I had a client/friend whose daughter was graduating this past weekend from North Eastern in Boston and Annie and I decided to go a day early and take in a game at Fenway.
Whilst the idea was a good one from the inception, how it played out was more dramatic. My client had booked our rooms originally back in December, so we had to add a room to the booking which proved to be difficult. So we booked a room back in March for one night at the same hotel to go to Fenway, being a dog friendly hotel, The Freepoint in Cambridge, a Hilton Hotel it would allow us to leave Jackie in the room when we went to the game.
However, drama was to ensue. Annie spoke to the hotel at four o'clock the night before we were to arrive and explained the situation and they confirmed we could stay in the same room, we just had to check out and check back in the next morning. Great!
Then at nine thirty the same evening, they cancelled our room, we called and spoke with them but they said they were oversold and had no choice as our third party booking site had overbooked and they had cancelled our reservation. We spoke to Booking.com who told us they had not cancelled the room, the hotel had cancelled it. I called Hilton Honors and they called the hotel, but they could do nothing other than confirm it was the hotel who had cancelled the reservation. I have since read this is a common occurrence when hotels have sold the room for a higher price.
We had several hours of angst as we thought we might have to miss the game, and lose our money on the tickets, until I had the idea to see when my client was arriving. So we booked a room at another hotel on the outskirts of Boston. She got in at 1.00, our game was 1.30, so we met her at the Amtrak Station, she was a little delayed about 15 minutes, she then took my car and Jackie and we took an Uber to the game. After the game we Ubered to the hotel and checked in, having stayed elsewhere the night before.
The game was awesome, this is a very unusual ballpark with the big green wall, and we were lucky enough to see a home run scored over the big green wall and a win for the Boston Red Sox. The weather was fabulous, we enjoyed the game, the atmosphere and the afternoon was a great hit.
We then arrived to check in, checking us in was the woman who had cancelled our reservation. She tried to tell me they had no choice. I stopped her and said there is always a choice. That Hilton Honors had told me they could see it was the hotel who had cancelled the reservation, not Booking.com. I think she realized how they had messed up all our plans, so they upgraded our room, gave us free parking and did not charge us for having Jackie with us.
Overall, other than the angst for three hours when the booking was cancelled it was a fabulous weekend, good friends, good food, fun times and seeing our friend's daughter graduate, a moment to remember and celebrate.
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