To think this is bloody daft of the hotel?

[JurassicPark101]

I’ve booked a hotel for Friday night until Monday morning. Unfortunately due to childcare issues I found out today that I won’t be able to get there until Saturday morning now. It’s all been prepaid for and as it’s less than 7 days before the booking it’s completely non-refundable and can’t be rearranged.

I’m not too fussed about it being non-refundable, totally understand they probably wouldn’t be able to fill the room again at short notice. Anyway, I phone the hotel to let them know that I do still want the booking but that I won’t be arriving until about 9.30ish on the Saturday rather than the Friday afternoon as originally planned. Receptionist on phone says ‘that’s fine, thanks for letting us know. Just so you know you’re welcome to use the facilities but your room won’t be available until check in at 3pm.” I reiterate that I’ve already paid for the room (and breakfast and dinner which I won’t be having either) from Friday so it should be available when I get there at 9.30. Again “sorry, no but we can’t allow early check in under any circumstances at the moment. We’re totally fully booked and the cleaners just can’t get the rooms ready before this.”

I ask to speak to someone else as I assume she’s possibly new or young or thick as mince. She passes me over to another woman but I hear her say “can you speak to this lady, she won’t understand why she can’t check in at 9.30am”. I explain the situation again. New lady replies with “I empathise with your situation but as we are fully booked we simply can’t allow you to check in nearly 6 hours early”. I tell her that it’s not 6 hours early, it’s 18 hours late. Im booked from the Friday night. I’m paying for the Friday night but I can’t get there until Saturday morning. I’ve paid £145 for a room, dinner and breakfast and none of it will be used. If I was arriving on time, I would be able to return to my room at 9.30am if I chose to do so. She tell me that I'm not arriving on time though so the room won’t be ready until 3pm .

I ask if there’s a manager that I can email, or a head office as this is just bonkers. She gives me an email address. I write a very calm, concise email explaining that I’ll be getting there at 9.30 the day after I’m due to arrive. I’ve just had an email back (from the reception again) telling me that my room will be ready at 3pm and they hope I enjoy my stay.

How do I resolve this? They’re all mad. Aren’t they? I’m not going crazy in thinking I should be allowed in the room when I get there am I? It should be ready for 3pm on Friday so will still be ready at 9.30 on Saturday, surely?

Aw man this would really annoy me
Either the room is yours to use from friday and therefore from Saturday morning
Or it’s not available and you get refunded
🤦‍♀️

Booking.com know nothing about my change in plans, I just contacted the hotel directly. They’d be getting the full amount from booking.com regardless. On my confirmation on the booking.com app it says I can change the dates but it will cost me the full amount (nearly £500) to do so, hence why I contacted the hotel rather than them.

Anyway, I’ve gone back and told them I’ll be checking in on Friday as planned. They explained again that I wouldn’t be allowed into the room until 3pm on Friday, as if I was the one being incredibly stupid 🤦‍♀️. It will be my friend checking in. It’s all prepaid so not concerned about her needing my debit card. If they want one she can just tell them to make sure she pays as she goes rather than charging anything to the room. Hopefully that won’t be too complicated for them to understand.

@Susibob you’re not differentiating between a guest who has cancelled a room so it’s available for rebook and one who is simply arriving late. In the latter case it’s sharp practice to not allow them access to the room they’ve paid for. Pissing off guest so they write a bad review and never come back is a bad business model

but a large number of hotels will seek to maximize revenue in this way and, as a business owner yourself, I'm sure you can understand that

Deterring customers from returning is not maximising revenue. As a business owner I understand that.

Because the deal includes dinner I wonder if they want to resell in order to make loads of markup on wine and drinks with the evening meal

. It’s all prepaid so not concerned about her needing my debit
That doesnt matter, i prepaid hotel last weekend, they still took my credit card

@Janaih

Omg that's the kind of thing that set Michael Douglas off in falling down. Really hope you can get it sorted.

bahahahahahaha that's exactly what it's like

Because, obviously, it varies between hotels, but if a person with a legitimate booking does get bumped what usually happens is they get put into a taxi and sent to the hotel round the corner with a drinks voucher. Hotels have reciprocal arrangements with others in the area to send bumped guests.

I'm not talking about someone who gets bumped - I'm talking about someone who wants to have access to a hotel room at, say, 10am on the day they arrive into town.

@bruffin

. It’s all prepaid so not concerned about her needing my debit That doesnt matter, i prepaid hotel last weekend, they still took my credit card

Yeah, they will do this in case you cause any damage, OP. Could your friend give them her CC at all? I doubt you will be trashing the place. Might make mini bar/room service awkward though.

@SeasonFinale

Message and say. That's fine I expect my room that I am paying for to be ready for me at 3pm on Friday. Thank you.

Then turn up and say here I am late for my room.

^ this. the cheeky effing bastards

we do not guarantee your room will be held for you if you check in later than 10pm.

This bit is surely made up. I have never seen this in the T&C of any hotel I have ever stayed in.

I'm guessing it wouldn't work to add your friend to the booking?

I'm not talking about someone who gets bumped - I'm talking about someone who wants to have access to a hotel room at, say, 10am on the day they arrive into town.

