I have been a loyal employee of Star City Hotel for a long time. During the past 13 years, I have accommodated requests from friends to book rooms at the hotel using discounted employee rates.
Last September 2011, my wife who is reservations manager of Shangri-La, was approached by Emma de Vera of Travel Access in Blacktown. She wanted to book 4 rooms to be used by ABS-CBN Entertainers from Manila. My wife was unable to accommodate Emma’s request because of high occupancy at Shangri-la. So the booking was referred to me and Star City accepted the booking using my own credit card. Later, Mrs. de Vera gave details of her credit card to be used under the hotel’s guaranteed reservation system. The amount involved was $1,260 covering one night for four rooms.
Although Mrs. de Vera’s card was still unexpired, usage was declined by the issuing bank. It could only mean either of two things: her account was probably delinquent or over her credit limit.
In our exchange of text messages, Mrs. de Vera knew that she had to pay $1,260 under the hotel’s guaranteed reservation for a “no-show.”
The ABS-CBN Stars never showed up and Emma de Vera could not be contacted. She never answered again any of my calls. It turned out that another booking was made at Hotel Sofitel. She did not inform me that she made another reservation somewhere else and she never cancelled her booking with The Star.
When she was finally contacted, Emma de Vera claimed that she cancelled her reservation. She never did. I checked with the hotel’s front office staff. There never was any cancellation made.
I am now stuck with $1,260 which I have to pay American Express. The amount could not be charged back to my employer. It would jeopardize my 13 years of loyal service to The Star.
Jojo Laquian, Blacktown NSW