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.

Risk wouldn't be worth the price in London imvho. Half an hour away with 2 tired kids, infant and luggage on arrival err no thanks. Half an hour away could be anywhere in London. Aside from that I pick specific budget hotels for cleanliness, location and noise. I'd want some control in the choice particularly in London.

£21.50 for a family in London? 'nuff said. Ring and check all the way there, and arrive mid afternoon.
Once let down, and treated like crap, I'd never use a company again, no matter how cheapo they went. Not interested.

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If it's 0.2% chance, that's 1 in 500, or just over 70 weeks of hotel stays.

If you stayed in a hotel for 1 x fortnight, 2 x weeks and 3 x weekend breaks, (total 34 nights) each year, on average you would be without your booked room once in about fifteen years.

And that's the average. If you took 10 people, some of them would never be affected, some would once, and some maybe 2 or 3 times in 15 years, so still quite rare and for a hotel stay rate that is well above the median average.

The hotels won't want to get caught out by overbooking too often, as it'll disproportionately affect their reputation, as illustrated by all the 'I'll never use TL' hysteria on this thread.

In a way, it might be 'better' to be moved to another hotel in London, where there are going to be dozens of hotel rooms nearby.

Far more of an issue somewhere remote, where the hotel in question could quite literally be the only one for miles.

Unlike airlines, hotels aren't required to provide the equivalent of "delayed boarding" compensation. at least until we leave the EU

Maybe they should

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?

Jesus, who shit on your cornflakes? Why would you wish that? Because I had the audacity to say I'd keep using TL?

Like pp's said, the risk of this happening is tiny, and it's worth the risk IMO. We stay in super cheap TL or PI rooms regularly - probably averaging once a month, which over the past 10+ years is well over 100 stays. We've never had an issue.

You know what? Even if it did happen to me, after I'd argued for a refund and some compo, I'd chalk it up to bad luck and I'd still keep using them in the future. They save us a fortune...I never pay more than £45 a room and preferably, like our coming booking, nearer to £20. Along with PI, their competitors can't touch them on price. Find me another family of 5 room, in London, on a weekend for twenty quid. Noone else can match it.

To vow not to use them over one bad experience would be massively cutting my nose off to spite my face.

It's unfortunate that this happened and I refuse to believe that the reception couldn't arrange a taxi. Even if they can't do it themselves Travelodge will have some sort of on call management to deal with this type of situation - what if it burns down overnight?

However we are wanting things cheaper and cheaper and the only way hotels, airports etc can do this is by gambling the odds likes this. As someone mentioned above they can afford to spend quite a lot of money on taxi's and alternative hotels for the occasional customer it happens to and still be quids in which leads to lower prices for all of us.

I wouldn't have slept in the car. I would have googled the nearest hotel/b&b and gone there.

The overbooking is bad enough and should be complained about BUT the worst part is the absolutely appalling way they handled it - as many pp have pointed out breaching their own t&c's!

And yes, a company that treats customers badly losing business as a result is very effective, it's why you get a better response on SM because they don't want the bad publicity resulting in loss of custom.

Exactly graphista. Had they apologised profusely to the OP, refunded her the cost of the room and paid for a taxi to and from the new hotel, then I doubt the OP would have started a thread.

If overbooking is an economic reality to allow for cheap prices then hotel chains should - just like the airlines who overbook - have a policy that ensures that when they do run out of rooms, they can treat the customer in such a way that they are not disadvantaged.

It never ceases to amaze me how many companies piss away any goodwill they might have by going into defense mode before it's needed.

Unless you are a total fuckwit (which doesn't eliminate everyone) or a child, most people are aware "shit happens". It does to me. To you. To Travelodge. To Ryanair etc etc.

The "secret" is not to then (a) pretend shit didn't happen and (b) wind the aggrieved customer up till they explode onto SM (far outdoing any initial damage that might have been suffered) but to impress the customer - and the world - by handling it efficiently with the minimum of fuss.

There are still companies I happily do business with - despite having had issues in the past - because they dealt with it in a sensible manner.

By the same token, there are companies who have managed to put my back up so much that I'd walk over broken glass before I'd deal with them again.

Find me another family of 5 room, in London, on a weekend for twenty quid. Noone else can match it.

I have NEVER found a £20 room in London.

Secret is talking in the right vein tbh. Having said that where is this £20 room in London? Perhaps she means somewhere like Park Royal? All these people stating they are never going to use TL again. I just don't believe them. If the price and the location is good for them they will!

£20 room in London?

Is that the same "London" served by "London Oxford" airport ?

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

No Shatnerswig I think its probably just you

Op how's it going, any news?

I said many years ago I would never fly Ryanair again. Not for any particularly bad experience, but just because of Michael O'Leary's attitude to customers. I never have.

I have flown Easyjet since then many, many times, both for business and pleasure and with many other budget airlines.

And to follow up DGR's point, a complaint or issue well handled can increase loyalty and positive Word of Mouth, whereas a poorly handled complaint/issue has the same multiplier effect - only negatively so.

I will tell anyone who wants to listen, how dreadful the travel company Somak is in a crisis (I described the incidents on the Admiral travel disasters thread) - even now, over 20 years later . Will never, ever touch them again with a barge pole. However, the Thomas Cook reps, who helped the plane load of passengers (even though they didn't have any responsibility for 95% of the plane) during that journey meant that we have a positive impression of them. That helped when we had a delay flying back from Greece with Thomas Cook a few years later (when I finally managed to get dh over his unfounded antipathy towards Greece, thanks to a bonus I got from work in Thomas Cook vouchers). They were mediocre in their handling of it - but I still had a warm feeling towards them.

Is that the same "London" served by "London Oxford" airport ?

I realise it's not the point you're making, but hotel rooms are actually at least as expensive in Oxford, if not more so, than in London. You actually have more chance of finding a cheap room in London - lots of supply - than you do in Oxford and, having done so, the public transport from your cheap hotel ten miles out will be a lot easier in London. Oxford is mind-bendingly expensive if you need a room there at short notice.

OP books and PAYS FOR room in hotel.

OP arrives at hotel.

Hotel tell OP that they have given her room away.

Mumsnet blames OP

BBC Watchdog seems to have picked this up - tonight at 8pm

Mumsnet rulz!

Hmm did you have a harp with you OP?

Just came on here to say it was on Watchdog!

That is amazing! What did they say?

The OP and the harpist have similarities but key parts of the story are different so I’m not sure it’s the OP same TL though and same alternative
Different month and the harpist drove home rather than sleeping in her car