the times of kryptoniteglows

So I booked what looked like a good deal to Freeport, Bahamas for a little unwinding at the end of the semester. I was able to get a Star Alliance flight down to Florida (no direct flights from up here) and picked the cheapest hotel because all I really need is a bed and shower. This happened to be the 2 1/2 star Island Palms Resort, checkout doesn’t say anything about additional resort fees to be paid at the hotel (yea I went to Vegas last year ) and the reviews don’t say anything about getting robbed or stabbed, so I book it. It comes out to $332 for the flight and a 5 night stay. It seems pretty cheap, but not really a screaming deal since I could get a cruise for around that or slightly more and that would include things like meals.

Fast forward a day or so later, the buddy who told me about the great price in the first place, says he has noticed a $15/night per person fee for the Island Palms Resort. Look at the reviews on Expedia and there are a couple of people saying they got hit with a $15/night fee, so I go through the checking out process again to make sure I didn’t miss mention of this fee there, nothing about it though I do see that the price details already list a “Tax & fees” line that equals $15/night already being included in my total. Well, seems like I paid it and shouldn’t really worry. Unfortunately it bugs at me and checking with the hotel confirms an ADDITIONAL $15/night fee for staying there.

Seems like that would have been something important to tell someone booking a room there, in my case it results in my trip costing 23% more! Interestingly enough, checking the same hotel on different sites like Orbitz and Priceline, show the additional $15/night fee extremely clearly. I mean really clearly, it’s listed at least twice in the hotel description and again next to the total price, indicating you pay it at the hotel.

If other sites list the fee, it seems like an error on Expedia’s part and since I paid them, I call them up to hopefully get things resolved. I get connected to rep and they don’t know about the fee (because it’s NOT listed on their website) , he says he’ll call the hotel , and puts me on hold. He comes back a little later and says he couldn’t confirm the fee because the hotel manager leaves at 5. Obviously, I want to get the matter resolved then, otherwise I would not have called then, so I push a little more on the issue. He offers a $50 coupon for future use on Expedia, really not acceptable since my $75 is more than $50 and my money is worth more than a limited and probably exclusion filled coupon. I ask to speak with a supervisor, hoping they have the power to fix things.

There is quite a wait, but I get transferred to his manager. It’s a woman by the name of what sounds to be Donny or Don? Whatever, she points out that a “resort fee” is listed under the hotel details page though it does not list the price. Of course I stick to my point that the information about a resort fee was not listed during my checkout, I certainly shouldn’t be expected to check obscure links to what is incomplete information anyway. I point out that Orbitz has the information listed very clearly on their site and it is also displayed when checking out. We probably go back and forth on that for way to long. She tries to offer me the $50 coupon again (they must hand out these things like candy), waiting to see what happens when I go to the hotel, and even canceling the hotel. Well, I have a nonrefundable flight that is really no good without a hotel to stay at… We get to switching a hotel, not exactly an ideal solution, but I recalled the price difference wasn’t that much more for the next hotel in the price list. I ask for the price of the next cheapest hotel and she provides me with the most economical option that happened to cost $236 more! Yes, she said “economical”, nice that she didn’t call me a cheapass, but price difference isn’t going to fly if I’m already complaining about $75. Eventually we end the call because we really weren’t getting anywhere.
Following day I use their contact form to type up my issue and link to some screenshots of their website obviously being inconsistent.
1. Looked up one of the Vegas hotels with a resort fee, it is listed quite clearly next to the total price.
2. The taxes & fees line when booking at Island Palms Resort, which happen to be $15/night.
3. The price details of another hotel in Freeport which doesn’t have any additional taxes (inferring I must of already paid the resort fee and should not be paying it again at the hotel).
This auto replies with a case id, so later in the day I decide to call to see if I can get a rep to help me. I cannot remember what I talked to her about because I was transferred to her supervisor, Tyrone. He sure made an impression and not a good one. I guess they have a file on me as he mentions he sees my conversation with Don yesterday. He keeps cutting in and out, which odd as I no trouble speaking to his rep before. I move closer to the window and speak even more loudly, but apparently it was not helpful as I lose the call. It wasn’t even like the call was breaking up, but more like he was muting it on purpose to mess with me. Anyway, he just didn’t seem all that competent, one of his lines was that we advise you to take a credit card to cover incidentals. Like WTF? I don’t know why that comes into play, but you need a credit card or deposit when checking into a hotel normally…. And he also mentions that there are taxes on everything. Well, coming from the Delaware area, taxes are not commonplace for me at all.

