Hotel guest mistreats front desk employee after he incorrectly booked a room with a 3rd-party website and treated badly every employee who tried to help him: ‘You people keep saying 3rd-party, what is that? What’s the other 2 parties?’

Author image for María Cetra
María Cetra • Writer
Aug 10, 2026 6:00 PM EDT

It's one thing to pick a fight with a front desk employee, but picking a fight with the entire staff seems a bit excessive.

Sometimes people are just insanely lost. When you are working in customer service, you are aware of the fact that not every customer is going to be nice. You even know that they aren't always going to have manners either. It's something that you either accept from the beginning or learn to accept over time. You even stop expecting it from customers, and when they do act kindly and correctly, it's the highlight of your day. Is usual to encounter people who are angry about something that you don't even know about, and they will expect you to fix it and blame you for it. That is the norm, so you accept it.

When you get a customer who acts like the one in the story below, you aren't surprised about it. You kinda accept it and try to de-escalate the situation as much as you can so we can avoid having to involve managers. When you see something like a previous communication the customer had to the place in the system where they describe them as unable to be helped or too angry to listen. Internally, you panic a bit. As if it was already setting you up for disappointment. You already knew the customer was going to be hard to manage, but the fact that the previous person had to give up is too much. The original problem escalated a ton. But there isn't much you can do. You still have to deal with them and do your best to not only help them but also calm them.

The hardest thing is when you realize that you've been talking for a long time and the conversation has stopped being useful. You are just two people discussing (one obviously shouting and sometimes even throwing a temper tantrum), going exactly nowhere. This person is not going to accept that the reason he's mad is his fault and that you cannot help him. So that's when you have to give up. The fight is lost. You either call security, refuse service, or call a manager. But you are done. And it's hard to accept, but you can't deal forever with a stubborn customer who couldn't even express himself nicely. 
 

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  • So about an hour and a half ago as I'm writing this (7pm which of course, is when things like this happen when I'm about to eat dinner) a guy comes in looking to check in. I got his name and he said "Town". (Not his actual name but unironically his last name is the same as the town my hotel is located in) I try to find the name and I can't find anything. I ask for a confirmation number and he
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  • A woman checking into a hotel at the front desk. Representation.
    via Christiann Koepke

    A woman checking into a hotel at the front desk. 

    Representation.

