CONFRONTING THE SWAPPERS

Homeless shelter to my swap home?  No thanks.  I had told my incoming European swap couple the truth about the cheapie "hotel" they had booked for the one night I could not accommodate them.  It was a Single Room Occupancy residence for homeless people.  I insisted that they confirm a reservation I made at a real hotel just a block from my apartment.  I even got the exchangers a discount rate since they chose the cheapest lodging they could find, despite the many internet warnings about its many horrors.

"Dear nicole

you should know that we have already paied the reservation because we have booked it by an official site for hotel bookings (www.XXX.com).

We've been very surprised by your e-mail. We normally don't use to sleep in houses for homeless or something like that. We also think that an organization like [the booking website] should avoid to have that kind of structures among its chances.

So we need you to be shure of what you said because we're going to loose the amount of reservation (about 110$)

Write us an soon as possible.

Tank you"

On the one hand, the swappers clearly understood what I was saying.  But their assertion about being unable to cancel a reservation at an illegal "hotel", with more than a week's notice sounded suspect.   A quick check of the booking website they had used revealed a policy that any reservation could be cancelled up to 24 hours before it was to begin.


The exchangers might be confused but I was not.  They could confirm the hotel I had reserved or find another one they liked that was an actual hotel.  I gave them the good news that their reservation was refundable and again insisted that they find a less dangerous place to stay.  What would they choose to do?


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