403 - Forbidden
by Felipe De La Hoz
I used some points to book a stay at a Hilton-affiliated hotel in the Atlanta area a couple of months ago. The promise of the contemporary tech world is that a task like this should have been “seamless.” Yet instead I wound up spending about a half hour on the phone with a well-meaning (human) Hilton representative, explaining which exact room I wanted, that I wanted to use points, that I did not want an upgrade, and so on.
I did not do this because I love being on the phone with customer service, love listening to the muzak on hold, or have some kind of principled opposition to booking things online. I did it because there was no other way. There was no sleek app to use, nor was there even an ordinary, run-of-the mill website where I could conduct my business. Instead, the website would crash out on me or refuse to process my transaction, on both my laptop and my phone, on different browsers, and at different times. This wasn’t an anomaly; it is slowly becoming the norm for me and, I suspect, for many others.
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