  • looks at me for a second like I got 3 heads. Then I say, "I can't seem to find anything under that name." And this is how that conversation went.... "What do you mean?" "I'm looking up that name Town, T-O-W-N and I can't see anything in my system for today." "How is that possible?" pause "I don't know, sir. Did you just make this reservation?"
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  • "No, I made it like 4 days ago!" At that point he raises his voice and angrily starts tapping on his phone. He then grumbles that he needs to go outside to get his glasses. He takes two steps then turns around and then gives me his full name to try. I had already done that because I had a feeling that this name sounded familiar. It's not an uncommon last name, but for a guest to have the same name as
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  • where the hotel is located will stick with you. Lo and behold, it was the name of a guy I was hoping I'd never have to deal with..... So, the story behind this guy happened last Wednesday which was my day off. My coworker was working my 3-11 shift and he got Mr. Town who had booked 2 reservations through Prickline and wanted to cancel. My coworker told him the usual thing that we are unable to cancel the
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  • reservations because it was a 3rd party reservation, etc. and Mr. Town got VERY upset and angry, started screaming and yelling over the phone. He demanded that my coworker call Prickline for him and we already know we can't do that...My coworker tried to help him and explain it again, but he got s ck of being yelled at so he told Mr. Town to call back for the General Manager and hung up on him. Mr. Town called back and my
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  • coworker told him again that he needs to call for the General Manager after 9am tomorrow. Now, I was working the morning shift and I saw a Lino note he left for the front desk quote "Mr. Town r de guest please read notes before helping him" and y'know....We're not supposed to curse on any communication between the hotel obviously, so it was a surprise to read. I found the reservations and I read the note. My coworker
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  • doesn't really write detailed notes and is absolutely horrendous with basic grammar and spelling, so he rushed through the note. All it said basically was that the guest was screaming at him over the phone, he did hang up on him and told him to call in the morning for the GM and that he wasn't going to help him if he was being screamed at. Which, fair enough. But I was in that next morning and to my knowledge, he never called to talk to the GM.
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  • I assume it was taken care of or my GM talked with him, so both reservations were cancelled by my GM and it was up to Prickline if they refund him. So come today, only one of those reservations were supposed to be cancelled and not both of them. Apparently he messed up and made a reservation for 1 night instead of 2, so he made another one for 2 nights and wanted the reservation with 1 night to be canceled.
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  • I told him that I understood, but the note I have says that he wanted to cancel and they were canceled on our end at his request. He said that wasn't his fault and I told him I understood, but again, he wanted them to be cancelled. So he looked down, I guess trying not lose his sh and asked if we have rooms available for 2 nights and I say yes we do. He asked for the price and I gave him the
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  • cheapest room type which is 1 King Standard and he asks why it's so high for a Monday. I told him we have much less rooms available today than tomorrow and it's also the first week of the state fair. He says he doesn't have a choice so he'll book it. I get his ID and start filling out his information and then he starts getting agitated again. Said that the website was confusing and whatever entity still hasn't
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  • refunded his money, making it seem like it's our fault. I told him yeah they would do that to you and it's a pain dealing with 3rd parties and we haven't charged him, so they would need to take care of that. He then said "You people keep saying 3rd party what is that? What's the other 2 parties?" I'm baffled. "What?" "What are the 3 parties?" "Oh, no sir it's not like that. It's
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  • just by definition it means they're not associated with the hotel." "You're not answering my question. What are the 1st, 2nd and 3rd parties?" "Again, that means they're not associated with the hotel." at this point, I open a tab to search up what a 3rd party is defined at because I can't believe I needed to find a definition of something that a man 40 years old than me didn't know. I was right btw but I was trying to be simple because
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  • my brain wasn't working, but I thought I got the idea through his head....but I guess not. So then with all the attitude I'm given, I'm on my last straw with this guy. I then tell him, "I'm not going to have that conversation with you, I'd rather just get you taken care of and checked in." Then he says that what I said was ride and then I started handing back his ID and card. I then told him that he can leave and have a good day.
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  • Then he asks "What's my room number?" I told him that he needs to leave and he can have a good day. Then he sighs and asks for the manager. I smile and tell him I'm the manager on duty. Then he goes silent, looks down and I'm just standing there like. He then tells me again that this wasn't his fault and I tell him it's not my fault either. He said he's very frustrated and that whole
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  • thing ped him off. I told him I understand. Then he complained about the coworker that hung up on him and I told him because he was trying to help but you were yelling and shouting at him. I told him I was trying to help him, get him a room despite the trouble and he's being very nasty. I told him that whatever Prickline did is out of our hands, he just cannot behave the way he is because won't be able to help
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  • him. He starts to look defeated and then apologizes. He said he understood and he told me he has nowhere else to stay for the next 2 days. I asked "Are we cool now?" and he said yes. I guess he realized how screwed he would be if I was firm on having him leave. Because believe me, I was 2 seconds away from calling the cops if he didn't relax and calm down.
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  • So, I start over the check-in process and I go through the usual things and I even got him a floor preference. He then thanked me and went on his way. And believe me, I still feel like he's not done yet because I don't know if he will complain about my coworker and I to my GM in the morning. But, I'd like to think | handled this better than I have in the past. Instead of shutting down I stood my ground and
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  • remained as respectful as possible.
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  • A woman at the front desk working on her tablet. Representation.
    via Bluestonex

    A woman at the front desk working on her tablet. 

    Representation. 

  • Matticus0989 REALLYYYY hate the "fourth party". More often than not they are scam sites who pretend to be the actual hotel. I've had more than a handful of guests get scammed by them.
    via Matticus0989
  • Ana-Hata Sir I am the first party, you are the second party, and Prickline is the third party. When you made this reservation, you had options. You could have called me and given your money to me in exchange for a reservation. Instead, you choose to give your money to Prickline and to entrust
    via Ana-Hata
  • them with your reservation and your money. I cannot give you back your money because you gave it Prickline, not me. Do you understand now?
    via Ana-Hata
  • CasuallyCruising Good for you. like him thrive on ab ive behavior to get their way. It's entirely possible he learned something that day. One can hope at least!
    via CasuallyCruising

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hotel guest reservation tales from the front desk elderly
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