How do I complain effectively

[Iloveeating]

I'm currently on holidays and there have been a few things wrong with the room. I went down to reception the first night and said the room wasn't what I asked for when I booked. Got no where, told there was no other rooms available. Next day the room had awful smell, they said they would fix it. It disappeared for a while but came back few hours later, went back down again next day again they said they would fix it again fixed for a few hours and came back again. Yesterday after dealing with rude reception staff and again smell my husband went down and asked for manager to contact us. Waited all day no contact turns out she is on day off. She is back today and we went down again to complain as smell is awful and they promised to fix it and manager would ring. It seems to be fixed again but we have had 4 days of this and still no call from manager.

How to I complain effectively? I've 3 days left and I've complained for 4 I feel holiday has a dark cloud with all this complaining

Always be pleasant but be firm. Know what it is that you want out of the situation and go and tell them what you need them to do and by when. Don't ask.

I did ask to be moved on the 1st night and I was told there are no rooms to move me to. I don't even know what I should ask for now as the holiday is almost over

The biggest thing is to complain in writing to someone who is high enough up to be capable of doing something about it. It's so easy for reception to fob you off with a "we'll fix it" and then do absolutely nothing whatsoever and deny ever receiving the complaints later on when it's all verbal. Anyone in that type of position gets any number of ridiculous, unreasonable complaints from guests on a daily basis so doing nothing is often their default position.

Go to the hotel website and find the appropriate contact person. Guest services manager, on site hotel manager, concierge, or someone along those lines would be a good start. Keep your email polite, brief, factual, and limited only to specific things that genuinely affected your stay.

Something like "I booked a 7 night stay through your website on x date for an ocean view room. When I arrived, I was given a parking lot view room with no notice or explanation. When I flagged this up, reception staff were unsympathetic and told me the hotel was overbooked and the room I paid for was unavailable. Further, from the beginning of our stay we noticed a foul odor in our room that was not remedied to our satisfaction despite x number of visits to reception. Our request to speak with a manager re: our room on x occasion(s) has also gone unfulfilled. As our room type request has not been honored and poor room cleaning has impacted our ability to enjoy our stay in your hotel, I trust that you will be in contact today to (fill in the blank with the primary thing or things you want them to do to correct their error, such as: ensure that we are moved to a new room, have housekeeping thoroughly deep clean our room to permanently correct the odor issue, or correct our bill to reflect the downgraded room type and poor communication from reception regarding the hotel's mistake.)

I hope that helps!

My husband (not British so much better at complaining than me) is really great at getting results. He will literally refuse to leave the reception til he gets a solution, but he is also really polite and friendly so he tends to get results.

After four days, I think I’d do the same.

Thanks for the responses! The manager finally got on touch at 9 pm last night! I was putting our son to bed so I couldn't go down so husband did. All they offered was late checkout!

Polite and nice, it really isn't the receptionists (or whoever) fault and you need them to be on your side to try and find a solution.

Clear and articulate

Unemotional

Know what you want - do you want to move rooms, the smell to be fixed, a goodwill gesture, an apology?

Keep calm, smile but be firm and repetitive - "No, it isn't acceptable to me to go away and wait because I have waited three days already and it has not been possible to fix the issue; I would like to be moved to a different room. Please can you arrange that for me now? Thank you. No, it is not acceptable for me to leave without a resolution. What alternative accommodation can you offer? etc etc etc

They're fobbing you off OP because you are being too polite and letting them walk all over you.

Stay there and demand a solution (politely). I'd be asking to move to another hotel with them refunding the money. If you badger them enough, they'll give up eventually.