I get the tier 3 support number from a friend with the same issue, which apparently routes to their US corporate offices. First time I call in, apparently their computer systems are down. Rep advises me to call in an hour. I give them several hours and try to call in again, I’m waiting for a very very long time to get though. I talk to a woman who seems to know what I am talking about as soon as I mention Island Palms (so obviously I am not the only with this problem, this was NOT user error), unfortunately we also do not really get to a resolution here either. Main points are these:
-She reiterated that resort fee is listed in their obscure link, she will “advise” them of my complaints of incomplete and inconsistent information.
-She says the page is the responsibility of the hotel.
-She is not really able to explain what/where my taxes & fee portion of my payment went. Just that they are taxes and fees, it is the hotel’s.
-She did offer me to switch hotels and this time there was availability at a cheaper hotel, so the difference that I had to pay would only be $35.
I kinda of wanted to take it, but at the same time I felt really conflicted about giving this company that is screwing me, more money. It’s like rewarding them for bad behavior. I ask her to comp it for all this trouble, she shoots me down point blank and says they will not do anything of the sort. I get kind of close to paying for the change, but she couldn’t assure me there would be no additional fees. That ticked me off, apparently they do not know nor do they stand by what they sell. We end the call because I really felt overwhelming strongly about not giving them more money for this bad behavior.

At the end of that call, I was pretty mad and could feel my skin burning. Even had a minor nosebleed, that is how stressed I was by the whole situation. Eventually I calmed down, decided I would just take the +$35 hotel while could, so I call their normal support line, thinking it would be a quick change. While the rep I talked to was helpful, she could not make the change due to the coupon I use for the package deal, so she called up their help desk. It takes a long while and they are not able to take care of it either. So I get transferred to her supervisor who probably contacts their tier 3 support, which I should of just called directly. All in all, it takes over 55 minute to make this change, but to their credit, the rep/supervisor would return to the call every so often while I was hold letting me know they were still there and just holding for the internal line.

I really was not happy about giving them more money, but I felt a ton of stress lifted after I got that change made. Talk to the friend again, that gave me the tier 3 number and find out he was able to get the issue resolved with Expedia and even got a nice coupon that was more than $50! I get his ref number so they know I am not blowing smoke and waited over 30 minutes before anyone answered their tier 3 line. The man I talked to, basically said that they handle things on a case by case basis, so even with the reference number, they could offer me nothing in the way of compensating me for my troubles and they consider the matter resolved.

I should pursue things on principal, but it’s not worth the stress of dealing with Expedia. Plus they are going to put me over my cell phone minutes for the month. I get nothing for wasting 4.5+ hours with them on the phone and giving them $35 more of my money. I hate to think of where I would be if availability didn’t open up at the more “economical” hotel or I got hit with this surprise fee while checking in.

Moral of the rant: Expedia will gladly take your money, but they will absolutely not help you with any issues, even errors on their own site.

So I still haven’t bought a house, my pre-approval has expired and nothing on the market really looks appetizing enough for me to get a new pre-approval from the bank. I’ve been following some home sales and saw some interest tidbits that I wanted to share, though not in great detail since I haven’t bought my house yet..
I’ve looked at some government owned homes, not like the government seized them or anything, but basically homes that people bought with loans that were backed by the government. The property has foreclosed, so the government sells them to recoup their losses. One of the big advantage of purchasing such a home is that there is no property transfer tax, that saves .75% for me a first time home buyer (others, this may save 1.5%). There is also priority for people who will actually live in the home versus investors who are looking to flip. And it also seems they treat cash offers and financed offers with equal priority where regular foreclosure purchases from the bank may take a lower cash offer over a higher finance contingent offer.

Anyway, the offers and the offer they accept are publically available, though not easily found. I found one home that had an accepted offer of $140k, but eventually was relisted, likely due to financing falling thru. Checked earlier today and someone has put in an offer of $155k (which was obviously accepted), commissions to the broker appear to be the same on both offers and no seller concessions. This means that someone has not done enough research and has paid $15k more than they needed to, maybe even more as my rough calculations derived from past sales say they may have been willing to accept as low as $134k! Now of course the calculations are based on no one else wanting the home more. This home has been listed for a while, so I don’t think there was a huge demand or interest for it. Since they do list all offers, I’ll eventually be able to confirm that. I say eventually as there is a lag between when offers are put in and when they are made publically available, which makes sense in that others cannot make offers based on what other offers exists, sorta like sealed bidding…

Just to update on the house I mentioned last time, it sucked. The basement was still flooded when I went to view it, likely ruining the HVAC systems and creating a probably serious mold problem. I’ve also never seen such an in efficient use of space. The power room on the first floor was mentioned by my agent to be the biggest one he had ever seen. The room could have easily been cut in half, maybe even more and there would be some additional space for a closet or simply a larger foyer area. Next to the gigantic powder room were two small rooms. They were not bedrooms and both just kinda to small to be really useful for anything. For a 2000+ sq ft house I would have expected a larger living room area, it was just kinda sad and puny. The kitchen was falling apart, though it did have a deep double basin sink, it had no pantry area. I definitely want one of those, my ~ 17oz box of corn pops do not fit into my kitchen cabinets well, plus I’m to short to easily reach the top cabinets. The second level of the place was ok, the master bedroom had its own private bathroom. However, there was a little hall to the bathroom, which seem to greatly decrease the closet space. I think a walkin closet would have been possible, if they didn’t do the hallway to the bathroom thing. It seems alot of the house was like that, very poorly designed. However, given the price, the home quickly went into pending and will be someone else’s headache .

