Rescinding ...

So this social media thing works . A few weeks back i wrote about Club Quarters and how angry i was that they wouldn't send back my friends flags without us giving them a credit card to charge . After i wrote and posted the blog i received an email from the manager of the hotel and he was very apologetic and told me he was sending the flags back ... i got the flags back this past week :) and i am pretty sure they had read my blog . Its a shame that it had to come to me ranting online to get them to send us our flags but at least it worked .... why do i have a feeling i am gonna see more rants now LOL !

With that all being said i guess i should lift the ban on staying at Club Quarters as really i have never had any problems staying with them so yeah i guess i will use them in the future ... heck maybe even on this road trip i am embarking on this coming week . I have to drive a cube van full of furniture to Los Angeles for this producer i work with and i am gonna have to do a few stop overs , first stop is Chicago and last time i was there i stayed at Club Quarters , so the possibility is there .

I am going to leave the blog up if anyone wants to read it because if you ask me posting something like that will always work ... social media does work :) 

Upcoming Trips :)

Do you think i am gonna sit here in Toronto much longer ? Hahaha .... i've been back at the grind here working my ass off and starting to catch up to my bills . That happens when you pay for your own trips , yes i don't get paid for my hockey trips but i might try to make my next trip work out to be a hockey trip i get paid for . Recently a good friend of mine that i work with hooked me up with a glamour gig !!! Marco had an offer to drive a producer from Toronto - Los Angeles then fly back home from LA .... he can't do it so i offered to take on the task :) i have never driven across country so it is beyond intriguing . 

At the moment all i know is that i am driving through Buffalo LOL seriously i don't know what dates or which cities we will stop in so it is pretty much impossible to plan out where and when i can skate but when i figure out the plan i will give it a shot ... obviously jumping on the ice in Los Angeles , and hopefully there is room for my gear . Regardless for once i am gonna get paid to do something i enjoy doing .... travelling LOL . If i can work things out then expect to see me at your local rinks :) 

There is another trip in the works ... my Aston Villa Supporters club here in Toronto ( Canadian Villans ) are organizing a North American Villans meet up . Everyone across North America that cheers for Aston Villa will be making the trek up to Thunder Bay to watch the game on TV together . Yes it does seem strange but the real reason is because most of us have become good friends and we just need a reason to get totally drunk together and sing songs and yell at the TV together ... without a doubt this will be amazing LOL ! 

Former Ghetto Blaster Dustin Blackburn lives up there and i am praying he can hook me up with some Friday ice time so i find the excuse to bring my gear . My friends travelling out there are hoping to see me play too which would be a really cool experience for everyone ( ha ha get it cool ? ice rink ! ) anyways enough of my cheesy  remarks :) At the moment it sounds like it might be tough to work it out but hopefully i find an excuse to take my gear ... 

Club Quarters :(

Yeah i know it seems like i am just whining and complaining lately and yeah i think it sucks but its probably stuff i should share with you all .... Obviously when i got home i had to make some calls and send some emails then i began to get responses and replied and really tried to come to agreements over certain things . Most everything i lost on and it just really bugs me , i hate losing LOL .

This is something i gotta vent about and it has to do with customer service , this is something you only hear about but usually don't experience . Now i am not sure if its because these corporations constantly claim to have this customer service thing but sometimes i wonder ... here is a great example ! Club Quarters . When i was in Chicago to watch Villa i stayed at Club Quarter there , last year for my bday in NYC guess where i stayed ? yes Club Quarters and last month when we were in Houston , yup you guessed it ... Club Quarters . As you see i don't mind staying in there small rooms and enjoy the water bottles they have in their hallways but their customer service is not so great  .

We were there to watch Aston Villa play Houston Dynamo and Daniel Peever (Canadian Villan) left his Canadian flags with Mark Forrester (Dubai Villan) ... well actually i gave them to Mark as i put them in his bag that is where i come in :) when we left the hotel the morning after the game Daniel "lost" the flags , well he didn't as they were with Mark . I didn't know this until we got to Toronto LOL and yes we travelled together . So immediately i messaged Mark and by that time he had already left the flags with the front desk for us ... i tried to contact our remaining Canadian Villan there (Richard Pilkington) but his phone was dead and he never received the message and had left without the flags ... so the flags were still at Club Quarters in Houston .

