The hotel gave us MANY surprises before our wedding. Surprises = shocks!!!

In February 06, we contacted the Business manager, P and she left in June 06.
It was during this time, the 2nd coordinator, S emailed us telling us she will take over P. The hassle we went through was we have to brief the new coordinator everything we had discussed with P.

One month before our wedding, we tried contacting S but couldn’t locate her after many attempts. No response to emailsthat we sent to her and no call from her. Then, suddenly, V emailed us telling us she was the new coordinator as S had left.

V told us she was temporarily on leave for a very long time and the Director that we contacted told us she left for studies. We kept on hearing different versions of stories.

S left about 1 month after she took up the job.

We were really displeased with the hotel’s service at that point in time and my wife was terribly affected. We lodged a complaint to the Director level, only to realise the Director had resigned recently too.

Oh my!!! Seems like everyone was leaving the hotel.

There was an acting-Director who attended to us. Initally, he sounded harsh and displeased when we asked him for an explanation why customers were not updated about the change of the coordinator.

He gave no reply. Sounds like he is a tough guy to meddle with.

So we decided to try the soft approach. We gave him lots of empathy, telling him how hard it was for him to juggle when 2 of his colleagues left and now he had to take over all these s**t.

He mellowed down a little and asked us how he could “help” so that we were willing to rest the matter. We told him our purpose was not to make a big hoo-ha but just to show our displeasure and raise awareness of what was actually happening.

He answered he was willing to throw in another Helper’s room to soothe the matter.

Bingo!!!

To cut cost, we tried to squeeze more out of him. We requested him to waive off the corkages of all 40 bottles of wine (instead of 15 which was previously agreed upon) Actually, we were bringing in 35 bottles of wine but we tried to ask for more so that we have room to negotiate.

Immediately, he agreed!!! Oh my, thanks alot!!!

So my rule to play the game when negotiating with hotel is don’t let hotel run over you. If there is any thing that displeases you, sound it out in an ethical and appropriate manner and discuss with the hotel. And discuss with someone who has the power to make decision on the spot.

Don’t discuss with small frys as they will have to report back to the mamangement and get back to you again. So, normally it doesn’t really work.

Then, reuqest for some form of compensation such as more perks so you will let the matter to rest.

Sometimes, this works; sometimes, it doesn’t. So be flexible to try something new too.

So in the end, for 18 tables, these are the addition free perks we managed to get from hotel:
1. 2 Helpers’ rooms instead of 1
2. Free corkages for 40 bottles of wine instead of 15
3. My friend managed to get a free bottle of champagne, 2 more guests books from the hotel in previous meet-ups

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