Word to the wise:<\/p>\n
When you reserve a room at the Best Western Airport Inn in Albany, you have to explicitly tell them if you want a nonsmoking room. There wasn't any option for nonsmoking during the online room reservation process, and it somehow didn't occur to me to make a special request for one. [Added later: It may be that this was because there were no nonsmoking rooms available when I made my reservation; I'm not sure. See comments for more discussion.]<\/p>\n
Got to the Best Western tonight around 12:45 Eastern time. The surly front desk clerk took roughly ten minutes to check me in, even though I'd used an online reservation process that had already billed my card.<\/p>\n
I walked all the way through the hotel to get to my room. The first sign of trouble was that the whole hallway smelled smoky.<\/p>\n
Sure enough, when I opened the door to my room, I was assaulted by a miasma of smoke-smell.<\/p>\n
I called the front desk. The guy there told me that there were no other rooms available. I asked if he knew of any at other hotels. He said there weren't any open rooms between here and downtown.<\/p>\n
I considered trying to stay in that room. I took a breath and almost choked.<\/p>\n
Went outside to the parking lot and started calling local hotels.<\/p>\n
The first two I called, within a block of the BW, were also full, and also said there were no openings at any local hotels.<\/p>\n
The next one I called was the Hampton Inn, also within a block. The polite and friendly and cheerful front-desk guy told me they had one nonsmoking room available.<\/p>\n
I reserved it by phone, then went to check out at the BW.<\/p>\n
The BW guy told me, surlily, “I'm gonna have to charge you for this.”<\/p>\n
I figured he would. It's kind of ridiculous, since there's obviously a lot of demand for rooms tonight; just after I checked in at the BW, he took a call apparently from a friend in the business, who appeared to be looking for a room for someone. So I suspect they could easily re-sell the room.<\/p>\n
But whatever. I dislike the idea of wasting the money, but I dislike the idea of trying to sleep in that room even more. Privileged people problems.<\/p>\n
I just checked my emailed receipt from my BW reservation, and sure enough, the system did tell me it was a smoking room; I don't know how I missed that. I think I must have somehow misread it as nonsmoking. I guess I have nobody to blame but myself for this one, much to my chagrin.<\/p>\n
Anyway. Walked the block or so to the Hampton Inn. Walked into their cheerful and welcoming lobby. Front desk guy was friendly and welcoming. There's a big sign at the front desk saying that if you're not 100% satisfied, they'll refund your money.<\/p>\n
I had been becoming a fan of Best Westerns. But I've had various problems with the last three that I've stayed at. And they sure don't have a 100% satisfaction guarantee.<\/p>\n
My room here is an ordinary hotel room, but it looks nice. The air conditioner is on. The about-the-hotel binder is crisply printed. I had a momentary problem accessing the Internet, but the front desk guy told me the new access code by phone.<\/p>\n
So . . . it's a pricey lesson, but next time, I'll know.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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