“Upon check-out, the front desk lady told me how much I owed them. I said I wanted to check the bill and this is when she said she could not print it. She was not allowed to any more. She could only show me her screen.”
Hotel Staff Refuses to Print Final Copy of Bill Upon Check Out?
The manager of the hotel at which FlyerTalk member carnarvon stayed “confirmed it was an Accor-Novotel policy and confessed it made guests angry.”
FlyerTalk members concurred in this discussion that this policy is a “stupid idea” and that they “require a printed invoice when on work travel. Not an email, which may or may not arrive.”
Paperless expense reports are becoming the policy of more companies in order to save paper and be “greener” to the environment; and lodging companies are following suit with paperless receipts.
The difference, however, is that guests of hotels can typically receive a hard copy of the final statement upon request — which is usually fulfilled with a smile and with no problem.
Summary
To best balance convenience of guests with saving the environment, I believe that the guest should have a choice of whether or not he or she prefers a paper receipt of his or her final statement upon checking out of a hotel property.
I certainly would have needed paper receipts for a company at which I used to work — and I detail their bizarre policy and a ridiculous incident I had with the controller of the company in this article pertaining to doing expense reports.
As much as I do what I can to mitigate the use of paper, I prefer to receive a copy of my final statement on paper for the aforementioned reason of the possibility that I may not receive it via e-mail due to a number of reasons — such as a technology glitch or human error in terms of sending it to the wrong e-mail address…
…and in the unlikely event that that happened, then some unknown person somewhere will have my name and address, which could possibly be a potential security issue.
FlyerTalk member hotel_user reported that “so far has taken ten e mails to get a almost correct bill” with “No one available at reception at silly O Clock when I had to leave. So much for a full service hotel.”
A week has passed as of the time this article was written — with still no resolution…
Photograph ©2017 by Brian Cohen.
