Earlier this week, I placed a request with the Infinia concierge for a lunch reservation for two at the airport ITC in Mumbai for Sunday. The request was placed well over 48 hours in advance - which is the cutoff time as published on the HDFC page for this offer.
About 35 hours later, when no one had got back with a confirmation - which was supposed to have arrived inside 24 hours - I sent them a reminder on email. No reply.
The next day, the day of the lunch, I called the concierge again at about 9am, around 48 hours after the booking request had been submitted. The agent I spoke to first tried to bullshit me, saying I actually needed to place the request 72 hours in advance, otherwise it would be a tentative reservation! (Why do they say 48 hours then?)
When I pressed further, he put me on hold for 15 minutes and then came back and said ITC would get back to me in an hour or so. As expected, no one got back and two hours later (a couple of so hours before the time I'd requested the lunch for) when I called back, I was again placed on hold for about 20 minutes before the agent came back and said that it was "peak season and ITC has several guests staying with them" and they could not give me a reservation.
It was nearly the same in my one previous experience with trying to use this so-called benefit, a year or more ago. No one got back to me after I placed the request, and I had to email and call multiple times, before they graciously confirmed the reservation a little before the time of the meal.
It seems to me that HDFC's concierge actively tries to prevent you from availing this benefit. It seems to me that the fault is on the concierge end, because when I had the last of my calls with them about yesterday's booking, they offered to make a booking for the next day, Sunday, for me. Would the pressure of so many fully booked rooms have miraculously eased in a day?
About 35 hours later, when no one had got back with a confirmation - which was supposed to have arrived inside 24 hours - I sent them a reminder on email. No reply.
The next day, the day of the lunch, I called the concierge again at about 9am, around 48 hours after the booking request had been submitted. The agent I spoke to first tried to bullshit me, saying I actually needed to place the request 72 hours in advance, otherwise it would be a tentative reservation! (Why do they say 48 hours then?)
When I pressed further, he put me on hold for 15 minutes and then came back and said ITC would get back to me in an hour or so. As expected, no one got back and two hours later (a couple of so hours before the time I'd requested the lunch for) when I called back, I was again placed on hold for about 20 minutes before the agent came back and said that it was "peak season and ITC has several guests staying with them" and they could not give me a reservation.
It was nearly the same in my one previous experience with trying to use this so-called benefit, a year or more ago. No one got back to me after I placed the request, and I had to email and call multiple times, before they graciously confirmed the reservation a little before the time of the meal.
It seems to me that HDFC's concierge actively tries to prevent you from availing this benefit. It seems to me that the fault is on the concierge end, because when I had the last of my calls with them about yesterday's booking, they offered to make a booking for the next day, Sunday, for me. Would the pressure of so many fully booked rooms have miraculously eased in a day?
