An Open Letter (1)

To those who attended the Fabcasters’ party and stayed up until 3am onwards, the following is recounted here to explain once and for all what happened.

The Facebook invite stated that the party was “from 8pm to 3am.” So around 3am several guys from the front desk came knocking on suite 816. Tony talked to them first.

Apparently there is a hotel rule regarding guests. The suite can accommodate a maximum of six overnight occupants; the occupants will be charged extra for every guest who stays beyond 1am. Unfortunately we were not made aware of that rule. (Or no one checked the house rules.)

Tony approached me; we decided to wake Migs up (who had gone to sleep early) because the room was booked under his name. The three of us agreed that we should just let the hotel do the headcount, and in the morning Migs will sort things out. Migs went back to sleep.

The headcount totaled 53 guests. Tony asked them if they could waive the extra charges if we offered to halt the party right there and then and ask our guests to leave. They replied that they would still charge us nonetheless. So we requested that they just allow us to let our guests stay, but we’d minimize our noise level. They agreed.

When they left, we thought that was that. Tony proceeded to his room to sleep. D and I said our goodbyes to those who were staying.

When D and I stepped out to head for the elevator, the reception guys were back. They asked me to sign the hotel invoice acknowledging that there were 53 guests in the room and that the total amount of extra charges was Php97,000++. The amount took me by surprise. It was Php1,800++ per guest.

D was indignant. He told me not to sign anything, or at least let Migs be the one to sign (perhaps he thought that the act of signing was a tacit agreement to pay the amount). Maybe because D was already agitated, I chose to adopt a calmer disposition and tone. I pointed out to the reception guys that I was signing on behalf of Migs just to acknowledge the fact that there were 53 guests in the room and that we were being billed extra for them. But I also told them that Migs was going to contest that in the morning. Had we been informed of the 1am cut-off time, we would have asked people to leave as early as 12:30am. I also gently reminded them that we offered to leave but were told we’d be charged nevertheless.

Luckily the reception guys had already consulted their supervisor, and they informed me that their supervisor agreed to waive the extra charges if we halted the party and the guests leave. They offered to give us an hour to vacate the suite; I told them we can do it in 30 minutes.

And that’s why I ended up addressing the crowd for a second time that night.

D and I left, along with most of the guests. Some guests remained, but they became Tony’s headache afterwards. (I swear, had I been in Tony’s shoes, I’d have charged those guests 1,800++ for being bullheaded!)