Money

jesterinperil tells us more.

OP here. We eventually got into the restaurant with our original reservations, after contacting management. My mother and I tried to not let the hostess spoil the night. The rest of the staff was wonderful and I don't think we'll be seeing much more of that hostess for a long time.

drayloon tells us more.

drayloon 50

Good to know I'm not the only one the system bends over and goes to town on. But as far as driving out there to speak to them in person goes, it's about a 9 hour drive assuming there isn't too much traffic, which there usually is, so that's not a particularly viable option

avocadopurse tells us more.

avocadopurse 5

OP here! A few things: the gift certificate was given to my mother, who gave it to me. It was not a gift-giving occasion she was trying to cop out of, she simply found it in a box one day and thought I'd get better use of it. The real fun was that a completely different hotel took over this one and continued to use the same phone number, so it took nearly 20 minutes with a very confused guest service rep to figure out what had happened! It turns out my mother had had the gift certificate for ELEVEN YEARS (she's military and that's how long it's been since she lived in our hometown). We all had a good laugh, and she offered to pay for a hotel, since we'd been planning on using it for a trip home.