers.

It’s always a good idea to look over the vouchers before accepting them and to ask about the terms. Can they be used at any hotel in the chain, or just at the one issuing it? When do the certificates expire? Also, is everything filled out correctly (vouchers often need to be validated with a signature, for example)?

Your certificates were missing key information, including an expiration date.

You could have also phoned the Motel 6 in Tyler to find out if the vouchers would be accepted. That way, you might have either been able to fix the problem or make other plans before you were faced with an unexpected hotel bill.

I contacted Motel 6 on your behalf. It apologized for the experience in San Antonio and the difficulties with redeeming the voucher. It sent you five validated vouchers, each good for a room night at any Motel 6.

  • Joe Farrell

    I would think the first mistake is staying at Motel 6 in the first instance. Sorry, but the old adage that you get what you pay for . . .

  • Jim

    If a hotel gives you a voucher, you shouldn’t have to call around to make sure it’s good.

  • Jennifer

    Chris, I usually enjoy your columns. However, has there ever been an instance where you didn’t blame the customer? I have yet to read a single troubleshooter column where you didn’t place blame on the customer even when as here, the customer was not at all at fault.

    In this case, all that mattered was that Ms. Pope was issued a voucher. It should have been good and wasn’t. That’s Motel 6′s problem, not Ms. Pope’s. It is completely irrelevant why she was issued a voucher. If you feel the story is less interesting without the crack pipe angle, you’re free not to write it.

    There are times when the customer is wrong, maybe lots of times, but not every time. I certainly would hesitate to ask you for help because it wouldn’t be worth whatever compensation or assistance I was seeking.

  • Lianne

    Right on Jennifer! You’re asking the traveler to be rather cynical to call around and question a voucher she got in the mail after the fact.

    Whether or not Ms Pope was *owed* the voucher, the motel chain saw fit to *give* her one as a “good will” gesture. They can’t just blow her off on a technicality later and expect her not be upset.

    and @ Joe Farrell

    I often agree with your comments, so I really hope you aren’t insinuating that budget travelers aren’t deserving of a clean room or decent customer service. Motel 6 may not be the Waldorf Astoria, but it is a nationally recognized chain and should have basic standards of service.

  • Chicky

    C’mon Joe, not all of us who travel have expense accounts and can stay at the really nice places. Most of the Motel 6 properties where I’ve stayed have delivered on the promise of a clean, comfortable room. A Motel 6 in Greenwood Village, CO, in fact, had some of the most comfortable beds I’ve ever slept on. I usually travel for pleasure, which means I’m generally just in my room to sleep. I don’t need all the extras. So please don’t turn your nose up at a company that provides what a lot of us are looking for.

    And Chris, I hate to pig pile on you, but I have to say Jennifer, Jim and Lianne make valid points. A voucher is a voucher. If they’re not good, don’t issue them. If it was only good for the San Antonio property, the manager should have told her this. Travelers are responsible for their travel, to a certain extent, but shouldn’t have to play Sherlock Holmes in every case, just to ferret out facts they should have been told by the people who knew what they were talking about. Motel 6 dropped the ball on this one. Still, I’m glad your intervention helped this woman get some satisfaction.

  • Fred Yoder

    Good Morning!

    Motel 6 may not owe Ms. Pope a voucher for her child finding a meth pipe in the room. But if the pipe was in fact fashioned from a CFL bulb, she may want to talk to her doctor and a lawyer about her grand-daughter’s exposure to mercury (a potent neurotoxin, especially in children). Also, I wonder about the need for testing her for exposure to methamphetamine (again, a potent toxin). Or is the motel exempt from all responsilility? The smell of smoking meth is pretty potent, someone on the cleaning staff would have noticed it, and may have reported it. The CFL bulb was broken and at least part of it would have been in the trash, indicating a need for more detailed clean up to deal with the mercury. Perhaps that more thourough cleanup would have found the meth pipe, before Ms Pope’s family (and how many others? Guests, staff) were exposed.

  • Kevin

    This is a case of fool me once, shame on you; Fool me twice, shame on me.

    Bad service (crack pipe in the room — and the gases from those new CFC bulbs are deadly and are supposed to be handled by Hazmat teams if broken because of mercury AND a bad voucher) at one location does not mean that service should be expected to be better at another location. Write off Motel 6 as a location to stay at and move on to somewhere else. Receiving vouchers from Motel 6 for future stays is like getting certificates to a restaurant that is infested with pests. You still don’t want to go back.

    Lots of these complaints that Chris Elliott responds to are the fault of the consumer. If you get a voucher and you require a reservation, you have plenty of time to ask if the voucher will be accepted at the time of the reservation. Or you might get an idea if there might be a problem, since these hotels are franchises and each one has its own rules.

  • Chris

    This is an aside here (not at all related to the main issue) but cfl bulbs are not highly toxic. They have about 2 milligrams of mercury in them (some do have up to 5mg) so if you inhale about 20-30 bulbs worth of “stuff” then you’re in trouble. They do not need to be handled by hazmat teams.

  • ric kempton

    c’mon chris, why focus on the fog….who cares about the pipe, or cfls…the point is, the room was not as advertised or expected, management concurred and issues a voucher. the consumer should be able to trust that this situation was made right and the voucher was good, and if not, management in tyler should have called and verified and made it right.

    it was good of chris to get motel 6 to issue the other vouchers, but it should have gone further to refund the money for the improper charged nights stay. a lot of trust is put in a hotel for, as a minimum, a safe, quiet, comfortable nights stay…a very basic expectation…if they dont deliver…then forget the voucher, refund all fees, because the hotel did not deliver the service.

  • http://www.brandlogic.com Emerson

    Sorry Chris,
    This time you are wrong. Why they gave out a voucher isn’t the issue, and you certainly shouldn’t have to call around to make sure it will work.