Me likey unexpected money

It appears from looking through my archives that I never wrote about the “lovely” hotel we stayed at in Clearwater Beach in October. We had booked the night before and after our wedding about a month or so in advance for a special rate. The booking was fully non-refundable and so when we checked out a day early to avoid being on the coast when Hurricane Wilma hit, the hotel refused to issue us a refund. I found that particularly wrong due to the circumstances, but wasn’t in the mood to argue. The reservations manager said there was a credit on our account that could be used toward a future stay, provided it was used before December 30th 2005. Seeing as how we had no plans on returning to Florida that soon, that was little consolation.

Not one to let things go to waste, however, I asked friends and family whether they’d be traveling to the area, but no one was interested. So I ended up offering the room to our wedding photographer. She lives in the area, but I thought it might be a nice little one night getaway she could share with her boyfriend. She accepted and I called the hotel to make the reservations. The catch was I couldn’t go through the regular reservations desk because they’d charge my card first and then supposedly reimburse me. Yea right, I don’t trust that and I’d be damned if I was going to risk paying twice for a room I wasn’t even staying in.

I asked to speak to the woman who had given us the credit, but she no longer worked there. Her replacement was mysteriously never available, and I left her messages to no avail. I felt like a jerk telling the photographer it wasn’t going to work, but what can you do? So imagine my surprise when I got an e-mail from Discover today informing me that the hotel posted a credit to my account. Sweet! I guess that wasn’t necessarily a non-refundable rate after all. Muhahaha! I’ll never stay there again anyway: there was a cockroach dying in the hallway when we walked in, one very small and slow cramped elevator, and a dirty place all around. The only saving grace was the free internet access.