Just seeking some advice. NCed as outing to any friends who have had to listen to my complaints already!
Last weekend, a group of 6 of us went to London for the weekend, with our itinerary including an activity that finished fairly late on the Saturday and an activity that started fairly early on the Sunday. We booked two rooms in a Travel Lodge for approx £70 each and paid, no problem.
On the Saturday afternoon, we contacted the hotel to confirm our booking and double check check-in time. We were assured there would be no issue with late check-in.
Just after Midnight, we arrived. On trying to book in, we discovered our rooms had been over-booked and were not available. The woman behind the reception was fairly nonplussed and advised that this happens "all the time"(!) We were told to help ourselves to a free tea / coffee each and that they would try and cobble some rooms together for us. We weren't best pleased given the early start the following morning, but were unsure what else we could do (6 young-ish women, not an area of London we felt comfortable being out in at Midnight) so sat tight. To cut a long story short, after multiple reminders to the only two staff present (who were preoccupied with running the bar, cooking food, manning check in (we were not the only over booked customers...) we were told at 1am we had rooms. Three of us received a room with two singles and a campbed (not a problem), the other three were taken to a room that promptly transpired to be occupied by another couple! They were sent back to reception and did not receive a room until 2am (there were talks by this point of sending them to another hotel (none nearby...) so the party with a room were not able to go to sleep either). This room consisted of three stained mattresses on the floor. The staff were not particularly apologetic (granted they looked very over worked, and we did not blame them at all, nor were we anything but polite at the time!) and ultimately the whole experience was stressful, tiring and really put a dampener on the weekend.
We sent complaint emails as soon as we were home (we did not feel there was anything to be gained by complaining to the two night staff, one of whom was one the verge of tears). We have been offered a total of £60 refund... We have queried this and received a very curt email advising this is the maximum refund and proportionate to our experiences.
Overall, we are really disappointed with the service and the response. to our complaints (a cynical part of me thinks a man would not have had this experience when trying to complain!). We are wondering whether to complain any further (ideally we would really like more of a refund given we did not receive the service paid for) I've tried to have a look at our legal rights but can't see much on their website about overbooking, only about their response to "exceptional circumstances", which this was not.
Do any wise mumsnetters have experience with this situation? Is it worth trying to take this further, or should we just chalk it up to experience? I am not a complainer by nature and accept we did end up with somewhere to sleep, but do feel the experience was very poor and that Travel Lodge do not adequately state that overbooking is a possibility.
Any advice appreciated!