Or who arrives in on a 5 am flight. Like lots of us have?

They are idiots

The problem is you've said your booking is non-transferable, @JurassicPark101. You can't let your friend use the room or have your dinner. Your friend might be asked for ID or your credit card as proof she is you when she checks in.

I have a friend who regularly stays in a 5* hotel in London. There is no discount for single occupancy of a room and the room rate includes breakfast. He likes to invite friends to join him for breakfast while he is here. His view is that he has paid for 2 breakfasts so he should be able to invite a guest to eat the second breakfast. However, the staff don't always share that view and charge him as there is only one guest registered to his room and the room (and breakfast) are non transferable. The hotel manager always overrules the restaurant manager and waives the charges as he is a regular guest and he knows him but it has happened several times when I have been his "guest".

I’ve stayed in this hotel multiple times before, definitely never been asked for ID or a credit card on checking in. The only places I’ve been asked for credit cards are places that offer room service (this one doesn’t) and even then I’ve always said “I don’t want a tab, thanks”. Only once has it ever been an issue (in this country, anyway) at an airport hotel in Gatwick over a decade ago. I used to practically live in hotels for my old job, and never gave a card in order to open a tab. Any damage caused to the room would be after I’d checked out anyway so they would no longer have access to my details and they’d have to charge via Booking.com or contact me.

[quote TatianaBis]@Susibob you’re not differentiating between a guest who has cancelled a room so it’s available for rebook and one who is simply arriving late. In the latter case it’s sharp practice to not allow them access to the room they’ve paid for. Pissing off guest so they write a bad review and never come back is a bad business model[/quote]
Plenty of hotels will bump guests if they have not checked in by a certain time and someone else shows up requesting a room, in which case the original guest will likely be given a story about a leaky tap or something, apologised to and sent to a nearby hotel if they show up needing a bed. If they show up in the morning they may very well have to wait until a room has been vacated and subsequently turned around.

Hotels usually allocate rooms to guests on arrival, not on booking. So if they have 5 double rooms and 5 bookings but by say 11pm 1 of those bookings have not checked in, many will take the risk of allowing a walk-in to take one of those rooms rather than turn them away. Best case they sell the room twice over and someone doesn't show up, worst case they have to pay for a taxi to the hotel round the corner for the bumped guest having still sold the room twice. The money they make doing this far outweighs the odd bad review, believe me.

susiebob I’ve never heard of a hotel doing this of the guest phones up to tell them that they still want the room, they will just be arriving at X time instead. I know that hotels cancel bookings for no shows which is why I wanted to let them know.

I'm checking in to see if OP's friend manages to check in OK on Friday (after 3pm!)

@TatianaBis

but a large number of hotels will seek to maximize revenue in this way and, as a business owner yourself, I'm sure you can understand that

Deterring customers from returning is not maximising revenue. As a business owner I understand that.

If you could sell something twice and get away with it 99% of the time, would you do it? Of course you would, especially when the odd time it goes wrong you still make more money than you would just selling it once.

Lots of businesses operate exactly this way. Planes, buses and trains (at least pre-pandemic) are often routinely oversold.

Hell, if you order something for collection from a shop, some shops will not remove it from sale. It will stay on the shelf/ in the warehouse and if someone else comes in to buy it, they let them. Only THEN do they order another 5 of the product from their central warehouse and take the risk that they can get it to the shop before you arrive to collect it as it's the balance of risk between definitely loosing the walk-in sale vs the small risk annoying the customer who is due to come in tomorrow to collect.

Also I could understand overbooking in a very large hotel or a hotel with a large amount of business customers, some of whom are always unlikely to arrive due to delayed flights/ companies booking X amount of rooms just in case etc. For a hotel with around 20 rooms in the far west of Cornwall, when you choose the actual room you want to stay in when you book it would be pretty bad business to not have a room available for 5% of your guests, assuming you booked one more room than you had. I’ve had a look and the nearest place they could send me would be a pub with rooms around a 20 minute drive away.

@JurassicPark101

susiebob I’ve never heard of a hotel doing this of the guest phones up to tell them that they still want the room, they will just be arriving at X time instead. I know that hotels cancel bookings for no shows which is why I wanted to let them know.

If the guest phones to say they are arriving the following day, then yeah the hotel may very well resell the room as they then know that they won't have an annoyed guest showing up in the early hours. I suspect if you did turn up at 10am and they hadn't resold then you'd be able to access it but it's the risk you take.

@SusieBob

So are you saying that there is literally no way to guarantee yourself access to a hotel room in the morning?

jesus that's redic. typical computer says no. I'd ring back and say you're arriving around midnight and then at midnight call up and say there's been a delay and you'll be there later please don't give the room away

If you could sell something twice and get away with it 99% of the time, would you do it? Of course you would, especially when the odd time it goes wrong you still make more money than you would just selling it once.

Of course I wouldn’t.

And apart from anything else the ‘odd’ times it goes wrong will impact your review score and comments. So it’s not worth it from a business POV.

If OP had cancelled hotel is within its rights to rebook. As things stand she has not so all they achieve is unhappy customer, poor review and negative coverage on social media.