Room Rate Not Refundable , What Says The Law In Thailand About This?

[lemoncake]

Now we got all the stories !!!

There is laws that state what can be done etc. it is not up to the hotel to decide what they want !!

Of course theyt have to refund !

But as it started, he got discount because he booked 1 month, now he want only 3 weeks, then no discount, so 3 weeks cost the same as the month !!!

Yes it is up to hotel to decide, especially when its clearly shown.

You do not like/accept hotel rules, you go elsewhere

[Berkshire]

Of course theyt have to refund !

Of course, they do not.

[TenDreams]

Give it a rest!!!

With the exclamation marks!!!

It makes for very abrasive reading!!??

[tw25rw]

Lemoncake what is wrong with drinking the beer then restocking it ? If this is done before you check i don't see the harm (if its the same beer)

Other stuff your 100% right.

If you shoplift something, then go back and replace it, is it not really stealing?

[LawrenceChee]

The problems for hotels with guests who take something and replace it later is simpl.

When the staff sees the missing item, they must bill you as it is assumed that you consumed it ; it's impossible for the hotel to discern if you are "replacer" kind of guest at checkout or you really just don't care about the amount and just want the convenience

If they do not bill you and it's found later to be a discrepancy, then the managers involved are deemed to be inept if its a high ratio

If they do , the "replacer" brigade will rant and scream at the desk and demand a refund

Hoteliers cannot win ...as such I always suggest to the owners with high end hotels to have that service and write off the losses and most budget and lower end hotels best to do without so that your front line staff gets less abuse

[TommoPhysicist]

Lemoncake what is wrong with drinking the beer then restocking it ? If this is done before you check i don't see the harm (if its the same beer)

Other stuff your 100% right.

If you shoplift something, then go back and replace it, is it not really stealing?

Definition of stealing includes the words "permanently deprive the owner", so by definition replacing is officially not stealing.

[tw25rw]

Lemoncake what is wrong with drinking the beer then restocking it ? If this is done before you check i don't see the harm (if its the same beer)

Other stuff your 100% right.

If you shoplift something, then go back and replace it, is it not really stealing?

Definition of stealing includes the words "permanently deprive the owner", so by definition replacing is officially not stealing.

The contents of the fridge are stock, not just left there to save you a trip to 7-11. So by replacing it, you are permanently depriving them of the profit they would have made had you done the right thing. Not saying I haven't done it, but that's the truth of it.

[GrantSmith]

Splitting hairs much?

Really, at the end of the day if said stock is replaced prior to the guest checking out, how do you, as a hotelier know any different?

[LawrenceChee]

You would notice the difference if you are depending on the profits on feeding your family and empire much as you depend on your boss paying your salary on time or your government paying your pension on time for your next singha

[Ricardo]

The OP wanted one week refunded, out of a one month stay.

But given that many places give a good discounted monthly-rate, is it possible that he should have paid more for three weeks on-daily-rate, than he'd already paid for a month at monthly-rate ?

It would seem unfair to the hotel/guesthouse, if one stayed as long as one wanted, and then picked whichever rate worked out worst, for the hotel.

Not saying this was the case, in this particular instance, but ...

[robblok]

You would notice the difference if you are depending on the profits on feeding your family and empire much as you depend on your boss paying your salary on time or your government paying your pension on time for your next singha

Still no difference if you replace it before, how about i put something int here before i drink it.. still depriving the hotel in this case ?

Its splitting hairs for sure in general i just put some stuff of myself in the fridge and drink it.

I am self employed too but i would not consider it stealing maybe if you put on a normal price people would pay instead of buying it at 711.

Greed is what cuts in your profit the most, if you sell things at normal prices people are far more likely to buy it.

[scorecard]

There's a milion stories about hotel owners and guests.

I spent 80% of my time for 10 years in and out of hotels all over Asia, finished that project about 10 years back.

Worst experience was a 5 star hotel In Pattaya, company booked 5 rooms for a meeting, 3 night stay. All booked about 5 or 6 weeks in advance on Agoda or similar (Agoda just an example).

After check in the duty manager came to my room and said that there was a mistake in the room rate when the rooms were booked and he wanted 400Baht more per room per day.

I told him to wait and I checked online, in fact the rate was cheaper than the rate we had already reveived weeks earlier. I refused to pay and got every excuse in the book how the extra money would be deducted from his salary.

One morning one of my colleagues was workling in his room and the room maid asked if she could clean the room, he agreed. He noticed that the maid took one of the unused white towels to finish cleaning the bathroom, to dry the floor.

An hour later the duty manager knocked on my door and said he wanted 200Baht reimbursement to replace the towel my colleague had ruined. I called my colleague and he was shocked and informed me about the maid using the towel. I refused to pay.

