Up all hours: The Novotel Auckland Airport should be used to late arrivals and disrupted travellers, says Adele Thurlow. Photo / Dean Purcell
Up all hours: The Novotel Auckland Airport should be used to late arrivals and disrupted travellers, says Adele Thurlow. Photo / Dean Purcell
Airport hotels should be used to late arrivals and disrupted travellers, says Adele Thurlow
Arriving back into New Zealand from Qatar at 1.30am alongside two other international flights, it’s hard to imagine the arrivals terminal ever being empty. Hundreds of tired passengers waited listlessly at the luggage carousels as suitcasessidled past intermittently. Immigration officers, methodically stamping declaration forms and scanning bags, dealt with the queues as efficiently as they could.
More than an hour after landing, I was finally free to make the short stroll across to the Novotel Auckland Airport, ready to shower away the residue of a long-haul flight and collapse into a plush bed for some very overdue sleep.
With a domestic flight departing at 8am, I would only have a narrow window of time at the hotel but I deemed it necessary, given the glaring lack of facilities at the airport for passengers arriving overnight but not connecting to domestic flights until daytime.
When I phoned a month prior to make a reservation, I was informed that Novotel Auckland Airport’s short-stay offering ceased during Covid and is yet to be reinstated. Rather than spend the night on the airport floor, I opted to pay (more than $300) for a full day reservation to ensure I had a few hours of comfort. Knowing my flight arrived in the wee hours of the morning, I ensured my reservation began on the date of the preceding day and requesting a note be added to the booking to inform the hotel of my very late arrival.
The Novotel Auckland Airport hotel. Photo / Supplied, Accor
I’d checked in online before departing Qatar so I anticipated a warm welcome back and a swift collection of my room key card. Instead, I waited awkwardly at the front desk as the concierge stared at her computer finishing something clearly more important than greeting a guest. When she was eventually ready to help, she looked up my reservation only to inform me that it had been cancelled due to a “no show”. According to the hotel, I should’ve arrived the previous day. When I calmly explained I was still within my reservation timeframe (check-out isn’t until 11am), she insisted I should’ve arrived yesterday and huffed that she’d have to get her manager.
The manager also insisted I’d done a “no show”. Rapidly losing what little patience remained after almost 24 hours of travel, I again pointed out that I was still within the dates of my reservation. Isn’t the point of an airport hotel to welcome guests at all hours of the day and night? Thankfully, logic prevailed and the manager conceded I was correct.
What should’ve been a short but sweet stay was tainted. My over-tired body was stuck in another time zone and, despite the cushy bed, sleep eluded me. A mere 3.5 hours later, I checked out en route to the domestic terminal. It will go down as the most expensive hotel I never slept in.
A spokesperson for Novotel Auckland said that that it was likely due to the “night audit” process, to avoid unnecessarily charging guests who do not turn up.
Normally in the event of a ‘no show’, the hotel would try to contact the guest directly. “Then the hotel would determine whether the individual should be charged for the room.”
In this case the Novotel said it had not seen the late arrival advisory on the booking but, in this case, were able to find a room at short notice.
“We apologise that the request made to the reservation team was missed, which was possibly a human error, and we hope that the guest was able to enjoy their stay.”
“Our advice is to provide your hotel with as much notice as possible if your plans change or if you are significantly delayed.” The Novotel said that they will always work to accommodate guests who encounter delays to their journey.