Feeling kinda responsible for the loss of our Canadian flags i decided to write to Club Quarters :( yeah try finding an email to contact directly to the Houston location ?!?!?! LOL ! Well i just emailed headquarters and they put me through .... now you gotta know there are at least 40 of us staying at Club Quarters , i know i spent easily $500 there between room and food and beers at the bar downstairs . We stayed as a large group in Chicago at Club Quarters also ... so you imagine they probably hauled in around $10, 000 from us easily , more then likely way more then that . So someone had mentioned that to me and said tell them to send them to us with no charge as a show of faith and explain how many of us were there and that we enjoy their service , so i did . Well when i finally was put in touch with them they immediately asked for my credit card ? as if they didn't even read my email :(

I continuously told them that it was disappointing to be asked to mail 2 medium sized flags , seriously they would fit in a big brown envelope ... wouldn't break the bank and certainly is worth them sending to us to assure we use their hotel chain again . You would think that customer service would dictate that right ? WRONG ! Nope they continually asked for my credit card . Club Quarters obviously doesn't care about the fact we spent THOUSANDS of dollars there and obviously we won't stay there again !!!! You messed up kid LOL . Now this is something i would love that they read about and i want them to know that we won't stay there again .... the cost to send us our flags is heavily outweighed by the cost we spent to stay there , if you don't realize this then you are brain dead .

So yeah i had to bitch about this , hopefully all the other Villa lads read this and boycott these turds in the future too . Oh yeah the flags , well Jenny is our leader ! Yup Jenny for those of you that know her was our waitress around the corner at the Flying Saucer and then came out to party with us . Well Jenny is gonna grab the flags and mail them to Peever directly ... so there is a bit of a happy ending YAY ! 

Aeroplan ... you disappoint me !

As you all know i travel a lot ! The last few days i have been dealing with some major disappointments and i am gonna write about it ... i hope the companies that are fully disregarding any customer appreciation read these and realize they have to step it up if they want me to continue using their services .

Today i am gonna complain to you all about Aeroplan and its service (?) ... Last month i flew from Frankfurt to Barcelona . I obviously booked with Lufthansa knowing they are a Star Alliance carrier and that i would get points credited to my Aeroplan account or at least that is what i thought . Now this is the second time i have flown Lufthansa from Frankfurt and have been denied any Aeroplan points . Last time i flew from Frankfurt to Stockholm with Lufthansa and i was denied any points but Rainer who sat right beside me got points with his Miles & More card !!! How is it possible that he gets points and i don't ??? Well apparently what Aeroplan has told me is that it is because it is a discounted flight .... i disagree as i could fly RyanAir for much cheaper but choose Star Alliance simply to gain the points that i thought i was supposed to get . Here is the kicker ... it is based on the flights class which we are never told when booking a flight !

Flying from Frankfurt to Barcelona and back i thought well maybe this is gonna happen again as i am flying from Frankfurt with Lufthansa . Of course it did . This is unacceptable and i will tell you why ... if the airline fully disclosed this before purchase then the thought of booking another flight would cross my mind which kinda makes this entrapment ... it is not fair when one is fooled into purchasing something then finding out that you are not getting what you thought you were getting . This is obviously a lack of customer appreciation which is happening these days like a disease gone wild . At this time i would probably say i won't ever fly into Frankfurt again and there is a good possibility that i won't fly Lufthansa again .

I really hope this lands in someones lap at Aeroplan and they realize that this is unfair business . If you let me know that i am not going to receive the points for a flight then it is fair game but this trickery is uncalled for . Shame on you ! 

Back On The Road

Its unbelievable but yes i have to do some laundry pack up and take off again ... this time for a 2 hour road trip to Balsam Lake . Nothing too crazy this is a cottage weekend . Its been 2 years since i have taken off for a cottage so i am a bit excited to go somewhere where not showering is a plus LOL . Yeah the bugs will kill ya if you smell sweet so standing near camp fires and smelling unattractive is a must . Funny how some soap and cologne will attract women and it does the same for bugs HAHAHA ... sorry ladies had to make that little shitty joke . I know, its not so funny :(

Kathleen rented a car that i have to go pick up today , of course i can't afford to rent a car so thanks to her this extended holiday continues . Back to the grind on Tuesday as it is a long weekend in my parts of the world . Its time to start working towards the next big adventure even though there might be some surprise trips ahead in the future ... as usual stay tuned ! Yesterday i spent most of my day researching some other tournaments and places i would like to play in which means i sent out a million emails/facebook messages and i think my fingers are aching from it but hey , its all part of the process . These trips don't just fall into place ...

Its gonna be good chilling out with 2 of my high school friends ... i am going out to get some mini bottles of Corona to try to copy the infamous cervezarita's we had at that Guadalajara restaurant in Houston :) if i don't find them its just plain old margarita's :( hahahaha . I already have a bottle of tequila . Hopefully the weather holds up for us and we can play some bocce with beer in hand and relax by a fire at night . This is what Canadians do . Always hoped to bring guests from overseas to do this because really this is what Canadians love to do .... so if you are ever visiting make sure to go do a cottage weekend/week at anytime of the year too ! Winter cottaging is fun too if the cottage has some winter toys like ski-doos :) of course a frozen pond helps too ... little outdoor hockey up north is always nostalgic .

I should probably start doing my laundry now , i have to pick up the car and go shopping for us after .... hopefully traffic has slowed down by the time we want to leave which is obviously after Kathleen is done work ..... more then likely i won't be online , that is the real part of this vacation ! Anyways have a nice weekend :)