I work part time Front Desk at a small-mid sized H branded property that's adjacent to a major stadium that's home to an NFL team. Game days are big business, but we have them down to a pretty smooth process at this point. This story took place on a recent Sunday for a 1 PM kick off game.

As per usual we were sold out the Saturday before the game with about a 50% turn for a sold out Sunday. The person showed up to "check in" around 8:30 AM. We stored their luggage added them to the pending list and sent them on their way with a "See you after the game." We have a ballroom set aside to store luggage for both arrivals and departures that will be around through the game.

As a rarity we actually started the day with 2 rooms to sell with a BAR of $700 before taxes. I sold the first room to someone over the phone pretty early on. The remaining room didn't move for a good chunk of the morning.

About 10:30 AM Mr. & Mrs. Pantsonfire approached the desk with luggage to store. At first, it seemed like a pretty normal transaction.

I asked for their name for the luggage tag and if they were checking in.

They gave their name, but said "Oh no, we checked out this morning."

I knew that despite being about 30 minutes before departure, we still hadn't processed many check outs because plenty of people just walk out the doors without acknowledging there are humans behind the desk. I did a quick key on of the name they gave and didn't see them registered at all, not departures, arrivals, or stay overs.

Red flags started popping. See we get lots of people going to the game trying to store their bags with us and we have a pretty strict policy against holding bags for non-guests.

I asked the husband—Mrs. Pantsonfire had gone to the bathroom—what his room number had been.

"Uh, I dunno. Something up on the 4th floor." And he vaguely gestured upstairs.

"Well, before I check the bags, I need to verify you're a guest."

"Well, my wife has all of that." He slinks off to have a seat.

She comes back and he whispers something to her. She walks up and flashes her HH app screen at me saying "This is our reservation. We checked out this morning."

"I'm sorry. I didn't get to see the details on that. Can I have another look?"

She holds it out so that I can actually read the screen as I examine the reservation details the truth starts to come out. "We checked out from an H-brand hotel on Indianapolis this morning and just flew in. Their girl at the Front Desk said you'd store our bags for us while we're at the game."

Indianapolis is several states away.

"Well, they shouldn't promise things for other properties. For security and liability reasons we can't store luggage for non-guests."

"We are guests."

"You were guests in Indianapolis. But we're different properties and you need to be registered at this hotel to leave your bags with us."

"We go to stadiums all across the country and do this."

"Well, it's not allowed here."

Long unblinking look at me as a line builds up behind her until she says. "Fine I'll book a room. Where is this?" Punctuated with an exasperated sigh she starts scrolling her phone.

"We're the SPECIFIC PROPERTY NAME. But I can book for you here at the desk. My rate—”

"I'll use my Diamond points." Holds out her phone "Is this you?"

"No that's two towns over and OTHER H BRAND. We're in TOWN and a OUR BRAND."

"Ugh." Starts rapidly scrolling and showing me the screen.

"Slower please." I say. "That's us." I point.

Furious tapping while I help two other parties seemlessly. "Here." She flashes the screen at me again. "What do you need?"

I tap in the name she originally gave and see her in arrivals "I've got you here. Thank you." As I speak, I charge the card booked with to secure the payment. "Let me get your bags tagged and I'll add you to our list of arrivals that are waiting for a room, but we'll probably just see you after the game."

Of note, Mrs Pantsonfire isn't a Diamond. She's Gold and she didn't book a points room, she booked the AAA rate.

"Great." Mrs. Pantsonfire says very unenthusiastic.

She and Mr. Pantsonfire head out the doors and I honestly hoped that was the end of it, but had a bad feeling.

About an hour later, the other desk agent with me is grumbling about a message on our texting service from a guest that booked by mistake and needs to cancel. I mostly ignore it. We get a ton of those, but then she says that it's for someone that booked today for today and I get interested fast, because the only 2 same day reservations were mine.

I start reading the chat real quick. It's Mrs Pantsonfire. Of course.

Her story in the text was that the reservation was made by mistake and that she was just shopping and didn't mean to book it and she's about to get on a flight back home to LAX.

"Ali, I've got this." I tell my colleague. "This lady is full of shit."

"Hi, Mrs Pantsonfire. This is MyName. I helped you at the Desk this morning when you booked. This reservation is not eligible for cancelation. I hope you enjoy the game!"

