2007: A year of waitlists: Part 2

If not already done, read Part 1 here.

After touchdown at Miami and arriving 15 hours too late to our 4-Star Hotel, we were in for a bigger surprise when at the swank reception of the hotel, we were told that our reservation stood cancelled. What the heavens was happening?

Earlier, the previous evening, I had called up The Hotel and told them that we would be arriving half-a-day late, and had grudgingly consented that half of our two-night charges would be flushed away. Apparently, after talking to me, the night operator, off duty then, had messed it all up.

Budget travellers have quite a few options in the American travel 'system'. One of them is a service called Hotwire.com. Basically, you provide your budget range for a nightcap and the system sets-up a 'blind reservation' with a multi-star hotel. This means that until you make the payment, you are privy to only the facilities offered at the location; it is not easy/possible to guess the exact hotel they are offering you. But the promise is that you will not be disappointed. We were not.

Such services exist for two reasons. One is the proliferation of e-commerce in tourism makes way for creative business models. The second is the fact that doing this allows hotels to fill rooms for a cheaper rate, especially during lean periods of the year. If you will, it is an effective yield management strategy, much like how airlines sell $25 air tickets. It works well for all hotels in such consortia, since people are allocated hotels in a category ,probably, in a round-robin fashion. It works well for the travellers.

The problem happens when a problem happens. What I mean is that when there is a change in plan, you are now required to deal with two parties- Hotwire.com and The Hotel in this case. I had talked to The Hotel. They never told me I had to talk to Hotwire. But yet, the night attendant confirmed the change of plan.

Two things helped me resolve the quandary. Firstly, when the manager refused to acknowledge the fact that we had called, I showed him the call record on my cellphone. It showed that I had been on the call for all of three and a half minutes.

Secondly, the Hotwire.com services work like an open-market. Democracy is supreme here, since the services thrive on user-feedback, much like e-Bay. A brief mention this fact brought new perspective to things, endingour second waitlist of the year.

Knowing the lie of the land is important for any traveller. Yahoo! Maps and Mapquest are definitely up there when it comes to accuracy and reliability. But traffic patterns are another thing altogether. Then again, Florida is a pensioners paradise, despite the glamour and youth thronging the place. The speedlimits are lower than in other states to cater to the majority senior population. This was something to be expected but came as a surprise to us.

Additonally, the drive through The Keys to reach Key West is on several narrow several-miles-long bridges separating the Gulf of Mexico from Atlantic Ocean. These bridges have long stretches of no-passing zones. All this added up to our reaching the rendevous point of water-adventure cruise at Key West, less than 10 minutes before yacht took off. Thus ended third waitlist this year.

I will end the chronicle of our Florida trip by saying that in the midst of this canonball run, my wife and I had the best time of our life, or should I just say 2007.

The waitlist saga continues in Part 3.