Sonesta complaint: Sonesta Hotels Double Charged

Good afternoon and thank you in advance for reading my email.

I had a very unfortunate experience at the hotel. I booked a stay there back in July through Booking.com for November 8-13th. I arrived on the 8th checked in and enjoyed my vacation, however, on the 12th at 11:46am, I received a voicemail asking why my stuff was still in the room. My adult children returned to the hotel to find that the key didn’t work. They went to the front desk and explained we were leaving on the 13th and they reinstated the keys.

We left on the 13th as planned and the charges for the hotel stay went through on the 14th. Today though, another charge went through – similar to the last $866 and some change and when I tried to call I was treated like trash. I spoke with a staff member at the property and he didn’t even want to listen to my story and refused to provide his name when I asked. He advised me to call back at 2pm to speak with the manager.

I did that and kept calling back until the manager arrived at 2:30pm. He got on the phone and told me that I had 2 reservations, which I didn’t, and even said that my card had been chipped and pinned on the 13th at 1am which is impossible since I was sleeping until I checked out at 5am that morning to catch my flight. The issue is fraud.

Someone at the hotel is outright lying and stealing money from unsuspecting guests. There are some things that cannot be tolerated and this is one of them. Due to the error, I spent 2.5 hours making phone calls only to be told I had to prove that I didn’t have 2 reservations which I did by suppling all of my travel documents to the hotel email. If I went to the lobby at 1 am I would very much like to see the camera footage. I also now have an overdrawn account because I used my ATM card to pay for the hotel and I’m moving in 2 days with a $715 deficit on my account that I now have to cover in addition to the security deposit and first months rent. Now I know that these little items are trivial to corporations, but they are quite a big deal to me, the consumer. And so I will do whatever I can to get my money released and spread the word so that this doesn’t happen to anyone else. I will never stay at one of your properties again and I will post as many negative reviews as I possible can so that my meager little voice can be heard.

I am truly baffled as to why the hotel business treats customers so poorly, especially when after a little digging, I found that I’m not the only one that this has happened to. Please, if there is any way humanly possible, advise the manager to release my fraudulently obtained money so I can get on with my life.