To wonder wtf is going on with Premier Inn?

[CristosBreakfastPie]

I remember when Premier inn were a company with amazing customer service. The quality was very consistent, and you could pretty much guarantee a clean room, a good breakfast, and even a refund if there were any issues (there were rarely ANY) .Premier inn was a brilliant, yet affordable option for families.
Lately I’ve had to stay in a few for work, and the experience has been nightmarish. But it seems I’m not alone. Typing #premierinn into Twitter reveals an endless stream of horror stories, really dangerous oversights (hygiene and health and safety), and absolute failures of basic customer service standards.
My personal experience was horrible enough (bed bug infestation in the room 🤢🤢🤢), but it seems this is far from unique … there are countless TripAdvisor posts with photographs of bugs and bites, all with generic responses from whitbread.. "we’ll get back to you about this shortly" type responses. And it doesn’t stop at bugs. Filth, doors that don’t lock, disregard for fire safety regs, mould…. It just goes on and on.
Premier inn has ways to make complaints, including an online form and a customer services line. But none of them are working. They occasionally (once a fortnight )engage with the Twitter dm function, but only to request more information and prolong the complaints procedure.
Even the hotels themselves no longer seems to answer calls at all ?
What is going on at Premier inn???

@Biscoffee it wasn't the "plastic shield" part of the syringe, it was a syringe without the needle on.... unacceptable to find under a bed in a hotel room tbh

We stayed in a PI in August, have stayed there twice before with no problems. This year however the room was awful:

bathroom ceiling above bath completely black with mould
broken toilet seat
filthy carpet
unpainted patches on the ceiling and walls to the point that it was a
different colour in several places
patchy brown paint on bathroom wall and one wall of bedroom (it clearly needed another coat).

It seemed quite clear that the room was not fit for purpose and the broken toilet seat was the last straw, so I went to reception and showed her photos of all of it. She apologised and moved us immediately to a up to standard sea view room so we didn't spend 1 night in that awful room thankfully.

I have never had issues like it before with PI, but it must have been clear to anyone making up the beds that the room was not fit to be let.

We booked a 'family room' about a year ago. They'd crammed a double and 2 singles in such a small room that all the beds were touching. They were too full to give us a bigger room and complaints procedure was crap, and never heard back. We've not booked with them since.

@Wiredforsound I have done work like this in the past. It is hard work, and yes I would do it again if the pay was higher. But the point is that you can get much easier jobs for the same or more pay. Why would people work for the same pay in a harder job?

I have noticed that service is not as good at various places due to a lack of staff. It puts me off spending.

And I am amazed at the poster that think it is acceptable to find a discarded part of a syringe in your room. Of course, it is not. You expect a room to be clean.

[quote toomanyblankets]@Biscoffee it wasn't the "plastic shield" part of the syringe, it was a syringe without the needle on.... unacceptable to find under a bed in a hotel room tbh [/quote]
It still could have had a very innocent explanation.

@Biscoffee sure someone with diabetes could have dropped it when injecting themselves. It should still have been cleaned away by housekeeping, but sounds like they don't have enough staff.

@QueenofKattegat

Oh and I am also expected to serve in the breakfast room if I am on the nightshift so my shift officially ends at hand-over - 6.45am, but the lone receptionist who takes over from me can't then be on reception and start housekeeping, so I have to go in the breakfast room and take orders/serve.

I can't afford to leave before anyone tells me to!

If this takes you below minimum wage for all the hours you work, then once you have another job report them and make a claim for them to make up your wages to minimum pay. It is illegal to pay you below minimum wage, and that figure includes allowing for expected unpaid overtime.

[quote julieca]@Biscoffee sure someone with diabetes could have dropped it when injecting themselves. It should still have been cleaned away by housekeeping, but sounds like they don't have enough staff.[/quote]
Or maybe it just ended up under the bed and was difficult to see unless you actually crawled under it.

@Biscoffee did the person say they crawled under the bed?

I stayed in a premier inn a few months ago and it was absolutely fine.

[quote julieca]@Biscoffee did the person say they crawled under the bed?[/quote]
I’ve no idea.

I've stayed in loads and never had issues, at least not major ones. I usually stay in the London ones though that seem much nicer and newer generally. The airport ones are excellent, so is Stratford Westfield, Southwark etc.
Greenwich needs a refurb and when we stayed there, we waited literally hours for food one night. Staff shortages were evident. Likewise the Canterbury one which I often used to use for work is, frankly, a bit rough and now I pay the extra and stay elsewhere.
London ones can't fault usually though.

I visited two different ones over two weekends in June as a work stay and the difference was night and day.

First hotel it was my first time staying in a PI and i think it was one of the new ones - room was good, modern, customer service great... hotel was generally nice.

The second one... i felt like my room was in the dungeon. Cold, dark, dull and dingy. When i asked to move rooms they said they were booked out (but were still selling rooms online!)