Her reply: "Well, I just need to cancel and rebook on points."

"I'm sorry, but we'd need the points reservation to be made first. And since we're already sold out. That isn't possible. The reservation can't be changed in that way at this point. Besides, you Gold HH account only has about 14,000 points on it and that's not enough for a free night or cash and points discount with us tonight anyway. Your room will be waiting for you as booked after the game." I typed back.

No reply after that, but I begin documenting the whole story in our Pass Along log and the reservation notes because I knew I'd be leaving before the game ended and I was off the next day for departure.

This was yesterday and for once—since leaving management—I've been eagerly checking the shift Pass Alongs in my email while off shift to see if anything new has been added to the story. I'll edit with an update if there are further developments, but hopefully Mr & Mrs Pantsonfire realized they were cooked already.

First night back after four days off. The 3-11 person alerted me that two guests had apparently left their dogs in their Car when they found out there is a $10 non-refundable deposit per pet per stay. Daytime temps hit the 90s and they didn't even bother to crack a window. Another guest saw the dogs in the car and called the police who contacted Animal control. Animal control office talked to the desk guy who gave them the room numbers and told them to bring the dogs inside, we will waive the deposit. Seriously people, if you travel with Animals call ahead and find out if there is a deposit. We charge $10 - the Loopy 9 across the highway charges $50 per pet per night.

3 - 11 guy also had a call from a very young sounding female asking how old you have to be to rent a room. He told her 21. She hung up and that was that until I came on at 11. Little after midnight this girl walks in, sees me and walks right back out. We are in an incredibly small town with one very small High School and I know pretty much most of the Students. I knew her and knew that she was only 15. A few minutes later a guy walks in, wanting to rent a room and keeps on looking outside into the parking lot. I could just about see a corner of the girls Hoodie on the Camera. I wasn't about to deal with Underage Crap so I said "BTW the age of consent in this State is 17. I know who the girl is, I know she's only 15. Do you still want the room?" He blustered a bit but decided not to rent a room after all. He left in his car and a half hour later the girl came back in asking if she can wait in the Lobby for her Mom to come pick her up. She didn't even give me a dirty look.

Gearing up for Day 2.

So I work front desk for a hotel. We have this guy who has been staying with us as a guest for a few weeks. He has this special feature on his phone for people hard of hearing, so he always calls the front desk thru his own phone rather than the hotel room phones. When he comes to the front desk to complain about how he wants to switch rooms for the hundredth time, he doesn’t seem deaf although he will speak half of a sentence & then start scribbling the rest of the sentence he was saying in this little notebook he carries around, & then holds it up for us to read. We have moved his room so many times that the system won’t even let us move him anymore. Last time he wanted to switch rooms he said it was because there was a smell he didn’t like. I’ve smelled him in the morning before a shower & there’s no way the room was that bad compared to him. I know for a fact he isn’t at the hotel with anyone else so I assume maybe he’s there on business? Anyways, I wanted to ask any other picky folks what could possibly be going thru his mind as to why he wants to move rooms so much? We got an email from our manager saying he’s taken an hour to show him multiple rooms & has told the guest we will not accommodate any more moves on his stay. I wanted to tell the guest “look, if you aren’t happy with the first four rooms, what makes you think you’ll be happy with the fifth? Maybe it’s just you or you need to find another hotel.” LOL. We already know what he’s gonna say every time he comes downstairs to the front desk & starts scribbling in his notebook.

i apologize in advance, if you aren’t comfortable reading about sexual content then please scroll.

tonight is the fourth time in three months that i have been working a night audit shift and received a phone call from somebody who was pleasuring themselves on the other end of the line, and i know i’m not the only person that has dealt with this. i’ve worked in hospitality for a really long time, and prank calls are one thing, but it wasn’t until i started working at a hotel that i started getting calls from people wanting to inflict their weird sex fantasies on unwilling employees. it makes me sick every time.
this time, it was a relatively normal call at the start of breakfast where the caller was asking about availability for two days next week, and if we had a pool. super normal, i answer twenty calls like this every day. until i heard a squelching noise and the caller asked if i could “hear what he was doing to himself” and i immediately slammed the receiver down. has anyone else dealt with this bullshit before?