More hassles on check out so I called the hotel management company in Singapore, they apologised and told the cashier to drop the extra charges.

My assumption (repeat assumption) was that the duty manager was trying a scam to gain some extra s[ending power.

Never ever had anything like this before or again.

amazing story... goes to show the sloppiness and perhaps the pressure some of the hotel employees are under... once the room was prepaid via an OTA like Agoda and booking confirmed...it's a done deal...there's no avenue to say that the rate was wrong... this type of pressure to maximize revenue depending on wayward occupancy is a hotel industry malady... and the intense pressure the employees can be subjected to can result in bizarre behaviour from some of the less mature ones... if this was indeed a 5 star property then what you describe is a failure of leadership and appropriate training within the said hotel. The creative way of gettng back at you by trying to charge for a soiled towel says it all... the brand suffers as a result..and clearly you came away with a pretty poor taste in your mouth... I find it very odd that a duty manager would plead with a guest to pay more (or lose part of his salary) when the guest has prepaid for the room via a verifiable channel and has documented evidence and confirmation from the hotel... what kind of 5 star is this ?

Yes I did come away with a negative image of this venue and I told my staff to never book it again because of the experience, and of course the whole team who stayed at the hotel, plus the Bkk office staff etc.,were well aware of what had happened. Further:

1. Given the experience we had, my thoughts were that: It happened once, maybe it's 'normal' for this hotel, so I won't give them any second opportunity.

2. My team are all professional people, what opinion would they have of their leader booking this hotel again? Obviously they would see their leader as lacking in common sense at least. Further, If I did book it again I'm signalling to my team that poor decisions like this are acceptable from them.

As you say, the brand suffers.

[lemoncake]

You would notice the difference if you are depending on the profits on feeding your family and empire much as you depend on your boss paying your salary on time or your government paying your pension on time for your next singha

Still no difference if you replace it before, how about i put something int here before i drink it.. still depriving the hotel in this case ?

Its splitting hairs for sure in general i just put some stuff of myself in the fridge and drink it.

I am self employed too but i would not consider it stealing maybe if you put on a normal price people would pay instead of buying it at 711.

Greed is what cuts in your profit the most, if you sell things at normal prices people are far more likely to buy it.

It all depends what you call "normal"

Some pay 25 000 000 for a car and consider it normal

[robblok]

You would notice the difference if you are depending on the profits on feeding your family and empire much as you depend on your boss paying your salary on time or your government paying your pension on time for your next singha

Still no difference if you replace it before, how about i put something int here before i drink it.. still depriving the hotel in this case ?

Its splitting hairs for sure in general i just put some stuff of myself in the fridge and drink it.

I am self employed too but i would not consider it stealing maybe if you put on a normal price people would pay instead of buying it at 711.

Greed is what cuts in your profit the most, if you sell things at normal prices people are far more likely to buy it.

It all depends what you call "normal"

Some pay 25 000 000 for a car and consider it normal

Quite true but there is a bell curve about what price is acceptable, and using that you often see that you get more sales by a lower price but lower margin. It can still be better then that 1 high sale. (but you have to work less for that one high sale)

Anyway different views on how to run things and your hotel your rules. But i doubt you could enforce it that if someone uses a beer and replaces it by the same one before its checked that it is added to the bill (hard to know too)

But you never said that someone else did.

[Scottythai]

Lemoncake what is wrong with drinking the beer then restocking it ? If this is done before you check i don't see the harm (if its the same beer)

Other stuff your 100% right.

If you shoplift something, then go back and replace it, is it not really stealing?

Definition of stealing includes the words "permanently deprive the owner", so by definition replacing is officially not stealing.

The contents of the fridge are stock, not just left there to save you a trip to 7-11. So by replacing it, you are permanently depriving them of the profit they would have made had you done the right thing. Not saying I haven't done it, but that's the truth of it.

Wow very poor analogy. If I rent the store for 3 days and its my own space then take something and replace it before the rental agreement was finished by deffinition of the law no it is not stealing. One rents with the promise of returning the room and contents in the condition when they are done with it. You have a unique view on this but they why would hotels not make teh fridge a veding machine and make yo upay for it in your world?

[tw25rw]

The contents of the fridge are stock, not just left there to save you a trip to 7-11. So by replacing it, you are permanently depriving them of the profit they would have made had you done the right thing. Not saying I haven't done it, but that's the truth of it.

Wow very poor analogy. If I rent the store for 3 days and its my own space then take something and replace it before the rental agreement was finished by deffinition of the law no it is not stealing. One rents with the promise of returning the room and contents in the condition when they are done with it. You have a unique view on this but they why would hotels not make teh fridge a veding machine and make yo upay for it in your world?

