Getting Scammed in Park City
Issue #2009
- WEALTHY: Getting screwed over by a "high-class" hotel (Michael Masterson)
- HEALTHY: Are you wasting money on a dangerous drink? (Dr. Al Sears)
- WISE: Alice Macdougall on smart business practices
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- One reason for the huge success of CraigsList
- Feedback Friday: ETR readers on hype in advertising, part 3
- It’s Good to Know… about ZIP codes
- Add "capitulate" to your vocabulary
Hello Bob,
I finished The Billionaire Way about 10 days ago. Now I promise you I did not cheat on this so hear me out.
I started the first two or three days I think and there was a transaction I was involved in that I was not comfortable with but had an emotional attachment to. I sat down one night and crunched the numbers and made some tough decisions, all emotion aside.
Then about two weeks into the program there was the day when we had to exclude our emotions and cut off dead baggage. Wow, I felt like yeah, OK I’m getting this because I just did that.
OK so now I’m tearing along the program, accepting things that I am already doing and working on the things I am not comfortable with. Vigilantly everyday, watching the DVD after the kids were in bed and working my work book.
Two days after I finished the program I saw an opportunity which I could assess very well given my clarity of vision, my assessments of my talents and the work I had accomplished.
It is my joy to tell you that I am founding executive of a new international network marketing company, the likes of which have never been seen and I have already built my team Australia wide within 10 days, using the billionaire way techniques.
I lost my fear, opened my mind and listened and I cannot believe the result. Thank you so much…
Regards
Kathy
Learn more about The Billionaire Way program today…
"In business you get what you want by giving other people what they want."
Alice Macdougall
Getting Scammed in Park City
By Michael Masterson
Hotel Park City appears to be one of the best hotels in Park City, UT. Certainly, it’s one of the most expensive. But I have come to look at it as a high-class scam operation. If you had the same experience I did, I don’t think you would feel any differently.
Here’s the scam: You call to book a room. The price is very high. You ask if they are running any specials. They tell you that they are sorry, but the hotel is fully booked – that, in fact, the entire town is fully booked and this price is the best they can offer. You capitulate.
When you get to the hotel, everything is very nice and the staff is very friendly. But when you get to your room and take a look at their website, you discover that they are advertising rooms just like yours… at $200 a night less than what you are paying.
You have traveled enough to know that hotels routinely book rooms at whatever price the market will bear. So if you book at the peak of the season, you may end up paying "rack rate." ("Rack rate" is the official price of the room, which few people pay – the equivalent of first-class airfare.) But you’ve stayed at this hotel twice before. As a returning guest, you wonder why they didn’t automatically extend to you their best price – especially since you asked if they were running any specials.
And here’s the thing: If you book at one rate and then discover the hotel is currently selling the same room at a lower rate, they normally quickly and happily reduce the price you’re paying. After all, you are a potential source of future and referral income.
So you call the desk and politely speak to the young woman there. She politely tells you there is nothing she can do about it. You explain to her that you are not a first-time guest, that you are a frequent traveler, and that you are quite sure "normal" hotel protocol is to reduce the room rate to match the currently advertised rate. She repeats her mantra: "I’m sorry, but those are the rules." You ask to speak to her supervisor.
Before you explain your situation to her supervisor, you ask if she has any more authority than the desk clerk. She says she has, and so you tell her your story. She listens sympathetically… and then tells you that she is not authorized to reduce rates.
"Okay," you say, "I’ll pay for today at the old rate and then cancel my room and rebook online at the lower rate."
"If you do that, sir," she tells you, "we will charge you the full amount of your four-day reservation as a cancellation fee, plus the new rate."
"You are joking," you say.
She is not. So you ask to speak to the general manager, who is too busy to talk to you. When he finally calls you, he has the voice of a 19-year-old boy. You have the feeling that he is not the general manager at all, but one of those nice valets who have been opening the door for you.
Still, you go ahead and retell your sad story, and he tells you the same thing the head desk clerk told you: You have two choices – to pay an $800 penalty for booking on the phone instead of online… or to pay it anyway, along with several thousand more for rebooking online at the lower price.
You take a deep breath and ask the young man if he feels good about what he is doing. "I know you are following orders," you say. "But it must bother you to treat your guests this way, especially your returning guests."
He doesn’t say anything. You begin to feel sorry for him.
You tell him that you are going to write about this experience in your e-zine, which has more than 200,000 readers. And that you will do your best to have other publications that you are associated with – with a combined circulation that exceeds a million people a day – to reprint the story.
"I don’t think your bosses are going to like that," you tell him.
You can almost hear him gulp. He tells you that he didn’t say what he just said. That if you had given him a chance, he would have explained.
And so you ask him to explain.
