Travel lodge. Am fucking fuming

[IAmNoAngel]

I am currently bedding down in the car park of the travel lodge at Birch services on the M62 as the room I booked and paid for over a month ago has been double booked and there are no rooms left.

Am especially pissed off as have driven here straight after a 6.30 start this morning and a long day at work... in Nottingham. So a nice tiring drive as well.

I have stayed here a lot. I never will again. Cunts.

Also I probably wouldn't start reading all the t and c at one am when worn out,

Just thought fuck it and camped down. For those accusing op of being a wuss, I don't think it's particularly wussy to spend the night in a car by yourself, so there's that.

Any update OP? Hope you got your money back

GnotherGnu but she drove to the initial hotel - what if there were unexpected diversions on route?

It's a very different matter driving to a hotel in a motorway services which will be extremely easy to find and where you can look up beforehand whether there are any traffic problems or diversions.

The same thing happened to me and my family in August with TravelLodge. We were going on holidays so started off the night before to break the journey. They wanted us to drive an hour back to our starting point to stay at another TL.

I had fully paid in advance.

After much arguing we got split up into two rooms which worked out okay but I saw at least 10 parties have the same thing happen in a TL that night and most were turned away. It was awful.

I’m never booking a TravelLodge room ever again after this thread. It’s given me the complete heebies.

What is the point in booking and paying ahead?

Sounds like their t&c that say they try to avoid doing this to single women erc are fairly meaningless as I bet they just accept everyone regardless of if people have phoned ahead to make them aware of being late arrivers and then send the overbooked people on. Doesn't sound like they held the op's room back despite knowing she was a single female arriving late and instead turned an earlier arriving couple or man away... it would be very difficult to organise for one thing!

And I'm guessing that if there are nights they have seriously overbooked because of heavy demand - as said there was a bit of a perfect storm last night of big match and Easter holidays and bad roadworks - then there will be a high chance that the other local hotels will be full too. (As opposed to being the only one locally booked up because a one off coach party is staying so they take the big booking and know it will be easy to send a few people down the road to a close hotel that they may have primed to keep a few rooms free).

Whenever I've used Travelodge I've always paid in advance. I had no idea this wouldn't guarantee me a room. Thank you for bringing this up OP, I will never use them again.

I hope you get your refund sorted soon - how on earth can they justify quibbling over a refund?!

Why are people so obsessed with what the OP did after she was RIPPED OFF and DENYED the room she had paid for and expected to sleep in that evening?!!

Get back to the damn point of the OP. She paid for a service and she did not receive it. She may not get her money back for a room that someone else got to stay in!

Who gives flying fig why she did what she did after, it's not the point. And every one of these posters would be ticked if it was them ripped off no matter how breezy they are being about it online.

Anyone have any idea what Premier Inn's policy is like? I usually use PI and also always pay well in advance. I am not happy about the idea that I could be denied a room that has already been paid for.

There are so many on this thread vowing to never use TL again. Really?

I have a TL booked for next week. A family room (2 adults, 2 dc, 1 infant), in London. It's cost me £21.60. You can bet your arse I'll continue using them at that price, even though I'm sorry for the op!

Why do you think it's so flippin cheap Secret?

I am totally appalled at the idea that you could pay for a room in advance and it not be there for you - EMPTY! - even if you arrived at 2am!

Secret - what will you do if you get there and your room has been given to someone else?

@SecretBum - and your room is guaranteed how?

The bit iron line is the only people at fault at Travel Lodge for over booking.
The OP is not at fault, by any means.

The hotel failed in their job. They offered a room at a certain location, accepted payment for the room but then failed to provide it.

We book rooms in hotel switch specific locations. An alternative a half hour drive away isn't acceptable.

Last week we booked a room 3 miles from the tunnel station. Had we been overbooked and sent an extra half an hour away this would have been a nightmare - we booked to arrive late, crash for a few hours before an easily tunnel crossing. An extra lengthy distance each way would have been a nightmare and it shouldn't be allowed. Likewise when we book hotel rooms at airport hotels - clearly there are many occasions where the location of the hotel is key.

