Hotel being awkward or am AIBU?

[peterrrabbittt]

I was gifted a voucher worth £50 for a hotel back in September last year. It was for a lovely 5 star hotel not far from where I live and it can be used in any part of the hotel e.g the spa, restaurant or towards booking a room. It was valid from September 2019 to February 2020 (although I thought it was March, not sure why I must of just glanced at it and read it wrong. I appreciate it’s completely my fault).

Anyway, I planned on using it last year in November and decided to take a friend. We decided to use it in the restaurant and have a lovely meal as both of us aren’t really fussed on spa treatments. After being told over the phone that we didn’t need to book a table beforehand, we just turned up, however we were given the wrong information. We were told that we would need to either book over the phone or online. Fine, I said I would ring up in a couple of weeks when I received my rota from work and knew when I’d be off.

Unfortunately I became very ill before Christmas with a stomach bug which lasted a couple of weeks so didn’t get a chance to go before then and then I was working a lot of overtime in January as they were very short staffed in work (I know this isn’t the hotels problem). I have no idea what made me do it, but I looked at the voucher yesterday morning and realised it had expired on Friday, literally 2 days ago. I decided to phone up the hotel and explained the situation and asked if they would make an exception given the circumstances. The voucher itself is worth £50 but as it’s quite a nice place we would definitely be spending a lot more on drinks and deserts as it wouldn’t cover the total (I didn’t say this on the phone though). I said I would be happy to come within the next week if they had any bookings available as I didn’t expect them to wait for months for us to use it. The receptionist took all the details and said she would give me a call back as soon as possible. I didn’t hear anything back last night but they’ve finally called me back this afternoon and said they can’t do it unfortunately, didn’t give a reason why.

I just feel like they’ve been purposely awkward. I appreciate it was my fault for reading the small print wrong but given that I’d already tried to use it last year but couldn’t due to their mix up, I thought that they might have made an exception just this once. It just feels like such a waste to me.

AIBU? If so please feel free to tell me that I’m being a spoiled entitled brat!

Normally you can ring and the receptionist emails the accounts dept: for a small fee, say £11, the FC (Financial Controller) will allow the voucher to be used for one more month.

Highly likely it's still in the prepayments section of the management accounts for last month.

Well, the headline message here is don’t buy gift vouchers like this as presents. Give the cash so that the recipient can use it at her full convenience.

I can’t be the only person on this thread thinking this, so that’s another own goal for greedy dismissive hotel owners.

We'd accept it where I work. We're of the view of we've already received the money used to pay for the voucher.
This is why I don't get them refusing to honour it. It is incredibly short-sighted of them given that they're not inconvenienced/losing out in any way. All it means is that the OP and her friend, who would have gone, bought things on top of the £50 and given it great reviews/word of mouth, will now probably never bother going and will likely bad-mouth it.

I wouldn’t expect this from a five star hotel, it is very surprising that they don’t care more about their image and customer satisfaction. For all they know, you could have gone there for the meal and liked it so much you booked a wedding there or whatever! Very shortsighted. I would contact the Manager / Owner / Head Office directly saying how disappointed you are if you haven’t already.

I don’t think yabu it’s a very inflexible attitude and they have had the£50 I would write a complaint se if you get someone else more sympathetic

I would have let you use it. Hotel is being silly. Email the manager and explain factually, ask nicely if there's any room to manoeuvre. Nothing to lose.

I personally think they are being tight and shortsighted. That will leave a bad taste in your mouth and you’ll never go back there in future. They’ve had the money and haven’t had to provide anything for it, and they’re totally within their rights to do so. I personally would forever boycott a business being such stingy gits though!!

YANBU - for all the reasons pp have given, you tried to use it once, you will spend more than the value, you will have negative feelings towards the hotel if not.

I am glad you sent an email - do update us on what they say.

Expiry dates on vouchers are such a rip off. There must be literally millions of £s worth of vouchers never redeemed. What possible effect does it have on a company when you use them? Ridiculous.