No. The contents of the fridge are priced and the tariff is available. If you take something out, you have agreed to its purchase at the listed price. If you then go to 7-11 and buy it cheaper and put it into the fridge, the hotelier might not notice, but they have still been deprived of the profit they were entitled to.

[ozziebloke]

The contents of the fridge are stock, not just left there to save you a trip to 7-11. So by replacing it, you are permanently depriving them of the profit they would have made had you done the right thing. Not saying I haven't done it, but that's the truth of it.

Wow very poor analogy. If I rent the store for 3 days and its my own space then take something and replace it before the rental agreement was finished by deffinition of the law no it is not stealing. One rents with the promise of returning the room and contents in the condition when they are done with it. You have a unique view on this but they why would hotels not make teh fridge a veding machine and make yo upay for it in your world?

No. The contents of the fridge are priced and the tariff is available. If you take something out, you have agreed to its purchase at the listed price. If you then go to 7-11 and buy it cheaper and put it into the fridge, the hotelier might not notice, but they have still been deprived of the profit they were entitled to.

Iv'e often gone to the 7/11 and bought drinks usually more than i need and leave the them in the fridge when I leave the hotel and that is 90% of the time, How does that change the tariff?

[tw25rw]

The contents of the fridge are stock, not just left there to save you a trip to 7-11. So by replacing it, you are permanently depriving them of the profit they would have made had you done the right thing. Not saying I haven't done it, but that's the truth of it.

Wow very poor analogy. If I rent the store for 3 days and its my own space then take something and replace it before the rental agreement was finished by deffinition of the law no it is not stealing. One rents with the promise of returning the room and contents in the condition when they are done with it. You have a unique view on this but they why would hotels not make teh fridge a veding machine and make yo upay for it in your world?

No. The contents of the fridge are priced and the tariff is available. If you take something out, you have agreed to its purchase at the listed price. If you then go to 7-11 and buy it cheaper and put it into the fridge, the hotelier might not notice, but they have still been deprived of the profit they were entitled to.

Iv'e often gone to the 7/11 and bought drinks usually more than i need and leave the them in the fridge when I leave the hotel and that is 90% of the time, How does that change the tariff?

It doesn't. It's a freeby for a cleaner.

[robblok]

The contents of the fridge are stock, not just left there to save you a trip to 7-11. So by replacing it, you are permanently depriving them of the profit they would have made had you done the right thing. Not saying I haven't done it, but that's the truth of it.

Wow very poor analogy. If I rent the store for 3 days and its my own space then take something and replace it before the rental agreement was finished by deffinition of the law no it is not stealing. One rents with the promise of returning the room and contents in the condition when they are done with it. You have a unique view on this but they why would hotels not make teh fridge a veding machine and make yo upay for it in your world?

No. The contents of the fridge are priced and the tariff is available. If you take something out, you have agreed to its purchase at the listed price. If you then go to 7-11 and buy it cheaper and put it into the fridge, the hotelier might not notice, but they have still been deprived of the profit they were entitled to.

actually they make the bill afterwards and its then when you have to pay so its nowhere in the rules the way you state. You just have to leave the room and fridge the way you found it. I also doubt any hotelier would call it stealing.

I don't really care as i often put my stuff in first but even if not i would not loose any sleep over it.

[taninthai]

A few hotels I've been have stickers on the drinks in the mini bar which puts an end to replacing them with ones bought from 7/11 problem solved.

[lemoncake]

A few hotels I've been have stickers on the drinks in the mini bar which puts an end to replacing them with ones bought from 7/11 problem solved.

do not even try it it creates more headaches than its worth.

I use to stamp all the mini bar stock with a little stamp (from the kids stamp collection) it was basically not noticeable unless you knew where to look.

Every time someone did the "refill" they would be caught, but would stand there with steam coming out of their mouth and nose swearing on their mother and kids that they did not "refill"

I since developed a new system, which seems to work pretty well, no doubt a few refills may pass, but nothing major.

Now, mini bar is checked and refilled daily,staff writes up a bill on 3 copy, 1 copy for customer account and 1 copy goes on to the fridge.

If mistake was made, people come down instantly with a bill to advise they did not drink or had less, but those who wanted to "refill" already know they been billed for it.

If someone really wants to be an <deleted>, i have CCTV all over the place and happy to replay for them, time when they carried the drinks even down to what drinks, as my camera's are pretty good and allow for zooming in as well.

[tw25rw]

actually they make the bill afterwards and its then when you have to pay so its nowhere in the rules the way you state. You just have to leave the room and fridge the way you found it. I also doubt any hotelier would call it stealing.

I don't really care as i often put my stuff in first but even if not i would not loose any sleep over it.

