Annoyances

Well...  I'll admit that things aren't that bad, but it sure seems like it as I am rather hmm, "tweaked" shall we say at the moment.

I really feel like saying:
"NEVER STAY AT THE HOWARD JOHNSON MAINGATE WEST IN KISSIMMEE, FL!"
"NEVER USE HOWARD JOHNSON, ELITEREWARDS OR ANYTHING ELSE OWNED BY THE CENDANT CORPORATION!"

But, in reality, it's probably just a fluke, or at least one would hope.

Anyway, here's what's REALLY happened so far...

We redeemed most all of our maybe $30-40K worth of purchase points from our MBNA EliteRewards card to get about 5 free night coupons at various hotels for our Florida trip around New Years.

We redeemed these certificates at all the Hotels.  Seemingly without major issues (I won't mention the strange looks I got at almost every desk, and the comments of "where'd you get this?", or the 2 hours it took the one Hotel to upgrade their software so they could accept the certificate)

One of the Hotels we stayed at was the Howard Johnson Maingate West Resort in Kissimmee, Fl.  This was the only place we stayed two nights.  Not a real bad place, but I wouldn't call it a resort.  They also had interesting tiled floors instead of the carpets I've seen in every other room.  And they had this booth at the front desk where you were supposed to be able to get cheap tickets to Disney, but it was just a high-pressure salesman who could only sell the better tickets for multiple day passes.  Also, only breakfast option was to buy it yourself, and no high-speed access whatsoever.

ANYWAY...  We get back from our trip and Sara is checking the credit card bill to make sure all the charges settle out (you know, they bill you $200 in case you trash the room or something, and then remove it later).  So, everything else looks good except for this $124 charge from the HOJO(Howard Johnson) that was in addition to the $53.30 that we were actually charged and I signed the receipt for (pet fee, resort charges, telephone, etc). 

So, I call up Howard Johnson Corporate.  "We'll file your complaint, the Hotel has to call you back in a week".

I get a call back saying that the charges were for the two nights.

I call back and say that we had the free certificates

I get a call back and she says they never got those certificates (I specifically remember, signing them when I handed them to the front desk), and they will not remove the charges until they get either proof that they received and/or cashed them or duplicates that they can then use.

I call Howard Johnson Corporate again.  -Sorry, nothing we can do, you have to deal with the Hotel.

I call EliteRewards to see about getting proof or duplicates.  "We'll check into it, but MBNA would be the ones to know if they were redeemed"

I call MBNA  "We don't have anything to do with it, we just keep track of points"

I call EliteRewards after a few days to allow them "research time", they say "We don't know anything about it, it's all Howard Johnson.  Here's a PO box you can mail a letter and ask for a copy of a certificate"  (they didn't even have a name to put above the PO box on the address.  They just said it was Howard Johnson, but that wasn't part of the address)

I call Howard Johnson- "We don't know anything about that address or EliteRewards.  They do it all on their own"  (though curiously, HOJO's address is in the same town and pretty close in PO box numbers)

I decide that this is just stupid, it's really peeving me off so I'm gonna see what I can dig up with my old friend Google.
Soo...  I come up with this:
MBNA Just deals with EliteRewards
HOJO, EliteRewards, TripRewards, and a bunch of other stuff is all owned by Cendant Corporation.
The address I got is Cendant Corporation.

So, I tried calling the only number I could find for Cendant Corporation directly and as expected, they don't even know what EliteRewards is.  But the receptionist passed me to someone else.  I left a message at her voicemail explaining I needed some help in regards to some eliterewards certificates and hopefully she could be of some help somehow.

Oh yeah, I left out that I did get in there and post a dispute on that $124 charge.  So...  I guess at this point, I'm just hoping that MBNA will step up to the plate and tell me I'm not responsible for the charge and be done with it.  but I'll try to send out this letter to the Cendant address, and maybe get a call back from this other Cendant person.

Who knows.
Pain in the butt is what it is.