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!

If a charm offensive doesn’t work (and it really shouldn’t be necessary given their role in failing to give you correct info and turning you away) then social media is your friend. Don’t go for a “poor me” approach though, you’re telling people as a good citizen because they might not be aware of the weird/short expiry date and strict booking requirements and you wouldn’t want others to go through the same thing.

Might even be worth following it up on their Facebook or other social media anyway in meantime simply asking for clarification of situation? Having them spell it out to you publicly will have the same effect anyway.

There is supposed to be a minimum of 5 years on gift vouchers check with cab. It's not really cheeky the hotel has the 5

There is supposed to be a minimum of 5 years on gift vouchers check with cab.

Rubbish, there's no laws about this. Companies can set whatever terms and conditions they want.

no such thing here nettie-but i do think 5 months is an odd number its usually 6 or a year

I think they are BU, and having worked in hospitality/hotels, I'm surprised they're being so jobs worth about it and killing all goodwill towards them from you, and people you know when you talk about it. Poor customer service and shortsighted of the,.

They stuck to the rules. The voucher had expired. But really awful terrible horrible public relations. Plus somebody is out 50 quid.
I’m sorry you didn’t get your nice meal.

Did they get back to you @peterrrabbittt hope it was with a good outcome

I think they are BU and very mean.
They have had the £50 for nothing.
I've used similar vouchers past the expiry date because a lot of small companies value their customers.
If you had been able to spend the voucher with them you probably would have spent more money with them.
Very poor customer relations.
Can you tweet them about it?

Rubbish, there's no laws about this. Companies can set whatever terms and conditions they want.

There is Ireland, it was a new law just brought in