You aren't just paying for something missing when you leave. You are paying for using their service and goods supplied. Or in this case not paying. It's part of their revenue stream, so yes it is stealing even if just petty theft.

[robblok]

actually they make the bill afterwards and its then when you have to pay so its nowhere in the rules the way you state. You just have to leave the room and fridge the way you found it. I also doubt any hotelier would call it stealing.

I don't really care as i often put my stuff in first but even if not i would not loose any sleep over it.

You aren't just paying for something missing when you leave. You are paying for using their service and goods supplied. Or in this case not paying. It's part of their revenue stream, so yes it is stealing even if just petty theft.

I see it differently and wonder what a court would say about it. Anyway its not an issue for me as i mostly buy my own stuff and put it the fridge. They just don't have what i want anyway.

[naboo]

If people are restocking the fridge minibar then the mark up is too high.

[lemoncake]

If people are restocking the fridge minibar then the mark up is too high.

or they are cheap charlies who would walk 20 mins to save 1 baht

Water in my mini bar is 10 baht, while in 7-11 same size is 9baht, do you think my marks up are too high?

Soft drinks 20 baht, while same size in 7-11 is sold for 17 baht, still think my mark ups too high?

[tw25rw]

If people are restocking the fridge minibar then the mark up is too high.

or they are cheap charlies who would walk 20 mins to save 1 baht

Water in my mini bar is 10 baht, while in 7-11 same size is 9baht, do you think my marks up are too high?

Soft drinks 20 baht, while same size in 7-11 is sold for 17 baht, still think my mark ups too high?

Some of the high end hotel minibar prices are insanely expensive though. More than you'd pay in a shop in the west.

[naboo]

If people are restocking the fridge minibar then the mark up is too high.

or they are cheap charlies who would walk 20 mins to save 1 baht

Water in my mini bar is 10 baht, while in 7-11 same size is 9baht, do you think my marks up are too high?

Soft drinks 20 baht, while same size in 7-11 is sold for 17 baht, still think my mark ups too high?

Scrap it then. Not worth the hassle.

[Scottythai]

The contents of the fridge are stock, not just left there to save you a trip to 7-11. So by replacing it, you are permanently depriving them of the profit they would have made had you done the right thing. Not saying I haven't done it, but that's the truth of it.

Wow very poor analogy. If I rent the store for 3 days and its my own space then take something and replace it before the rental agreement was finished by deffinition of the law no it is not stealing. One rents with the promise of returning the room and contents in the condition when they are done with it. You have a unique view on this but they why would hotels not make teh fridge a veding machine and make yo upay for it in your world?

No. The contents of the fridge are priced and the tariff is available. If you take something out, you have agreed to its purchase at the listed price. If you then go to 7-11 and buy it cheaper and put it into the fridge, the hotelier might not notice, but they have still been deprived of the profit they were entitled to.

In the situation where rental is applied then like for like would be the ideal. Think of hotels that have the towel price on a list and before you ask were many do including the 5* ones who have lost so many of then. If you take said towel out in your logic that is theft. Even if you just go to the pool once it leaves your room this is thieft

[tw25rw]

The contents of the fridge are stock, not just left there to save you a trip to 7-11. So by replacing it, you are permanently depriving them of the profit they would have made had you done the right thing. Not saying I haven't done it, but that's the truth of it.

Wow very poor analogy. If I rent the store for 3 days and its my own space then take something and replace it before the rental agreement was finished by deffinition of the law no it is not stealing. One rents with the promise of returning the room and contents in the condition when they are done with it. You have a unique view on this but they why would hotels not make teh fridge a veding machine and make yo upay for it in your world?

No. The contents of the fridge are priced and the tariff is available. If you take something out, you have agreed to its purchase at the listed price. If you then go to 7-11 and buy it cheaper and put it into the fridge, the hotelier might not notice, but they have still been deprived of the profit they were entitled to.

In the situation where rental is applied then like for like would be the ideal. Think of hotels that have the towel price on a list and before you ask were many do including the 5* ones who have lost so many of then. If you take said towel out in your logic that is theft. Even if you just go to the pool once it leaves your room this is thieft

I can't believe that anyone is arguing the point. Hotels almost always have a tariff showing the price of things in their fridge and conditions of usage saying that if you use it, you pay for it at their price and cannot replace it from outside. Read it next time you check into a hotel. Towels have nothing to do with it.

[Scottythai]

O I know what your saying but you are missing my point. You rent the room and rent the contents in it. If you return like for like by the time your cleaning lady is there the next morning thats fair game. BUT smart hotels use a sticker system and put them on their products and when you replace them they don't have a sticker you get charged and they normaly keep what ever you re sticked with as well.

As these are duscussion boards I would think this is a discussion. I think if you are arguing then ya need a break