To take the body lotion and soap from a £250 a night hotel? They have asked for it back!!!

[mum2sons]

DH and I spent our wedding anniversary in a v expensive boutique hotel. I took the body lotion and soap home as I usually would do (sad, but I get v excited about these things!)Yesterday we received a letter from the hotel asking for us to send the 2 items back for the future enjoyment of guests!!! Talk about humiliation! Looking forward to MNetters views

I'll re-iterate (sic?) what my cousin the sous-concierge told me: why not post the policy on plastic placards screwed into the wall then? Why not inform them that the products are for sale in the lobby or pick up the phone and dial O and have some delivered?

If you take them, your card will be charged.

Bolt the dispensers to the wall.

Simple, really.

Chase up a client after the fact and assume they took it home with them?

Could have been the cleaning staff. Could have taken the lid off in the shower because the pump didn't work and then dropped it. Could have used it up.

You're sending them a letter accusing them of stealing.

Unprofessional and not on.

powder, you beat me to it... sorry, southeastastra, you are on your own now!

I love this idea that it's fair game to take stuff unless there's a sign saying you can't.

Then remind people of the policy, powder.

Placards screwed into the wall.

Cheap.

Already there about a number of regulations.

This is a hotel, not a private house.

Unbelievable, really.

Very foreign concept to me, I guess.

a-ha - no stamina

I always pocket the toiletries in Sainsbury's too. Three reasons, 1. they're plastic, and cheap, 2. I sometimes pay over £100 for the rest of my shopping, 3. (and this is the really damning part) there's no sign saying I can't!

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We're talking about a 250mL bottle of used soap and lotion.

God.

I really need to get out of here!

I don't get it.

I honestly don't.

Harassing a guest after they'd left.

How fucking embarrasing.

The mind boggles. It really does.

Charge their card.

But write a letter accusing them like that? Not to mention the response I got.

Good grief!

Really, this is ALL over NYC now.

yes expat

IT'S THE HANDLING OF THE SITUATION!

CRAPOLA

I hope mum2sons didn't pay an optional service charge!

Blimey, are you lot still on here?

Look, if you want to believe that 99% hotels don't give you the toiletries in your room, then that's your prerogative. You are wrong, but believe it if you want

The OP made the mistake of thinking that the hotel would have no use for a half empty plastic pump dispenser of so-so body lotion. She made a mistake. I think that was really worth spoiling her expensive anniversary stay for, don't you? And I hope the hotel is happy that it lost a customer and future business. I think it's really shoddy.

Maybe they've had a problem with things going and wanted to know if it was a guest or the cleaning staff. They handled it poorly I agree, but this should be resolved between the op and hotel as soon as the letter was received.

If I was mum2sons, I would have called them to say how I felt. If they still wanted the items back, I would not have been happy. I think the hotel might have expected the op to pay for the items and I should imagine they will be thrown away when they are returned.

In future fixing to the wall may be the answer as that is what the majority of posts suggest means 'dont take'.

Or put the stuff in nice ceramic or glass containers. Not crappy little plastic pump dispensers like the kind you or I would chuck out without a second thought.

well one assumes the contents of the bottle are free of charge so she should really have sent the empty bottles back or a postal order for £4 ie 32 each container

I did address my concerns to them via email.

Not impolite, not rude.

I'm a Southerner. Give people the benefit of the doubt.

But the response I got?

Completely unmannerly and defensive.

And not even personalised.

Okay, I get it. Southerners are trained not to take, not to 'cause a scene'.

If plastic bottles of used stuff are that important to you, fair enough.

But I don't get the writing a letter about it after the fact. I don't get it myself.

I'm foreign, I admit that.

I'll never understand some things. I'll never understand my own children in many respects.

But they Lord! Charge the card already if worst comes to worst.

If I ran a business and I got a complaint letter from an unconnected third party based on something overheard on the internet, I think my reply would make that one seem polite.

I do not think that you can just charge the card without authorisation from the card holder to do so. Maybe that's what they were hoping for. Maybe the letter was intended to lead to that.
As I said I expect the things will be thrown in the bin as soon as they are returned.

Well, then, I guess I really am foreign, because I've have researched the whole thing and taken it pretty seriously if I were in the hospitality/tourism industry and I had to feed my children off what I made.

I really would.

But I come from a service industry culture.

m2s - if they offered you another stay by way of an apology for their poor handling of the situation, would you go back?

Especially when my research revealed that some pretty heavy journalists were on that site, reading away.

I don't know. As I wrote, I'm not a journalist, but my sister is, so I know a bit about the industry.

vim - surely you'd not reply at all, in that case?

pretty heavy journalists were on that site - explain? I can't find what you mean.

How do journalists deal, I wonder?

My sister's sub-editor is a battleaxe extraordinnaire! And she's on an education beat.

Hats off to them, I must say.

There are some journalists on this site, Wotz, let's just say.

She might not say 'haitch' - I never knew anyone did, tbh, before I came here - but I have to say, good article in the Sunday Times, you!

My sis has got a subscrib now!

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