My mother stayed at Quality Inn Canyon Plaza Resort when she came to visit me in US from her home country. What happened later was a true nightmare. As she does not speak English well, I did all subsequent communication with Canyon Plaza. Thus I am posting this report for my mother.
My mother joined a Grand Canyon tour operated by Open Road Tour that included bus transport to the Grand Canyon, a tour in the park, and one-night stay at Canyon Plaza. She paid all the expenses, including a room at Canyon Plaza, to Open Road Tour in advance. Some months after the trip, we saw that Canyon Plaza charged the room on her credit card (a hundred something dollars) although she had already paid it through Open Road Tour.
When I complained to Canyon Plaza, their administrative assistant, Ms. Michele Fierros, wrote me that there was a billing dispute with Open Road Tours. While Canyon Plaza thought Open Road Tours did not make payments for rooms, Open Road Tours insisted that they did. What Canyon Plaza did next was quite despicable. They chose to collect the price of her stay from my mother's credit card without her consent. My poor mother ended up paying for Canyon Plaza's lousy, overpriced room twice, that is, double the amount!!
What is most disturbing is that Canyon Plaza made this charge knowing that my mother had already paid it to Open Road Tours. When I called Canyon Plaza's management, they simply said we can do this because she signed the form and they hang up on me. Apparently in the form my mother signed at check-in, there were fine prints that authorized such a charge.
We disputed this charge through the credit card company, but Canyon Plaza told the credit card company that they would not return the money, and the card company did not pursue further. Obviously we were very disappointed by the card company, too.
I then wrote to the CEO of the Quality Inn/Choice Hotels (the chain that included Canyon Plaza), but he did not respond. (Choice Hotels' chains include Quality Inn, Comfort Inn, Comfort Suites, Quality, Sleep Inn, Clarion, Cambria Suites, MainStay Suites, Suburban, EconoLodge, Rodeway Inn),  I then called the Choice Hotels customer service. Their representative told me "We can do this. You are welcome to sue us." Apparently the Choice Hotels headquarters was aware of this specific case (or such a scenario that could happen at their hotels). Apparently the Choice Hotels headquarters endorsed or encouraged such a disreputable practice.
I do not know whether Open Road Tours made payments to Canyon Plaza or not. It is quite baffling that they cannot keep such a simple billing record straight to start with. Then, they made innocent customers pay double the amount for the problem caused by their lousy management.
Canyon Plaza and Choice Hotels claim that what they did was legal, and it may be so. But if so, the laws failed to protect weak, innocent consumers. Any customer should not have to pay for the same room twice!! If there is a dispute between companies, they should resolve it between themselves. Instead Canyon Plaza took on innocent customers to collect money quickly. At the very least what Canyon Plaza and Choice Hotels did is unethical and unfair.
Canyon Plaza claimed that Open Road Tours owed them $16,257. If Canyon Plaza collected this amount from their customers, 100 to 150 people may have been affected. I suspect that many people who join this kind of Grand Canyon tours are tourists from other countries, those who do not speak English well, or those of advanced ages (just like my mother). Many of those people may not have known how to complain about unfair charges. For those people (or at least for my mother) the trip to US which they had looked forward to turned into the worst memory.
My mother stayed at Canyon Plaza in July, 2004. Canyon Plaza made the charge on her card in March, 2005. Most of our communications with Canyon Plaza and Choice Hotels took place in July and August 2005 after we became aware of their charge.
I report this somewhat dated event now because only recently I became aware that such web posts are one of the few ways weak consumers resort to against unfair business practices and because my mother and I are still appalled by what happened. Since then, we have not notified of the outcome of the dispute between Canyon Plaza and Open Road Tours. Nor have we received their apologies. I think that potential customers should know about Canyon Plaza's and Choice Hotels' business practice. If Canyon Plaza's or Choice Hotels' read this post, I would like to have their formal apology.
Note: When this event took place Canyon Plaza belonged to Quality Inn/Choice Hotels chain. Currently, Choice Hotels' web site does not seem to list Canyon Plaza, and I do not know of Canyon Plaza's current business affiliations. When the event took place, their business name was Canyon Plaza Quality Inn and Suites but their current business name appears to be Canyon Plaza Resort.
Canyon Plaza's address and phone number remain the same.
Highway 64, Grand Canyon, ZA 86023-0520
Phone: (928) 638-2673 | 