So I’ve been seeing this one property in my searches, over and over with what seemed like a great price. I was rather surprised it had not been sold or something so far, the seller was said to be “motivated”, but I just figured they were not as motivated as listed. The listing is probably 6 months old, the picture of the property still has snow on it…. Some listings don’t have dates, so that is the first bad sign. The lack of pictures or pictures that are obviously out of date.

Google map’s streetview showed the house to be next to a gas station. Given that, I’m not even sure why I bothered to look. The place was also off of RT 4, basically a 4 lane highway is front of the house, these should have all been obvious signs that this place was no good…

I decided to do some background search on it, found they basically hadn’t paid their property taxes since 2006! This kind of intrigued me that it would have to be sold at a sheriff’s sale for taxes or mortgage, so I decided to take a look. Took the short drive over, it was only really then that I noticed the how bad it would be to live in front of a 4 lane roadway. There is sort of a barrier between the row of houses that start the development and the roadway, but it’s mainly a little row of immature trees. The gas station also seems awfully close, in that you could walk over to it.

The “two car” garage was basically one super long garage, in theory you could fit two cars inside it, but would you? Against my better judgment, I get out of my car to look at the property. That’s when the stench hit me! I don’t know if someone died inside or a crazy cat lady lived there or some combination of both, it stunk!

First, let me admit I’m definitely abrasive, so maybe I scared the salespeople off…

My parents just bought a townhouse, likely just to resell it once they fix it up. One of them items the place needs are new windows as the current ones are leaking and/or the seals are broken. My brother gets P.J. Fitzpatrick to come out to the place for a quote. They send out two guys, they make small talk and make measurements of the windows. We are pretty upfront we are mostly concerned with price, but who isn’t in this economy? The guys are pretty upfront about how they aren’t going to be the cheapest because they make their own windows and are of the highest quality.. Then one of the guys, pulls out his laptop to start doing a power point presentation about their company. How 50% of their business come from repeat customers or referrals, which is nice I guess, but I’ve already asked you to come here, so I don’t exactly need all that much convincing. One of the freaking slides was of old Pete Fitzpatrick, like I care. At this point I’m kinda of annoyed because I really don’t care and just want my quote, my dad evens tells the guy he is talking too much. The guy is like I just started! I’m like omg… Seriously, I was

Anyways, working for the company that I do, in the industry I do, I understand why they may not be the cheapest because of the service they offer. However, I contacted them about getting a price and I would like to get that NOW. One of the things I say specifically is that I am interested in getting the price for comparison, even if you are not the cheapest, it maybe worth it to go with you guys if I see what the difference is, however if your price is something like DOUBLE then I likely would not use you. They say nothing to dispute that their company may cost DOUBLE what other companies cost. And apparently they take offense to what I’ve said because they decide to leave without giving me a proposal at all!

Well thanks for nothing P.J. Fitzpatrick! You’ve not only wasted your time, but my time as well. I’m definitely disappointed, especially since I wasn’t given the price after all that wasting of time. For some reason, I also imagine their customers being senior citizens who hire them at over DOUBLE cost because they would like to have someone to talk to, since their salespeople, LOVE to talk, talk , talk.

The salespeople were not even very good or perhaps P.J. Fitzpatrick windows are not very good. The more I was talking to the salesperson, the more I felt like I was getting ripped off, but he was just trying to make me feel good about getting ripped off. I think a lot of the big selling points for companies now is to promote the 30% tax credit you can get for making energy efficient home improvements, which we would have received here because of the likelihood we were going to sell the place soon. Anyway, the moronic salesmen doesn’t even mention that their windows would add resell value to the home, so I must assume they would not because they aren’t exactly “name brand”. I don’t know much about windows, but I know of Anderson and Pella, those seem like name brand windows to me and I would probably pay more for those. I’m slightly bias as I do currently have mostly Anderson windows…

I get to have another company come out tomorrow and do the same thing over again! Maybe I’ll feign interest in living there, so I can actually receive a freaking estimate!

In summary to P.J. Fitzpatrick: I want new windows, I will pay for new windows, you give me estimate and I will compare with other estimates. There is no need for me to see slides with old white men! While price is a concern and I can’t imagine where it wouldn’t be, I certainly would pay more for quality, reliability, and getting the home sold faster. Your salesman showing me old white men, do not help with that at all.

Fuck! That’s all I gotta to say about my roth IRA…  I don’t even get the benefit of using the loss to offset my taxes