Singapore Hotel Insanity
November 29th, 2007
Three years ago, I felt deeply sorry for the city-state Singapore where I once lived and had many great memories. I visit about 5 or 6 times a year, staying at the Pan Pacific for a rate of $165 SGD, which was about $99 USD. When SARS hit 3 years ago they couldn’t pay people to stay there.
During that year, the city was like a ghost town, especially the PanPac hotel. I visited often but always felt a little sad that the once thriving city was so quiet and deserted.
Well, those days are long gone.
After several failed requests to get a room in Singapore from asiarooms.com, I called to the Pan Pacific to request three nights stay 2 weeks from now. The clerk tells me it’ll be $565 SGD. ($400 USD!)
I say well, I’ve stayed with you many times at a rate of $165, and then just last year, you raised it up to $185 because of some conference in town. If you would be so kind, I’d like to get my original rate of $165, which would come to like… $495 for the 3 nights.
There was this moment of silence on the other side of the phone which I mistook as her looking up my former rate on the computer. She composes herself and calmly says… “uh, Sir, that’s $565 per night”.