He says that the higher rate was in effect when you booked, but just last week the hotel had a late cancellation of a block of rooms, and in order to fill them they began to advertise the reduced rate.
You point out that if they had enforced their cancellation policy with the group that cancelled, the hotel wouldn’t be short any money and would have no need to drop its prices. You ask him if they had, indeed, done that.
He won’t tell you. So then you point out that when this sort of thing happens with other major hotels, the customer routinely receives the reduced rate.
He says he will have the general-general manager call you back. You say you will be glad to talk to him, but you intend to run the story anyway to warn your readers about this problem.
"Please wait till you speak to my boss," he says.
Again, you feel sorry for him. His boss, not surprisingly, never calls.
Offering to match the lowest published rate for a returning guest should be a no-brainer for a hotel. In Hotel Park City’s case, "no-brainer" has an entirely different meaning. By treating a third-time guest the way they treated me, Hotel Park City made a foolish mistake. Not only have they lost my business, but they have created in me a perpetual negative publicity machine.
As an official policy, it makes sense for hotels to charge guests the rate at which they were registered. If they automatically discounted every room to the lowest rate available it would be difficult to maintain a profit. But there is, and always has been, a big difference between the official rate that hotels charge and the rate frequent users usually pay.
When booking, smart travelers always ask about special rates and discounts – and when you arrive at a hotel, after looking at a room, you should ask again.
Why? Because reservation agents and desk clerks are often instructed to follow a customer-service-satisfaction protocol known as "fading." Fading allows them to lower the rate if a prospective guest isn’t happy with the deal he’s being offered.
But even if a hotel doesn’t practice fading, it should always match its own advertised prices if a booked guest points it out.
Here is how some other hotels would have handled my request at the Hotel Park City:
- According to its website, Starwood Hotels (which includes Sheraton, Westin, Le Meridien, and others) won’t lower your rate if more than 24 hours has elapsed between the time you booked a room and the time you discovered it being offered at a reduced price. But that’s the official policy. In reality, the 24-hour-rule is negotiable. "There is some wiggle room," a spokesman said.
- There is also a 24-hour rule at Marriott Hotels and Resorts (which includes Fairfield Inn and Courtyard), but a Marriott reservation agent indicated that standard policy is to offer the customer the lower published rate at check-in if available, as long as the reservation was made through the hotel, the Marriott website, or its 800 number. (This is contingent on the rate not being a special deal subject to restrictions or listed as nonrefundable.)
- Hilton, which also runs Doubletree and Embassy Suites, will also change a guest’s reservation to the lower rate if it becomes available before they check in, said a Hilton reservation agent. Some rates (such as special offers) are nonrefundable, which is made clear when the reservation is made.
Keep in mind that you won’t be able to get a lower rate with the hotel if you book your room through a website such as Orbitz or Expedia. The smart way to use these online services is to see what they can give you… and then see if you can get as good a deal by booking directly.
The bottom line is that most hotels are more than happy to give their customers lower rates if they are currently advertising them. But you must have booked your room through them. And you must ask for it.
So ask for it. Just don’t ask for it at Hotel Park City.
[Ed. Note: Learn how you can be part of an exclusive group of 25 to 50 ambitious businesspeople that Michael will be leading through an elite 5-day program that can help you dramatically increase the profitability of your business here.]
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Worth Quoting: Craig Newmark, Founder and Chairman of CraigsList, on Customer Service
"We are a very open, very democratic site, which means we get all sorts of people. We do get some bad guys who are a few fries short of a Happy Meal. So we have to enlist the aid of our community to help us. The lesson implicit in this is that people will help you out and behave in a really good way. If you trust them, they will respond to that trust.
"American corporate culture seems to devalue customer service in a big way. I say, go the other way. Do it right. Trust your customers. Give them power to do things right. Service costs will drop, and customers will become more devoted to your products and services. This ain’t rocket science."
(Source: Business 2.0)
Bad News About Bottled Water
By Al Sears, MD
If you think paying high prices for bottled water protects your health, I have bad news. Many brands are full of chemicals and bacteria. Common tap water has stricter purity standards and, in many cases, is better for you.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates tap water, but the FDA oversees the bottled water industry. And, by law, the FDA has the power to selectively follow the EPA’s rules – enforcing some and ignoring others. This gives big business the opportunity to sell you expensive bottled water that is anything but safe. And if you think bottled water isn’t a "big business," think again. Global sales top $35 billion every year.
Here are some of the surprising results from a recent study by the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC):
- Over 25 percent of bottled water is actually tap water from municipal water supplies.
- A popular brand of "spring water" – with a label depicting a lake and mountains – comes from a well in the parking lot of an industrial facility. (The parking lot is right next door to a hazardous waste dump.)
- About 30 percent of bottled water has chemical and bacterial contamination above the levels considered safe by state and industry regulations.
