Jacksonville Super Bowl XXXIX Hotel Room Fiasco - Pt 8

Well it appears that this hotel room shortage problem started because Jacksonville had signed letters and not contracts claiming the 17,000 rooms. For evidence, read this article I found: http://www.hotel-online.com/News/PR2002_4th/Nov02_SuperRooms.html

I learned today that in 2000, my competitors at Jacksonville's Super Bowl Bid Committee did not have hotels signed under contract, but simple letters of support and rooms from some of the hotels in the surrounding area. I and others (including the Bay Area Media) were led to believe that they had signed contracts, each 13-pages long, totalling 17,000 rooms.

The Oakland bid effort I led had about 7,000 rooms under contract, and a letter from the San Mateo CVB for 12,500 more. So, where I felt bad because we didn't have enough contracts, it turns out we had more rooms under contract at the time of our bid presentation on the morning of November 3rd 2000 in Atlanta, and yet Jacksonville won.

I remember Robert Gammon, who wrote for the Oakland Tribune at the time, as refering to the Oakland Super Bowl Bid as "failed." Well folks, we didn't fail. I didn't fail.

I believe to this day, we should have won -- the Super Bowl should be here in Oakland. But I do feel a high degree of personal vindication. Given what I had to put up with -- a less-than-supportive Jerry Brown, and no shortage of people telling me we could not do it -- I can officially say that I and the people that helped me with that bid did a hell of a great job. We can all officially say we got more hotels under contract than Jacksonville. We did what we didn't think we did.

Think the Oakland Tribune will report that? Hmm? Hmm?

Well, the other problem is a Jacksonville hotel gouging and reservations issue that may rank as one of the largest in sports events history.

Jacksonville Super Bowl XXXIX Hotel Room Fiasco - Pt 7

OK. For a recap, how did this hotel room problem start? Well, it goes all the way back to the year 2000, when Jacksonville reported that they signed up cruise ships to add 3,500 rooms to their bloc of 10,000 rooms under NFL contract. Well, as you can see if you read this blog and my series on this problem, Jacksonville gave the NFL the cruise ships, period plus another 3,500 rooms, not 10,000 rooms. In other words Jacksonville came up with only -- let's see -- about 7,000 rooms.

Oakland had about that many under contract, not including a letter from Ann Le Clair, who was the Executive Director of the San Mateo County Convention and Visitors Bureau. Well, that letter pledged an additional 12,500 rooms, so we would have been able to give the NFL their rooms, not including the 30,000 rooms in San Francisco, and the 40,000 rooms in the Bay Area, all within one-hour's drive of The Oakland Coliseum.

Want evidence of Jacksonville's promise? Click here : Press Release Oh, in the release, Jacksonville officials claim that they have over 17,000 rooms. Geez.

The question is what will the NFL do after this? You can be sure that Jacksonville's getting a game will be a problem in the future, but the bottom line is tha the Jax executives signed binding NFL contracts promissing rooms. So, I'll bet the league's pissed. What am I writing, I know they are.

The other big problem is the undoubtely large number of instances of hotel room booking fraud. I think that the law should change to prohibit those who are not registered hotel travel agents from booking rooms, and that of those registered, they and the hotel manager are required to report all transactions to the parent company, even if the parent company does not own the property.

Then, that the parent company is responsible for the resolution of all potentially frauduent transactions. This will cause them to police their properties better.

Jacksonville Super Bowl Hotel Room Fiasco - Pt 6

Well, I finally got a hotel about 50 miles (!) out from Jacksonville, and yes in Jekyl Island, GA. That reported, it sounds like a nice resort. But this whole deal is not over just because I have a room.

I got an e-mail from a friend who has an exhibit at the NFL Experience, so he has more Super Bowl experience than I do. This is what he wrote:

"Hi Zennie,
I relate to your issues. When I first started my negotiations with the NFL this year, they told me that I would be responsible for securing my own rooms because there is a huge room issue for this year’s game. I told them that I would increase my fees to reflect the change in policy. The next conversation, they had only 2 rooms secured for the 3 of us, and that they would pick up the tab, as always. The problem with these rooms is that they are more than 30 minutes away from the NFL Experience, so I also had to rent cars for my staff."

So that's proof there's a real problem. Oh, and Best Western? They called to tell me what I already know, that my name was not on a reservation. What I was trying to determine is if the ticket broker actually had a room in the first place, and also get a room for myself.

I've got a room, but I'm going to bring this whole matter to the attention of whoever will listen in Congress. This is ridiculous, and I'm not going to stop until hoterliers are discouraged from inviting fraudulent practices.

