In Reply to: champlungmas double bookings posted by 2sharkgirls on Sunday, 28. June 2009 at 20:40 Bali Time:
I believe that the main problem is in the system of the wholesalers who make "block bookings" of x amount of rooms and in reality havent "booked" any in as much as they HOPE to sell them,and a number of wholesalers will do this.When they dont sell them all they "hand them back" to the hotel which in most cases is fine but when they all,or some of them, do actually sell the rooms it becomes a problem because the sum total of the "bookings" is greater than the total of rooms available in the hotel,and of course the hotels know that most of the time they are left with unsold rooms so they also sell rooms expecting to be given rooms back from the wholesalers.
I think the problem also gets compounded by the wholesalers not keeping right up to touch with the hotels and letting them know how many they have actually sold until a couple of weeks before people arrive.
It is similar to the airlines,and they all do the same,overbooking seats knowing the mostly will get no-shows which is why sometimes people will upgraded to business or bounced to the next available flight with a financial compensation which the hotels dont give.
Ted