To think my request at hotel wasn’t unreasonable?

[Chocowoka]

In a nutshell a friend and I wanted to have a spa day. We found what looked like a beautiful hotel with great facilities and decided we’d like to try there.

The offer included and cost £95 each

Spa treatment 25 mins (either a foot scrub, facial or body scrub)
Full use of spa facilities for 4 hours
2 course lunch or afternoon tea

I asked if I could just have a massage as I have bad flare ups with my skin with many products so a scrub wouldn’t be ideal. I was told no... ok fair enough so I chose the foot scrub.

My friend wanted the lunch and I wanted the afternoon tea. When I told the girl what we wanted she said oh I’m afraid we can’t do that as they’re served in different restaurants so you’d have to eat in separate restaurants (in the same hotel) 🙄 I said, “Well I’m not expecting silver service. I’ll happily go the restaurant that mine would be served in and take the plate with my food on, to the restaurant that my friends in, so we can eat together?” 🙄

She went to ask someone and came back and said “We can’t do that I’m sorry”

I said, “Ok, we’ll just leave it then” and we going somewhere else and booked it.

Now I could have had the lunch and my friend could have had the afternoon tea. I felt on principle however that we were spending a lot of money there for a treat so why should we not get what we really want!?

The hotel offers room service and is a 5* hotel so I’m quite sure they could carry some from one restaurant to the next or allowed me to, because if day a hotel guest fancied afternoon tea does that mean they can’t have it in their room?

If a group of 6 friends went chances are they aren’t all going to want the same. So the hotel would still say no and lose custom potentially.

I just think for such an expensive few hours they could have been more accommodating.

They may have a rule that you can't take food out of the restaurant.

Was it Fawlty Towers?

Cackling

YABVU and over defensive

You coulda just had lunch with your friend and just had pudding and drunk tea

Sorry, you sound like a nightmare.

So neither of you wanted what the offer was for? YADBU

A massage can't be as short or long as you want. Usually it's an hourly schedule, with something like a 50 min massage allowing 10 mins clear up/changeover between clients. The length of time is why the massage is usually more expensive than the foot scrub etc.

If they give you a 25 min massage on the cheaper package deal, the masseur has maybe 30 mins spare, not long enough for another client, so they lose money/profit.

I get why they have said no to 2 different meals. I go to a lovely hotel for spa days and as everything is handmade it's not ready before 2.30pm but lunch is 12-2pm.

I often can't have certain treatments so usually pay extra to custom my package.

I don't think YABU to ask but are unreasonable to expect them to change it from the advertised package.

Per your massage/scrub issue, YANBU. It doesn't hurt to ask.

YABU and won’t accept it.
Why didn’t you find a package that included a massage if you know you have skin issues, rather than being a pain and trying to change a set package to suit you?
£95 will be nothing to them to lose, they’ll be glad not to have to deal with a pain of a customer

IMO when a special offer has T&Cs you either have to accept them and accept the package as offered, or make other arrangements. I'm puzzled as to why you would expect otherwise.

The hotel had a lucky escape.

@femidom12 agreed

Let's all remember we are British and the customer is always wrong, no pandering to the paying public.

😂😂😂 What are you on about. I have not experienced bigger pandering to customer and their bullshit anywhere else, but in Britain. And that is why customers are generally taking a piss, don't read t&cs, and treat stuff like a dirt...

Again. You chose to buy x, that means you get x, not yz. If you want/need yz, pay for yz🤷 It is NOT that hard.

2 course lunch or afternoon tea.

I think the devil was in the detail with this one. Was an either/or option, not both. Probably because they were served at entirely different times/locations. It being a 5* hotel and all.

I'm another who thinks you're being unreasonable, sorry.

The £95 was for a package. A choice of three treatments, access to the spa for a set period of time, and a choice of either lunch or afternoon tea for two.

If you wanted a different experience (eg. the massage, one of you for lunch and one for afternoon tea) then you'd pay for a different package, surely?

YANBU, I have worked in customer service related roles all my life and our aim is to ensure the customer is happy

I've worked in customer service all my life as well, and I'd still think a customer was pretty entitled to want to book X package (with three parts as clearly defined on the website) then wanting to change 2 aspects of it.

Generally cheap packages like that are cheap for a reason - they offer certain services for a certain price because they can still make a profit on it. Or, they sell it as a loss-leader to encourage people to upgrade with various things (champagne, added treatments, overnight stays, dinner).

you're a PITA

YABU. its a discounted package with restrictions. So they adhered to that

YABVU but you think you're absolutely right so why bother asking.

YABU

I am another one who thinks you sound like hard work.

Sometimes simple requests aren’t that simple. It sounds easy - grab your plate and take it to the other restaurant. You were the afternoon tea, right?

• is afternoon tea a buffet or table top up service? That’s a problem if you’ve taken your plate away. Even if you say you’ll only have the one plate, they don’t know that for sure.

• person at the next table says “but I want that mini cake selection that she has? Why can’t I?” then they’re down a server collecting it, or getting a shitty tripadvisor review from someone saying they had to get their own lunch or... whatever.

Do not underestimate that people are arseholes, sometimes.

You also get a feel for people that are trouble. You wanted to change 2 things - they may have (wrongly) thought you were the type to then be even more demanding on the day. My XH sold kitchen and he knew very very which customers were going to be a complete PITA!

A true 5 hotel wouldn’t bat an eyelid at a guest asking for something unusual and would go out of their way to fulfil the request as discreetly as possible

Agreed. And a true 5* hotel wouldn’t treat people with a voucher/special offer as “lesser” than full paying guests. The whole point of the vouchers etc is to lure people in and give them a great experience in the hope that they’ll come back again/recommend to friends.

They were being very weird about the massage. A 25min massage is no different to a scrub in terms or time or cost!

I can understand more about the food as it creates them issues with plates etc and if everyone did that it could end up very chaotic. That being said you’re not unreasonable to ask. It’s not like you asked for it for free or to be served on a gold platter by a trained chimpanzee.

Some people on here would probably thank a customer service rep for throwing their food in their laps. 🙄

That's the package - there were different choices, you don't want those choices so it's not the package for you.

General moral of this story....

Anything sold via vouchers/package deals/discount websites means a much poorer offering than you might usually expect from a given establishment. They do these deals to get "bums on seats" in quieter periods. As previous posters have said, you are not their preferred customers, who are the people have paid top whack, repeat customers etc.

You only ever get what you pay for.

Yabu and I'm sure they breathed a sigh of relief when you took your Wowcher elsewhere.