Parking ticket whilst parked overnight at a hotel.

[CrinklyCraggy]

DS1 was using my car at the time, so I'm inclined to let him deal with it, but looking for some suggestions as to the best way forward so I can "guide" him a bit.

It's a hotel at a motorway services, fine notice received from a separate private company.

He says he gave the hotel the car details and he has his booking confirmation.

Is it best to contact the hotel or the parking firm in the first instance?

It's one of those onse where the fine is reduced if paid within 14 days which feels like blackmail to pay without challenging to me!

I'd go for the hotel.

Contact the hotel with booking reference and they should be able to cancel it - as long as he was actually parked in their carpark - they may try and say he was outside of their bit and in the services bit. They ay also say he was supposed to get a card or ticket from reception and display it. In which case you have 2 choices - spam the hotel on twitter etc saying that wasnt clear etc and can they cancel it or then deal with Parking Eye or whoever the private parking company is if you don't want to pay it. In that case, you need this: forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/parking-tickets-fines-parking if you want to fight them - good chance of winning, even if they take it to court, but a fair amount of wading through and paperwork involved.

Exactly the same thing happened to me. Well almost the same. The private parking company issues the ticket in the 5 minutes between me parking and entering my car reg on the hotel system/

I phoned the hotel and they sorted it out in 3 minutes.

Hotel will sort it out, it happens all the time.

Hotel

I'm going to a hotel and i have to pay to park in the hotel car park.....apparently it's open to the public too and it's first come first served. So no guarantee that i will be able to park in the hotel i'm paying to stay at.
Had i known this before booking i would have gone elsewhere.

I think the hotel will be able to sort it out for you. We have a similar system at our local car garage - it is based in a camera-monitored car park and they submit the reg numbers of the cars they fix. I once got three parking tickets through the post, because the mechanic had taken the car out for a test drive a few times! The garage said something had gone wrong with the system and they sorted it out for me.

Don't try and deal with the car park people. They will just want paying and won't be able to verify the hotel booking etc. The hotel will sort it for you.

I’ve had to pay before to park in a hotel car park.

OK. Thank you

I had a similar situation in a pub restaurant where you had to give your car registration number on arrival which entitled you to park for free. I did this and still received a parking fine letter. I contacted the restaurant who sorted it all out.

Ring the hotel, don't email. Explain and they'll be able to fix it