It's 6 of one and half a dozen of another.

I can see why they said no but at the same time they've made £50 and you did try to use the voucher. I would point this out again politely via email and ask them to reconsider or you will need to discuss it with trading standards as the mix up was their fault and they've made £50 off the back of it.

It's not their fault you were ill and had to work but it IS their fault that you tried to use the voucher well within time and were given the incorrect information by THEIR staff.

Can you prove you arrived on the stated you stated because that's your leg to stand on.

I haven't read the whole thread, but I'd write and ask for an exception to be made. Give it a go. What have you got to lose?

It's usually at the manager's discretion, personally I would have let you use it. But you never know how often things like this actually happen.

We give vouchers at work as “freebies” or raffle prizes. They have a years expiration. We don’t extend these BUT they are “free” money for the consumer.

From a marketing perspective the freebies are a winner - the consumer is likely to spend more than the given freebie amount - or we’d hope they would!

However we don’t “sell” vouchers - and 5 months is a ridiculously short amount of time given that it is effectively a cash gift.

They are being unreasonable as they have had fifty quid.

Are you sure there isn’t legislation around gift vouchers in UK?

In Ireland, relatively new legislation has been introduced that gift vouchers cannot expire before 5 years.

There may be something similar in UK?

Leave a trip advisor review and I bet they change their tune. Hate vouchers for this very reason

We get this all the time where l work - our vouchers last 12 months but we always extend if people ask as they're oftain given as gifts and people hang onto them for specific shows - we've had the money and we want people to come and have a good time!
The hotel are idiots ...

I had this happen a couple of years back - restaurant was absolutely fine and said of course they'd honour the £100 voucher. Happy customer, repeat customer. Strikes me as short-sighted on their part.

Definitely complain to management. Mention the misinformation in November. I'd be amazed if they don't honour it. The receptionist wouldn't have any power to extend it but use the word complaint and it will get escalated.

• Fairyliz

Name and shame them on social media. Think they were being unreasonable as they gave you wrong information initially. Won’t help you but might stop other people wasting their money*

Yes, let’s name and shame them for having a policy and sticking to it.
How ridiculous you are.

So sorry for the late reply, I've been working all day and only just checked my phone properly!

I phoned the hotel again today and finally got through to a different receptionist. She was lovely actually and seemed to sympathise with my situation. She asked me to email the HR manager with all the details and explain what has happened. She said she was off today though so probably read the email tomorrow. The receptionist seemed to think the manager could help so fingers crossed I get somewhere with this now. Thank you for all your support will update again when I hear back. Thanks mumsnetters!

Yes, let’s name and shame them for having a policy and sticking to it.
How ridiculous you are

You may have missed the hotel's ridiculousness in telling the OP she could turn up ad hoc in November, then telling her to go away when she arrived. In November.
So you can't really big them up for 'sticking to policy', @Sweetdreamer93

I suppose it depends on where the voucher was purchased, from the hotel itself yes they could be more lenient as they already have the cash
However if it was from a 3rd party such as Groupon/experience days or the like then the hotel would be £50 out of pocket as they don't get the cash unless it's redeemed by a certain date, even then it's often less than the original purchase price.
Hopefully you'll get somewhere if it's the hotels own voucher.

I would like to think that if you call back and ask them to “escalate” your request. Kill them with politeness and sugar, explain how they would be doing you a huge favour, how you would be intending on spending more than the voucher amount and how incredibly thankful you would be for them to see fit to make a judgement call as a 1 off ..... bla bla bla Good luck XX

YANBU . Five months seems like a strange time frame to me, I think the company are pretty sneaky and I'd bet a lot of people think it's for six months and subsequently lose out.
I hope that they reconsider and allow you to use the voucher but if they don't- check if they're on Twitter and tweet about your experience linking them in. If you don't have twitter I'll do it for you!
Good luck xx