‘I canceled the room to get her away from me’: Hotel guest throws a tantrum over room reservation, front desk clerk forced to give her a refund

Author image for Eleonora Bader
Eleonora Bader
Dec 7, 2023 1:00 PM EST

Imagine you are sitting in an uncomfortable, old desk chair that needed to be replaced about 10 years ago, and instead of staring at the empty hotel lobby in front of you, you opt instead to play some Solitaire on your as equally old computer. You are just about stumped when your game is interrupted by a Karen who is on her way to interrupt your peace.

She enters the lobby with a dramatic air about her, shouting words that you can't quite make out yet until she gets a bit closer. Anddddd, you have met the antagonist of our story. Let's start at the beginning. OP was working the night shift at a hotel as a front desk clerk, and the hotel they worked at had a lot of ballroom and conference spaces. Large groups would come and some of the guests would stay at the hotel.

Due to the holidays, every room was basically sold out, and OP received an angry rant from a hotel guest (Karen), about how she had not booked 'two rooms' and they were not allowed to 'charge her for two rooms'. To read about how it escalated, scroll down. Then, check out this computer science student who did the workload of 3 people for his group project, and then did not get any credit and decided to get even with them.

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  • 01
    'I canceled the room to get her away from me...'
    via Canva
  • 02
    Posted by u/Snow_Queen_Knight511 11 hours ago A Karen came back to the desk after screaming at me.... To apologize??
    via u/Snow_Queen_Knight511
  • 03
    So I have a good one today from last night's shift! I work in a hotel that has lots of ballroom and conference spaces and it is holiday party time of year. We had a large group, over 400, come in for a party last night and had about 20 or so staying in the hotel.
    via u/Snow_Queen_Knight511
  • 04
    I had a guest come to check in for his wife and they have two reservations under her name in the system. I confirm two reservations and get the dreaded eye stare. I confirm again and the husband immediately pulls out his phone to call his wife. It turns out the second reservation is a duplicate and was made by mistake.
    via u/Snow_Queen_Knight511
  • 05
    Now we have a 24hr cancellation policy like most places and I explain that unfortunately I will have to charge for this second room. The guy kind of grumbles so I tell him, well....here's what I can do. If I can sell the room (I know I'm going to sell the room, we were sold out and had been getting calls all day for rooms.) I
    via u/Snow_Queen_Knight511
  • 06
    will sell it and I won't charge you any cancellation. The guy seems ok and takes the deal. Now about 20 minutes later here comes the Karen. A woman comes huffing up to the desk followed by her husband who tells me "This is my wife!"
    via u/Snow_Queen_Knight511
  • 07
    Ok good for you sir... She comes up to the desk and shoves her phone into my face to show me she only made one reservation and she wasn't paying for the other room because it was our website that glitched so it isn't her fault. She proceeds to scream in my face that
    via u/Snow_Queen_Knight511
  • 08
    this is a me problem not a her problem and I need to do something about it. I of course just cancel the room to get the crazy lady away from me. She then tells me "Yes that's the right thing for you to do!" In a super condescending tone. Ok ma'am whatever you say.
    via u/Snow_Queen_Knight511
  • 09
    She walks away and I begin to write an email to the catering manager in charge of their party. We don't put up with this kind of nonsense and I know the catering manager will talk to her contact and make sure she is held accountable for her actions. Now comes the CRAZY part!
    via u/Snow_Queen_Knight511
  • 10
    About an hour later the woman is walking in the lobby while I am as well and as I come around a Christmas tree(we have three 12 foot trees in our lobby for Christmas) and she is walking straight at me, I immediately think 'oh great here we go again', and I get ready for a fight. She stops me, puts her hand on my
    via u/Snow_Queen_Knight511
  • 11
    arm and says "I am so sorry for the way I acted earlier, I shouldn't have come at you like that and I have had a head ache all day. That's not an excuse for my behavior! But I wanted to apologize and just tell you how sorry I am for that." I was a bit shocked lol, no one ever apologizes so that was pretty cool to have her
    via u/Snow_Queen_Knight511
  • 12
    come back and take accountability for her behavior. I decided not to write the email to the catering manager since she came back and seemed genuinely sorry. Another day at the front desk ha
    via u/Snow_Queen_Knight511
  • 13
    Liverpool FCwpg. 11 hr. ago Travelling is stressful, some people do have bad days. Good for her and you. Reply Share Vote
    via u/LiverpoolFCwpg
  • 14
    Snow_Queen_Knight511 OP. 11 hr. ago I get what you're saying but these people didn't have to travel anywhere. They live here in town.
    via u/Snow_Queen_Knight511
  • 15
    Plain Witch 10 hr. ago I've had this happen too. Summer last year an elderly American. couple was supposed to check-in on this one day when there was a storm and their flight got cancelled and they were stranded
    via u/Plain_Witch
  • 16
    in the layover country, but they were able to land the next day. The lady was furious! They had lost one day and wanted money back for it, but we told them the hotel is not liable to refund for force majeure just as it says in our t&c. And we told them that insurance
    via u/Plain_Witch
  • 17
    will cover it. And she yelled that they hadn't got any insurance. Welp, guess they learned the hard way not to travel long distance to a place notorious for bad weather without insurance. They also started complaining about their room, saying they felt
    via u/Plain_Witch
  • 18
    unsafe on the ground floor, so we upgraded them for free to a nicer room on a lower level floor. But the second room was also not good, they didn't want to be on a low floor, they wanted a view. The only room available higher up was the suite, but it cost twice as much as their original room. The kept
    via u/Plain_Witch
  • 19
    grumbling, but we managed to strike a deal were they only had to pay half of the upgrade to the suite. Anyways, the next day the lady comes down to me and aplogizes for how she had behaved. She said the stress of travelling so long,
    via u/Plain_Witch
  • 20
    being stuck because of weather and losing money from lack of insurance had made her act badly. After that she was very sweet and friendly. 4 Vote Reply Share
    via u/Plain_Witch

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customer service reddit stories christmas karen guest hotel guest hotel refund reservation tales from the front desk night shift cancelation hotel room holidays couple front desk clerk
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