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?

Oh this makes me so frustrated just to read this!! How ridiculous of them!

@JurassicPark101

They generally do abroad, I’ve never had it in this country. As for a credit card, they’ve never asked for one before when I’ve stayed there, it’s all prepaid and they don’t offer room service so no need for card details.

It's actually even worse that your an established loyal customer and they're treating you like this.

Please update us when your friend and then when you finally get there OP

Such a 'computer says no' problem caused by the hard of thinking.

This is going in circles

It's not fraud, it's not "breech of contract" and it's common practice. If you have a prepaid hotel room and you don't turn up until the following day, the hotel owes you the grand sum of fuck all

You and all the other posters getting outraged about it doesn't change that
The hotel owes her a room she can call her own from 9.30am Saturday. This is not an uncommon event. Many of us have repeatedly said we have been very late booking into our booked and paid for rooms and it's never been an issue.
Planes do not fly to hotel booking schedules. As we know this, we book the previous day, tell the hotel we are arriving the next day and there has literally never been a problem with this.

itsgettingwierd I know, it’s pretty irritating. It’s my go to hotel whenever I have a bit of spare cash and my ex condescends to see his own kids - it’s a lovely spot with lush walks, less than 2 hrs away, not posh enough for me to feel self conscious eating dinner on my own, nice pool and just somewhere I know.

I’ve already thought it was slightly odd that it’s cheaper to book through booking.com. Most hotels you can see the booking m.com price but if you actually phone the hotel direct and quote that price they’ll offer it slightly cheaper or give you a room upgrade for the same price as booking direct means they don’t get charged booking.com fees, works out better for both of us. When I called last time about that they didn’t understand that either and got a bit shitty with me so I just booked through booking.com . Then with this ridiculousness too I think I’ll find somewhere else to stay next time I need a break. If anyone knows anywhere that sounds similar in Cornwall or Dartmoor way please let me know.

Have you asked Booking.com where you booked it?

No, not contacted booking.com. The options on the app are just cancel/ amend the booking for the full cost of the booking or contact the hotel via their chat option. I phoned the hotel direct, when that didn’t work I emailed the hotel, when they didn’t understand that either I sent the same email via the chat option on booking.com and received the same response again from the hotel telling me that I couldn’t have an early check in 🤦‍♀️

It's ridiculous but not totally unexpected. I have an issue I need to sort out with Premier Inn which I want to email, for two reasons -
1 It's very complicated to explain 2 To leave a paper trail

I phoned to ask for an email address and was told there isn't one! When I queried that an organisation the size of Premier Inn has no email address, I was told he'd ask a supervisor.

Guess what - the supervisor says there is not email address.

Seriously the world has gone bonkers.

I would be giving them a bit of "friendly" feedback when you check out.

They are bonkers. I wonder if they thought you were asking to check in at 9.30 on friday and not 9.30 on Saturday.

If you ever want an interesting town to stay in go to Watchet... my husband took me there.. it was random but sweet little place. We were fortunate that it was their summer festival so we had an evening of music and fireworks and beautiful sunsets.

Love the solution OP !

@JurassicPark101 what sort of price per night you looking at?

@Congressdingo

This is going in circles

It's not fraud, it's not "breech of contract" and it's common practice. If you have a prepaid hotel room and you don't turn up until the following day, the hotel owes you the grand sum of fuck all

You and all the other posters getting outraged about it doesn't change that
The hotel owes her a room she can call her own from 9.30am Saturday. This is not an uncommon event. Many of us have repeatedly said we have been very late booking into our booked and paid for rooms and it's never been an issue.
Planes do not fly to hotel booking schedules. As we know this, we book the previous day, tell the hotel we are arriving the next day and there has literally never been a problem with this.

Nope, they owe her a room for saturday night if she turns up on saturday. Not for friday night or necessarily saturday morning. In some hotels you'll be absolutely fine to show up but there is nothing to stop hotels refusing check-in at that time or indeed - as many do - reselling the rooms of no-shows.

