It happens daily. People arrive at an airport and either did not print out their itinerary or lost it somehow. Now they have only a vague idea of which hotel they were staying at and like most people, they race to the airport hotel board and call the first chain they think may have their reservation. But what do you do when they tell you that there is no reservation under your name?

Firstly, make sure you know what name the reservation is under. If a friend made the booking, give them their name because all advance reservations require a credit card to hold it and many times the reserving party using their card will think they have to place the reservation under their name also. If you are pretty positive you have the right hotel, make sure they look for misspellings also.

If you are fairly certain it was a chain or franchise hotel (like Super 8 or Quality Suites), call one of the same franchises from the airport hotel board and ask for their 800 reservation number. You then call the 800 number for that brand and give your name. If you have a reservation at ANY of the franchises under that brand, they should be able to find it. For instance, Wyndham covers Super 8’s, Travelodges, Days Inn among others. Choice hotels include Clarion, Comfort Inn, Quality Inns plus more. Intercontinental includes IHC hotels, Holiday Inns, Courtyard hotels. A central reservation number for that brand should be able to tell you if you have a booking at ANY of their franchises.

Lastly, you may need to contact whomever made the reservation and ask them. Or get on a computer if you have a computer generated reservation and look for the confirming email or reservation. If none of these work for you, you may have to just stay where you can and swallow the loss of a no-show reservation and make sure in the future that you print out and carry with you the hotel information for easy access when you land.