Jacksonville Super Bowl XXXIX Hotel Room Fiasco Pt 5

I have not had a great time with this matter of hotels. I didn't here from the Best Western people today, but that could be because they're investigating this matter -- as they said they would do. It's also Martin Luther King's birthday holiday, ....but hey, I did talk to the Best Western people on Sunday, huh? Hmm...

This will be resolved in some way. I was contacted by a reporter for the Florida Times-Union not on this problem, but on my remarks that the economic impact of the Super Bowl is under-estimated. The reporter's passing my hotel problem story to a person in their business section.

Maybe I'll have a public voice about this stuff, if only to get a room. But there's a real problem down there in Jax. For example, I finally used the website at jacksonvillesuperbowl.com for more than just maps. They've got a website for hotels and a hotline. Used the website but the closest hotel I located at a $150 price was in Georgia. Yep, South GA is about an hour's drive. But that's a whole hour.

When I called the hotline, I discovered that the guy on the other end of the line was just using the same website, because when he told me to go to the Jacksonville website, I said "I'm already there," and he said "That's what I'm using." Geez.

Oh, so you would think that the hotline guy was located in Jacksonville, and could tell me something about the area, like where to get Chicago-style pizza,right? Nah. He was in Chicago. Geez. If this were The Apprentice, who would The Donald fire?

After fishing around the Internet, I thought I found a room at the Florida Inn on Amelia Island, and at $169 a night as reported on their website. Check out their website by clicking on the word LINK. Then type in the dates of Feb 3rd to arrive and Feb 7th to get out of Dodge, as they said in Gunsmoke.

Notice that their are rooms at $169, right. Right? Yeah. So, I called them, with a smile. They person did report the room as available and at that rate!!!

But then they fax out this room form for me to fill out (fine), and the rates on the paper are from $600 for the same room, up to $900. And that's per night. Per night. Per night. Should I repeat this?

So, I called the Inn, and the person on the phone agreed that the prices were too high, but she didn't set them. She agreed that the price was set at a "scam level." I'm not kidding. She also told me that the Inn elected not to sign up with the Host Committee.

I'm not sure if that was a good move or a bad one.

I still need a room.

Jacksonville Super Bowl XXXIX Hotel Room Fiasco - Pt 4

(This is the fourth installment on the problem I'm having getting a hotel room in Jacksonville for this year's Super Bowl. For the others scroll down below.)


There's more news in this unfolding nightmare. After I had the great conversation with Best Western's Paul Alben, I checked my cell phone voicemail, only to find a nasty message from my friend's friend who was supposed to have the room at the Best Western Executive Inn.

I had specifically instructed his accountant not to run my credit card until I called him. What I really did was use one of my debt cards that didn't have money on it, until I found out I actually had a room.

Well, on Wednesday I called to express concern that I didn't have the proper hotel confirmation. Well, his accountant seemed to understand my fear. But the guy who runs this brokerage firm in New York didn't. He basically started yelling at me that "He was only doing this as a favor," and "He wasn't making money on the deal anyway."

I tried to make light of the conversation by simply laughing or basically calming him down, but in my mind I was more nervous that ever. So, I kept calling Best Western until I received call backs starting Thursday.

Anyway, it turns out that they decided to run my card, without my permission. So, of course it came up declined. Now get this, the hotel rep I talked to when I called to report the cell phone message told me that some other firm seemed to have control of the rooms. There are 61 of them.

So if I placed $700 on that card's account, I may not have had the room anyway! The very fine print of the credit card authorization reads "All orders on on a try to fill basis." Plus, the document refers to tickets and not hotel rooms. Geez. A ticket broker trying to move hotel rooms.

Whew!

I hope Best Western comes through.

Jacksonville Super Bowl XXXIX Hotel Room Fiasco - Pt 3

Hey. Best Western's Will Jansen did call me. He said that they were concerned about what was going on down there, and would check to see if the room was indeed there for me. Then I just now got a call from Mr. Paul Alben who represents Best Western's customer relations department. He's also going to check into the hotel matter. He agrees that third-parties should always give you a hotel confirmation number.

Jacksonville Super Bowl XXXIX Hotel Room Fiasco - Pt 2

OK. I called the office of Best Western CEO David Kong and was helped by his wonderful secretary. I also called a guy named Dan Williams who's VP of North American Hotel development.

Well, somehow, I got passed to a Best Western Customer service person who told me that Best Western had no control over what the individual hotels did. I told her I don't believe that. Any CEO who discovered that a hotel with his or her logo on it may be up to shady practices would certainly step in.

So, I called Mr. Kong's secretary back, and now I'm calling Will Jansen.

If you came into this in the middle, look at the first post on this about four posts down.

Going to the Super Bowl? Have hotel problems? Share them here.