I got bug bites after staying in a hotel room. The hotel manager promised me a full refund, but then issued only a partial refund for unused days because the pest control report was clean. I'm not sure whether my expectations are reasonable.
I booked a hotel room for 6 nights while on vacation. The hotel room itself smelled musty, but I didn't notice any signs of bed bugs myself. I always inspect upon arrival.
I started waking up each day with fresh bug bites that looked a lot like bedbug bites. I showed them to an entomologist friend, who agreed. I told the hotel manager on day 4 and showed him my bites. He offered to either move me to another room in the same hotel, or to refund my entire hotel stay so I could move to a different hotel. I chose the latter, as I couldn't stomach the idea of staying there any longer. The full refund allowed me to do so even though the new hotel was more expensive (it was still one of the least-expensive options I could find, and one of the few available last-minute). I confirmed with the manager several times that he would be refunding my entire stay.
I'm extremely cautious about bed bugs. I spent the rest of that day washing/drying my clothes on high heat, buying a thermometer to make sure my rental car got up to a high enough internal temp to kill off any eggs, etc. It was not a fun experience, but I didn't want to risk bringing bugs home or to the next hotel.
I moved to the new hotel and saw no more bug bites.
I called the manager to follow up. He said he'd refunded the full amount of the hotel stay to my card and it should show up in 1-2 days, he'd had the room sealed and had called pest control, and he'd follow up with me in 1-2 days about the pest control report.
I didn't hear back about the report, and I noticed he'd issued a partial refund for the 2 unused nights. I called him about it, and he said that since I stayed at the hotel, and the pest report showed no signs of bugs, it wasn't reasonable for me to expect a full refund. I said I understood, but he'd offered a full refund, he had never said anything about that full refund being contingent upon a clean pest report, and the full refund partly informed my decision to move to a new hotel. He suddenly got upset and obliquely accused me of making everything up. He said his boss would call me to discuss and he would email me a copy of the report, but it's been a couple days, and neither has happened.
My question is: Is it unreasonable of me to expect a full refund at this point? I totally understand where the hotel manager is coming from, since I did stay at the hotel, and the pest report was clean. However, he promised a full refund and then went back on his word; he said he'd processed a full refund but didn't; and I based a decision on his word. I don't have his promise in writing, though I did document everything on my own as it happened. I lost a half day of vacation dealing with this, though I'm not sure that's relevant.
Thank you everyone! |
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