- In some cases, levels of arsenic in the bottled water tested by the NRDC were at "a level of potential health concern."
Your best bet for safe, clean drinking water is to put in an under-sink purifier. The reverse-osmosis type is very reliable. If you don’t want to invest the money to do that, a simple pitcher with a charcoal filter is better than most bottled water.
[Ed. Note: Dr. Sears, a practicing physician and the author of The Doctor's Heart Cure, is a leading authority on longevity, physical fitness, and heart health.]
Feedback Friday: Less Hype, More Value, Part 3
In Michael’s recent ETR article, "A Short Lesson in Quality Advertising," he made the case against "hypey" marketing copy. The article brought in dozens of e-mails from our readers – some agreeing with him, some disagreeing. We printed lots of their comments in ETR #1997 and ETR #2003 . And we have even more…
"I’m getting increasingly tired of the hype in the many different free newsletters I get every day, too many to actually read despite the interesting comments. The information is mostly just teaser material for a high-priced service.
"While there is value in a lot of [it], it has become a juggernaut. The flood of stuff in my inbox becomes overwhelming and I’m more tempted to unsubscribe and tune out for a while than ever, realizing I would likely miss some very good nuggets of financial advice and words of wisdom by doing so.
"For me, definitely, less would be more."
- Joe Buhler
Wilton, CT
"Of course, good ad copy must emphasize the features and benefits of any product or idea that is being marketed; however, when the copy leads a reader to believe that with minimal work they will reap big rewards from a business idea and doesn’t balance the message with some discussion of the real challenges a person may face, then an intelligent prospect will ask themselves if there’s something the marketer has left out or glossed over about the true cost or effort involved in using the product or business system that’s being marketed.
"I believe good ad copy should have a prospect nodding his or her head in agreement as the copy is being read so that by the end of the ad, a prospect says ‘I can agree with everything they say, it’s believable or doable in my mind, and I am going to order it now.’"
- Chris Larson
Arlington, TX
"I think the reason the hypey ads perform best in the short-term but less well over time is that our human nature betrays us. We all want a quick-fix solution to whatever we are facing – lack of money, lack of knowledge, lack of good health, etc. – so we are more inclined to respond right away to the advertiser that goes overboard in promising us a solution that, in reality, is either too-good-to-be-true or requires more effort than we are willing to put forth. The less-hypey copy doesn’t move us to action as quickly, but eventually we realize there is ‘no free lunch,’ and we then opt for something more reasonable and sensible, albeit less flashy or spectacular than what we might have wished for.
"I am now pretty skeptical of the hypey advertiser, especially if I have never heard of them. The companies that deliver over time (like Agora, Matt Furey, Bob Proctor, etc.) always get my attention, and I am going to read every marketing piece they deliver. The marketers that drum up the sad-sack story of going from broke to millionaire in 30 days or other such schlock have me running for the exits! Advertising does have to have sizzle to be effective, but, in the end, you can’t have repeat customers without the steak as well!"
- Jim Hallett
Clarkston, MI
"Thank you for answering an important question for ETR readers who are in business for themselves. Your experience with profits (short-term good, long-term not so good) mirrors what I am experiencing in my clinical nutrition practice. I can really rope ‘em in and, generally, the information and recommendations I provide are very helpful. I have a good reputation because I deliver as promised. However, most of my clients drop out of sight after one year or even less. Where did they go?
"Did I educate my clients on how to live healthy lives too well? Now they don’t need me anymore? I don’t think so. Anyway, your article on ‘Less Hype, More Value’ prompted me to reply because it really hit home. I’m for less hype and more substance in all things, but I’m especially motivated to find out where the heck are the hundreds of people I ‘helped’ but who no longer use my services."
- R. Davis
Poway, CA
"Great column. One I’ve been longing to read from ETR. "
Janus Milo
Toronto, Ontario
It’s Good to Know: About ZIP Codes
ZIP (Zone Improvement Plan) codes got their start on July 1, 1963. The first of the five-digit numbers indicates the state or area, the next two digits indicate a smaller area within that area, and the last two digits designate a local post office.
(Source: American Philatelic Society)
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Word to the Wise: Capitulate
To "capitulate" (kuh-PICH-uh-late) – from the Latin for "to draw up in sections" – is to accept defeat.
Example (as I used it today): "You call to book a room. The price is very high. You ask if they have any discounts. They tell you that they are sorry, but the hotel is fully booked – that, in fact, the entire town is fully booked and this price is the best they can offer. You capitulate."
[Ed. Note: Become a more persuasive writer and speaker ... build your self-confidence and intellect ... increase your attractiveness to others ... just by spending 10 VERY enjoyable minutes a day with ETR's new Words to the Wise CD Library.]
Michael Masterson
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2007
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