There are good deals and there are bad deals. Today I have a story about two bad deals that my wife and I bought into using a discount site called Crowd Cut.
Some background: Crowd Cut is one of those start up coupon/discount sites that try to mimic companies like GroupOn. Crowd Cut currently only operates in Minneapolis-St. Paul and Atlanta.
We bought two different hotel packages using Crowd Cut. Here is how they worked out:
1) Crowne Plaza Hotel
The first deal was for 50% off one night stay in king or double guest room at Crowne Plaza Northstar Hotel Downtown (St. Paul, Minnesota).
It seemed like a great deal; a night away at a nice hotel for a very reasonable price. That was until we found out what a hassle it was to redeem:
- The first person my wife talked to at Crowne Plaza did not know what Crowd Cut was. The hotel did not even inform their employees (or at least this employee) that they were offering this deal.
- When you call to book a room, Crowne Plaza takes down your name and number and has someone else call you back. In any other situation, this alone would make people find a different hotel. Can it be any more inconvenient?
- After playing phone tag, my wife finally gets a hold of the right person who can book their room. The offer expires on September 3rd. She is calling three months before the coupon expires, and guess what? There are zero rooms available for use with this offer. Zero Rooms.
- The representative from Crowne Plaza says they will either find us a room or get the offer extended.
- Like magic, they find a room over the next few days…
1) The Outing Lodge at Pine Point in Stillwater
We also bought a second deal (unfortunately) before trying to book the first one. This deal was another one night hotel deal, this time at a bed and breakfast located in a suburb of the Twin Cities. I call to try to book a date, and here is what I find out:
- There is essentially zero chance of booking on weekends. You can get on a waiting list for a given date, but if a wedding or some other event books, you are out.
- I called in June looking to book in September. September “wasn’t open” yet for booking…and they didn’t give me a day that it would be “open” for booking. They tell me the chances are essentially zero of getting a weekend date in September (or any other month for that matter).
- To top it all off, they say there is a “pretty good chance” I can get a weeknight, especially if it is a “special date” like an anniversary. Sorry for all you non-married couples…and people who have to request off work more than a week or two in advance.
A big problem with these deals is that the hotel has all the power. They are going to get paid no matter what and can add all sorts of restrictions on when you can stay. It is not the same as trying to pick a hotel to stay at where you can cancel if you are put through unnecesary hoops in the reservation process. I email Crowd Cut telling them I want my money back because I’m not happy with the seemingly impossible reservation process, and this is what they say:
Hi, David-
Thank you for using Crowdcut.com!
We apologize for the inconvenience but unfortunately all hotel vouchers state, “Subject to Avability”. Crowd cut cannot guarantee that the lodge will have a specific date open. Once a merchant is paid all sales are final.
Thank you,
Crowdcut.com
My main point is that hotel deals from coupon sites like Crowd Cut are not worth the hassle. If you have plenty of time during your waking hours to make multiple phone calls, deal with limited availability, and other difficulties built into this process then I would say by all means buy the coupon. Otherwise stay away.
I am willing to admit this may only be an issue with Crowd Cut, Crowne Plaza, and the Outing Lodge, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. I will only buy straightforward, non-hotel deals from here on out from sites other than Crowd Cut.
Another major point: These deals are not gaining these hotels any fans.
If you become so frustrated with making reservations that you would be happy getting your money back, when you do have your stay it’s going to take extremely good service for you to leave satisfied with the entire experience. I personally do not see why hotels even pay to have these deals when the customers are treated as second-rate and more likely than not they have lost future sales before the customer even steps foot in their door.
What has been your experience with hotel/travel deals from coupon sites like Crowd Cut? If you have not used Crowd Cut or other coupon sites, have you considered using them?
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That sucks. Thanks for the warning. I never use those coupon services because I always feel something like that will happen to me. These businesses definitely didn’t get the point of the program to build new customers… also, just throwingthis out there but I cant stand livefyre.commenting. not very user or mobile friendly.
@Money Life and More I hear you. This is the first time I’ve had a bad experience, and it’s true they clearly are not trying to build a loyal following because they really could care less about how easy it is to redeem the deals once they are purchased.Also are you serious about livefyre? I think it’s great. I wish every site had it.
@DavidCarlson1 Unfortunately for whatever reason it just drives me up a wall. It doesn’t work well on my phone and I guess I just prefer disqus or intensedebate over livefyre. Heck I use the regular WordPress comments on my site because of the ease of commenting.
@Money Life and More Sorry to hear that man, hopefully you don’t hate it so much that you stop commenting on my posts ; )
@DavidCarlson1 It works fine on my computer but my phone seems to hate it and not keep me logged in.
@Money Life and More I see. I may redo the comments some day, but LiveFyre was easy to set up and I liked the way it worked.
O Thank god!! You have aware me about these kind of offers. Actually i also got the one through a phone call but your post really help me to find it wrong.