I recently stayed at the Park Central while attending the New York Gift Fair with my boss and unfortunately, encountered numerous problems. Upon arriving we discovered there was trouble with our reservation. I booked two rooms, one for each of us. They had my reservation but, for some reason, not his. Even though we had confirmation numbers and identical confirmation pages that I printed before we left, they claimed that the one reservation was no where to be found and in fact, "did not exist". They explained that they weren’t sure what happened but, they had plenty of rooms so, it wouldn’t be a problem. But, indeed it was a problem. Since we booked the rooms through the gift fair, the rate was much less than the hotel's standard rate and since the reservation “didn’t exist” we were told that we would have to pay the significantly higher rate for the lost reservation. So, the problem was not that they didn't have a room, it was that they didn't want to let a room go (that would have sat empty otherwise) for the lower rate.....how cheesy is that? We complained and asked to see the manager who pretty much told us the same thing. Since, we didn’t have much of a choice (my boss needed a room) we had to begrudgingly accept the room at the higher rate. Even though this trip was a business expense, we work for a non-profit organization and are protective and frugal of our organization's expenses. An unexpected, additional expense like this is understandably a hard hit to our already limited travel budget.
The next day, we followed up with the gift fair people who told us there was an error when the reservation was made and that I somehow erased my boss’s reservation when I made mine. Now being fairly computer savvy, I’m not quite sure how or if I in fact managed to do this. Regardless, it certainly was not my intent and the hotel could clearly see that. So, even if the mistake was mine (which I doubt) I truly feel in the name of customer service, good faith and in the name of perhaps retaining a repeat customer, the hotel had an excellent opportunity to impress us by accepting the fact that an error occurred somewhere, somehow and in turn could easily have honored the lower rate. Apparently, they would rather make a buck than provide anything resembling customer service. I would never treat my own customers that way.
Subsequent problems included: a non-working remote control in my room (even though I requested it be fixed 3 times), loose ceramic tiles in the bathroom of both rooms, foreign hairs in my bed (the maid’s I assume), a non-working bedside light in my boss’s room and one day, I didn’t even get clean towels (I had to raid the linen closet myself). This hotel also seems to be a favorite of European travelers and is very crowded at all times. I may have been able to overlook these last few things but, the non-existent customer service totally turned me off to this place. A simple effort on their part to help rectify the situation could have made me a customer for life. Sadly, we will not be staying here again and I would advise others to do the same.
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