Holiday Inn Express - Goodmark Lodging Advance Purchase Non Refundable Columbus Texas

This appears to be a recurring complaint.

My wife booked a room at the Holday Inn Express in Columbus, TX, as I was participating in a charity bike ride from Houston to Austin, and we did not want to camp on the Saturday night stayover near Columbus.

Upon reviewing the confirmation email the next day, we discovered that we had inadvertantly booked on the wrong weekend. My wife called the hotel, and the manager, Melinda Duque, refused to refund our money. We have since made all of the calls to customer service and they have flatly refused refunds as well. I did manage to get the Senior Vice President of Brand Management's contact information, but to date he has not responded to my repeated attempts to contact him.

I am well aware of the policy and I fully understand it, as multiple so called customer service talking heads have explained it ad nauseum. My issue is that we made a simple mistake, a rare one at that. I can't think of one other time where I was not able to show up for a hotel reservation, and certainly I haven't made the whole "wrong weekend" mistake before. All I am asking for is a little understanding or, God forbid, empathy for my situation. Instead, I got the middle finger.

Enjoy my $100 Holiday Inn, it's the last of my money you will ever see.

Jeff
Houston, Texas
U.S.A.