The Room That Smells of Smoke
A non-smoking guest checks into room 412 at 4 PM and returns to the desk at 4:20 PM reporting a strong cigarette smell and an ashtray on the balcony. The hotel is sold out, and the PMS shows no clean non-smoking rooms available. The guest has asthma and says she cannot stay in the room. Housekeeping confirms the previous occupant smoked and that the room was not properly cleaned. The only vacant room is a smoking-designated room on the second floor, which the guest refuses. A suite is held for a VIP arriving at 8 PM. The guest booked through a third-party site at a prepaid rate and is asking for a refund and to leave.
1. What should the agent offer, and how should the VIP suite be weighed?
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The agent should first acknowledge the failure honestly: the room was smoking-designated in practice and was not cleaned to standard, so this is the hotel's error, not a guest preference issue.
Options in priority order:
- Release the VIP suite if the VIP can be relocated or upgraded on arrival, or if the VIP is not yet confirmed to need that exact suite. A guest with a documented health condition who cannot use her assigned room outranks a held room whose purpose can be renegotiated.
- Walk the guest to a partner hotel at the property's expense, with transportation, if no suitable room exists on site.
- Refund or waive charges for the night, coordinating with the third-party booking channel since the prepaid rate is controlled by that channel.
The agent must not offer the smoking room again. The reasoning is that health and safety concerns and a hotel-caused failure justify overriding a held room, and the agent should get manager approval before releasing the suite or authorizing a walk.
2. The guest chooses to leave and wants a refund. What must the agent do to make the refund actually happen and to close the loop?
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Because the booking is prepaid through a third party, the hotel cannot simply reverse the charge on the guest's card. The agent should:
- Explain the channel relationship plainly and set expectations about timing.
- Contact the third-party provider to request a full refund or charge waiver, citing the room condition and the guest's health concern.
- Document the room number, the housekeeping confirmation, the guest's report, and the approval from the manager.
- Provide the guest with a written confirmation of the request and a reference number.
- Log the room out of service for deep cleaning and flag the previous occupant's record for a smoking fee if policy supports it.
- Follow up internally to confirm the refund was processed.
Reasoning: the guest's recourse runs through the booking channel, so the agent must initiate that process rather than promise a refund the hotel cannot issue directly. Documentation protects both the guest and the property, and taking the room out of service prevents the same failure for the next arrival.