151–160 of 533 posts
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I bet it’s also a rev share model. Hotel doesn’t pay for the device but revenue is shared. Like the traffic cameras where they shorten yellow light to durations that a car is incapable of stopping in time.
So aside from Rest being incompetent morons ("temperature changes" from smoking??), they now also have incentive to make it trigger as much as possible.
it's not an incentive, it's a raison d'etre!
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I scoured their website to look for any clues about how it might (allegedly) work and got a fat lot of nothing. > Rest constantly monitors room air quality, using a proprietary algorithm to pinpoint any tobacco, marijuana, or nicotine presence. So a smoke detector with an "algorithm" attached. Uh huh. How does that algorithm work? > By analyzing various factors and patterns[...] Some cutting edge shit here! And as fo…
It's going to be similar bullshit to what Halo uses in the highschool vape sensors. A bunch of particulate sensors for like PM1, PM2.5, PM10, sniffing out VOCs, and then they consider any tripping of any of that to be a "smoke" sesh. Edit: Oh. Rest is just NoiseAware. They're just reselling NoiseAware sensors which are just - yes - a bunch of particulate sensors hooked up to an ESP32 hooked to a web dashboard.
There has got to be a way to penalize companies for attempting this kind of thing. Even just removing the charge without discussion isn't enough, as some people will be traveling on a corporate card they don't necessarily monitor closely, will confuse the charge for something else etc. Otherwise, I'd love to be able to preemptively and without any prior communication charge (way in excess of the room rate, of course!…
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Is there that much smoking in hotels? Do they charge more for smoking rooms? A number like 84x suggests that it's basically zero now. That kinda makes sense. The only one who would notice is the cleaning staff, and relying on their word for "it smelled like smoke" sounds like a way to get a chargeback. They'd call you on it only if they were forced to take the room out of rotation to air it out. So maybe there are a…
The last time I walked into a hotel room that smelled like cigarette smoke was in 1998, so I would think this is very uncommon.
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AmEx used to be good about doing chargebacks generally, but they once sided with the merchant during covid when I was sold an impossible itinerary and cost me $2k. Since then I realized that I won’t always be able to do a chargeback, and I am much more cautious with vendors.
I think there are exceptions about "exigent circumstances" and COVID was considered one. My EU flight was not refunded as well despite the EU having strong protections. The airlines, at the time, were given a life-line. I think these once in-a-decade or more events can be swallowed. But wouldn't be happy with a regular occurrence.
If it's the former, then your bank didn't properly handle your chargeback case. There was no Covid exemption for regular "goods/services not provided" chargebacks, which includes canceled flights.
You not being able to take a flight due to travel restrictions (even if imposed after booking) is usually not covered under that, though.
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I assume if it’s triggering on car exhaust or something from opening room windows
Windows at these kinds of hotels usually do not open at all.
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I think there are exceptions about "exigent circumstances" and COVID was considered one. My EU flight was not refunded as well despite the EU having strong protections. The airlines, at the time, were given a life-line. I think these once in-a-decade or more events can be swallowed. But wouldn't be happy with a regular occurrence.
Which is crazy to me. I had purchased international airline tickets 9 months prior to COVID. Covid happened and everything was cancelled. The airline refused to refund, only give credit. The issue is that it was on an airline that was useless to me because this trip was cancelled and we were going to be rescheduling. Did a chargeback with Apple even though I was past the date, they still gave me my money back. I was…
Unfortunately some European banks aren't too familiar with these rules, especially when bankruptcy law is involved.
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Time for the EU to legislate on this. Car rental companies should be required to provide a detailed report to the customer on the damage allowing the customer to challenge any potential cost estimation (with reason) that the rental car company provides. Then the rental companies should be required to prove to the customer the damage was fixed and provide the invoice.
Careful what you wish for. What you may get in one hand they'll take in another. They're pulling other crap like cleaning fees for a grain or two of sand too. Should the EU our saviour protect us against that? Plenty alternatives to renting a car in Europe. Hit them where it hertz. Take a punt on smaller companies that are competing with eg total all inclusive insurance. Yup they're a bit more expensive sometimes but…
I'd rather be charged a bit more upfront than to see mystery charges showing up on my card after I check out or return a car in the same condition I received it.
Allowing this type of stuff to go unpunished also just hurts honest businesses and distorts the market, since in travel search aggregators, the primary sorting criterion is price.
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Check the App Store screenshots - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/rest-by-noiseaware/id644925142... The app even tracks the whole fee amount in-app being collected. "Net charge", "adjusted charge amount" reasons of "guest complaint"...
Their "NoiseAware" main product line also sounds incredibly dystopian. Apparently, that's a "privacy-safe" microphone listening in rental properties, to "detect crowds gathering"...!? This type of creepy stuff, together with Airbnb's horrible business practices (last time they wanted access to my checking account transaction history via Plaid!) and enabling scammy hosts, is why I'm back to just staying at regular hot…
Of course Airbnbs are also a real problem in general with the way they increase the scarcity of housing, so I'm pretty happy all in all to see you saying you're being driven back to hotels.