I bought a Living Social Voucher a year ago and have had the worst experience dealing with RAMADA HISTORIC HOTEL in Downtown St. Augustine.
The first time I called, it took perhaps 3 minutes before anyone answered the phone.
I prepared to make my booking, but when I advised that I would be using my Living Social Voucher, the clerk immediately said: "we have rooms that weekend, but only SMOKING rooms."
I immediately felt that I was being discriminated against because of wanting to use my voucher. Still, I booked, but my plans changed and I called the next day to cancel.
Just recently I planned to gift my certificate to family members who were coming into town for the weekend.
The certificate states: "Not valid ON holidays", but my plan was to book for one night on the Friday before Labor Day.
Again, the phone rang an unusually long period of time. My first call was disconnected from the agent when she put me on hold. I called back. After about 30 rings, a woman picked up and was laughing in my ear, apparently carrying on a conversation with someone else there the whole time I was trying to get information and book this room.
Very unprofessional.
This time, I checked availability first and confirmed that NON SMOKING rooms were indeed available. Once this was done, only then did I advise that I was using Living Social Voucher. I was told that I could not use it due to the holiday.
I said "OK. Suppose I move my plans back a day, could I use my coupon on Thursday for one night?"
The response?"No. The holiday spans Thurs night, Fri night, Sat night, Sun night leading up to Labor Day.
I was being shut down on all fronts and my sense was that they do everything possible to deny the use of the Voucher or stick voucher holders in smoking rooms or other undesirable options.
I'm only out of $35.00 but of course, nobody likes to feel like they've been screwed by a business.
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