It simply shouldn't happen.

We always do online check in now - does that prevent this I wonder??

Bit iron = bottom!

Exactly that is exactly the same as hotel bookings near ferries. We always need early morning crossings to make the miles up in France. Hotels round ports are always rammed and exactly why we shell out more to get a room in the closest hotel the night before.We always arrive late due to living a long way away. Never once have we had a problem with Premier Inn. They're always slick at check in( whenever we arrive)early breakfast runs like clockwork etc. If they overbooked our whole holiday would be screwed. A half hour commute back to port with 3 kids to feed and organise could cause missing the boat or train. At high season you'd be lucky to get on another.

Secret if you shopped around and booked early enough in advance you could get similar with PI and maybe more likelihood of your room being there on your arrival. The cost of travelling up to London and the risk of having to find alternative more expensive accommodation for 5 wouldn't make me use TL. We have 3 kids and have always been on a budget. As I said previously on comparing TA reviews PI often comes out better for cleanliness and noise so we nearly always use them due to cost. Bar the odd stuffy room we've never had a problem.Have never used TL with dc. Knowing what I know now means I most definitely won't be using TL again. I'll just book earlier and be more offer savvy to recoup the £20 difference which is more than worth it anyway imvho.

Secret if you shopped around and booked early enough in advance you could get similar with PI and maybe more likelihood of your room being there on your arrival

I've just googled 'Premier Inn overbooking' and the first three results were bad reviews complaining about being bumped due to overbooking.

All hotels do it and if the stats about TL are correct, you have a 99.8% chance of your room being there for you when you arrive. That's probably no worse than any other hotel chain, and could be better than some of the higher end ones like Hilton, Marriot etc. The only time I've ever had my room given to someone else and have been moved elsewhere was one of the big chains, can't remember which.

The OP was treated appallingly, but lets not get away from the fact that this is a very rare occurence and most hotels do it.

It's like when people go on about how awful Ryanair are, but the facts are that their punctuality is excellent and they are much of a muchness with other budget airlines while usually being substantially cheaper. And the full service airlines are pretty similar these days, having cut down on what they offer to compete.

I fly a mix of flag carrier and budget and the only time I have been bumped off a flight was KLM (Dutch equivalent of BA), the only airline that's ever lost my luggage was KLM and the only times I've suffered from delays have been Aer Lingus, and Jet2. Never had any problems at all with Ryanair.

Anyone else actually being so mean as to hope Secret turns up and finds her room is no longer there and ends up having to spend about three times as much for another hotel in London? However I suspect she'll be getting there much earlier in the day when there is less likelihood of being bumped, one suspects.

It's interesting though as my family travel a lot. My parents are big hotel users (expensive alone and budget with us), we've used popular port/ train hotels at high turnover times a lot over the years, never once has it happened. We'd literally be screwed and do would anybody else. Surely if it is so prevalent with PI( and other companies)it would have happened at least once to us. We use them at literally the most likely times for overbooking to happen.

Shatner no, that would be just you. What a horrible attitude. All Secret is saying is that, given the competitive price, a 0.2 chance of being by,led is a worthwhile gamble (especially since all chains do this, as has been pointed out repeatedly). In any case, she won’t have to ‘fork out’ anything, because TL will provide a room somewhere else. It might not be quite as convenient, but the risk is definitely worth it for the price.
OP’s case was handled very badly, but the policy is common and it is definitely the case that the OP could have handled the aftermath better too. This isn’t to say it was in any way her fault, or that TL don’t have some questions to answer, but her response didn’t help her.

Bumped not by,led

Toomany it’s a 0.2 chance. With so many people using the hotels it is entirely statisyaucally reasonable that it hasn’t happened to you yet. Look at PI’s T&Cs.

Cardibach I was being somewhat ironic in that the chance of it actually happening was going to be slim because I doubt a family of 5 with two children and an infant are likely to descend on TL very late at night. But I do wonder what her attitude would be if it did happen to her whole family.