I purchased a gift certificate for a weekend at th...

I purchased a gift certificate for a weekend at the Homestead at a charity auction thinking it would be a fun retreat for the family whenever we needed to get away.

When I called the resort to make the reservation (mind you, I'm an Omni Preferred Guest), and looked to redeem the certificate, I was told over the phone that there was no availability for the weekend I'd requested.

Since the weekend I requested was in the middle of February, with no holidays during or after it, I found the lack of availability suspicious. So I went online to see if I could book a room.

Amazingly, and not at all to my surprise, I found plenty of available rooms - so I decided to call back, armed with this information. Upon calling I spoke with a different representative, and instead of leading out with the fact that I had a certificate I wanted to redeem, I just said I wanted to make a reservation.

Well - what room did I want? So many were available that she was able to list multiple options off for me over the phone. Then came the moment of truth - I wanted to apply the certificate they gave to a charity auction, which I paid more than retail for to support what I believe is a worthy cause.

They put me on hold, and the lady came back and said, awkwardly, there was no availability. Obviously I clarified that there WAS in fact availability, they were just refusing to honor my certificate. She tacitly agreed this was the case.

This experience solidified a few things for me:

1.) I'll never book a room at this hotel again

2.) I'm certainly going share this experience with my network of friends and acquaintances

and

3.) I'm definitely contacting the organization that I bought the certificate from - they should probably know how The Homestead handled the situation.

I can't wait for my weekend at the Salamander Resort in Middleburg. Hopefully it'll be great, but at minimum they agreed to give me an available room that I'm paying for.