Once again, this mainly applies to hotels in cities and ones which tend to have shorter stays and less predictable booking patterns. In such hotels your room gets assigned to you only when you check in, and if it gets late into the evening and a booking hasn't showed up (or indeed has advised that they will not be there until the morning) rooms get released for sale for last minute guests - particually in cities when people may have missed the last train home or decided to stay out and drink rather than drive. Hell, the room might just get used because another guest wants to move due to a drippy tap or a noisy neighbour or fancied an upgrade.

People don't have to like it or agree with it but it's an undeniable fact that it happens. Hotels are businesses and many make a very tidy amount of money doing this exact thing and the very vast majority of the time the guests are none the wiser.

That makes no sense as you have the room, so no one else will be in it on fri night?

@LizzieSiddal

Most places do ask for ID when checking in

No they really do not.

I've had it happen many times. Been asked for my passport in London when I hadn't crossed any international border. When I explained it was OK though.

Never been asked for ID to check in !!

How can she be a “no show” if she’s told them 9.30am is when she’s arriving for her four day, paid for booking? Of course she’s showing up.

And the hotel are making a fuss because of its cleaning policy not because she’s not checking in. They’ve stated that.

Booking.com overbooks hotels. I once arrived to find the hotel in a panic saying if we'd arrived later they wouldn't have a room for me at all! Your problem is that failure to not turn up on the first night usually cancels the whole booking. You are also not booked via the actual hotel so they will just see it as a non-checked in booking. I think ringing lateish on the Friday or after 3pm, and say you're stuck but will arrive when you can means they will hopefully hold the room for you until you get there.

Once again, this mainly applies to hotels in cities and ones which tend to have shorter stays and less predictable booking patterns.

Once again this is in a small, independent hotel in West Cornwall, in the middle of nowhere, nearest alternative accommodation a pub about 20 mins away. ( though just getting a taxi at short notice would be an achievement ) OP is a returning customer of many visits. Cornwall is booked to the gunnels.

We've just returned from a hotel and DH and DD had to show ID on check in.

@SusieBob I've worked in and with a large amount of hotels from Premier Inn to 5* and none have ever operated as you describe in the circumstances the OP describes.

For a start she's not a no-show, since she's advised them of her delayed arrival time.

Even if she were a no-show, the majority of hotels that operate a 24 hour reception wouldn't class her as such until the following morning, unless they specify otherwise in their terms and/or have a cut-off time for check-in which is a vanishingly rare practice once you get to 4* and above.

Ruthless city corporate hotels with a high no-show rate and a high rate of walk-ins in the middle of the night then just maybe. 20 room boutique properties in the far reaches of Cornwall usually operate quite differently.

@pollymere booking.com do not overbook hotels - I used to work in a reception which took reservations via booking.com and establishments have to actually enter all availability of rooms - so that’s down to individual hotels overbooking - it normally links through with whatever platform the hotel uses for online or over the phone reservations; we used to use Alacer.

@pollymere booking.com only have the room inventory that each hotel gives them, so it's not them that overbook.

A hotel might revenue manage by giving the same 5 rooms to Booking.com, Expedia, Hotelbeds etc and bank on only actually receiving 5 bookings in total, when clearly they could receive 15. Hotels are often penalised by the big 3rd party booking agents for 'closing out' sales though so they leave rooms bookable even when full and deal with over-bookings if and when they happen.

I've worked in hotels where it wasn't unusual for us to be oversold for high season by 20-30% of our rooms a few months ahead of time, but natural drop off, cancellations, allocation releases, group adjustments etc meant we hardly ever had to book anyone out by the time we actually got there.

They are frickin’ eejits!

Also this is ridiculous behaviour from the hotel! It’s quite standard to book a room for the night before and arrive in the morning, especially for those travelling from the US to UK with overnight flights.