Holiday Inn-oying

Has it ever taken you a half hour to make a hotel reservation? Jesse's wedding is coming up this August, and he and his fiancee blocked a group of rooms for their guests at a Holiday Inn, where their reception is. I think that's great--it will be so nice for out-of-town guests like me to just go upstairs after the reception. No one has to worry about drinking too much. No one has to worry about getting lost in a strange city.

However, the phone number Holiday Inn says to call to make reservations (1-800-465-4329) is, I am pretty sure, a call center in India.

I'm ok with that. Usually it does not make a difference to me. But they must have trained these people to keep you on the phone as long as possible. The lady I talked to insisted on reading me the details of the hotel and signing me up for their Rewards Points program (it was free), and after I booked the reservation, I got tricked into listening to a promotion for a $199 vacation at Disney World.

The real problem was that, since the wedding group rate was only available for the night of the wedding, they had me book two separate reservations--one for each night. It was absurd. I don't want to worry about having to change rooms and I want to have to re-check-in. Plus, they had the non-wedding group rate at $119/night. Online, it's $87. I pointed this out, and the lady dropped it down to $99/night. I agreed to that at the time, because I was in a hurry to get somewhere.

This morning, though, I decided to call the actual hotel in Nebraska, cancel my reservations, and redo it online. I pressed the button "2" to be connected with reservations and...it sent me back to India. This time I explained how frustrated I was, and said I wanted to redo my reservations. The guy I spoke to said that the $87 was the "nonrefundable advance purchase rate," meaning they would charge my credit card now (instead of after we checked out) and I can't back out and get a refund. I said that was fine, and he canceled the Friday night reservation and edited my previous reservation to cover both nights at the $87/night rate.

Lesson learned? I don't know. I think you want to try to book with the group rate if you can, because I think the bride and groom get some kind of deal if enough people book with them. And, as my friend Claire points out, if you're in the wedding block, you sometimes get event info and a welcome package in your room.

But I'm not sure how to avoid getting transferred away from the actual hotel's phone line. Maybe I should have called the actual hotel, and pressed "0" instead of "2" for reservations. There are so many, many benefits to having a wedding at a major hotel chain, particularly for out-of-town guests like me. But do all major hotel chains outsource their reservations?