Out of Quota

An old friend called yesterday and said “I’ve got something for you to put on your blog.”

I’m not sure what he thought it would accomplish – he obviously thinks I get a lot more readers than I do – but here it is:

He and his wife are both alumni of Sam Houston State, and they were in Huntsville this past weekend to attend a Vegas Night style fund raiser.  They stayed at the Holiday Inn Express on I-45, considered by locals to be the best hotel in town.

He told me that their room rate was $190, which seems outrageously high to me, but I haven’t stayed in a hotel in years so it might be just fine.

Upon checking in, he asked for their military discount.  I should point out that my friend joined the Marines out of high school, and when he got home he joined the ROTC at Sam Houston. After graduation, he flew helicopters in Viet Nam as an Army officer.  Under the terms listed on the Holiday Inn Express website, he qualified both as retired military and as a disabled vet.

The clerk at the counter took quite some time on the computer, and finally told him that the computer would not give him the discount because he was “out of quota.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“How big is the quota? How many people can get the discount?

“I don’t know.”

“Is the quota for the whole chain, or just this hotel?”

“I don’t know.”

He says he checked with the hotel manager the next morning and got the same response.  In fact, he said the conversation was an almost identical replay of the previous night.

The chain also offers a Senior discount that is about as good as the military discount, and my pal would have qualified for that, but I don’t think it occurred to him to ask.