To let you know that the Premier Inn Good Night Sleep Guarantee is worthless

[CherryMaple]

DD and I stayed at a Premier Inn recently. We were disturbed by noise from other guests in the corridor several times in the night - up until 3.30am. In the morning we spoke to the receptionist about the noise and said that we wanted to claim on the Good Night Sleep Guarantee because we had slept badly because of the corridor noise. We gave details of the times, and said she would be able to confirm on their CCTV of the corridor if necessary. She said she would make a note on our account.

When we got home, I contacted Premier Inn to confirm that we wanted to claim on the Good Night Sleep Guarantee. Premier Inn have said that our claim is not valid and have refused to refund us.

The website clearly says “We’re so confident you’ll have a great night’s sleep that, if you don’t, we’ll give you your money back. Just speak to one of our friendly reception team. This is our Good Night Guarantee.” This is absolutely not true and very misleading.

In turns out, there is a lot of small print. If you are disturbed by internal hotel noise, you have to report it to reception at the exact time during the night if it is ‘safe’ to do so.

Just wanted to let you know - if you’re planning to stay at a Premier Inn - to read the detailed list of exclusions, and not rely on their big promise of the Guarantee which is worthless unless you have read the small print.

I never sleep well in any hotel rooms, usually because I'm too hot!

@Gufo

I got a full refund for a night last summer. Now worried I've got a Chancer note!

Depends on the reason I'd like to add I gave many a refund to genuine people with genuine reasons who did not get a chancer note!

Rat man though... I mean c'mon

Haven't we had an almost identical thread recently? What's going on?

There was a thread recently where the OP was awoken at around 6 or 7am. They had a disability which was worsened by lack of sleep, and had young children that were upset by whatever the noise was, iirc, but its not the same story I dont think.

We got refunded once. Admittedly the fire alarm went off at 4am so they couldn't really argue we weren't disturbed...

We had a really negative experience recently.

Stayed in a London premier inn, first floor with a disabled guest. We found out late at night on our return from the theatre that both lifts had broken. We couldn’t get our wheelchair bound relative up the stairs. Manager was aware and was mortified and did all he could to help, including helping us find a hotel locally last minute ( not premier inn as no rooms available locally) which was expensive given it was London and last minute.
Manager said he needed to escalate it to management through the good night sleep policy, refused a refund at site saying he was unable to. It took them a full month to respond via email to the good nights sleep claim, which was rejected because the room was available and it was outside of their powers that we were unable to use the room. They totally ignored the fact we had booked a room for a wheelchair user, and while they couldn’t help the fact that both lifts broke down, the room still couldn’t be used. They replied saying their findings were final and no further emails or phone calls would be responded to. Which is a joke as there never was any response to phone calls.

Never ever again. Terrible company.

I imagined that the guarantee was to do with the comfort of the bed ?

Massively precious!!

Hotels can't control every single bit of noise/person making it!

I've had to claim a few times. Once they had no decent pillows, once the mattress was old, worn out and lumpy, once the pub woke me up emptying the bottles into the bin.

I've never had a problem claiming but to be fair the only one I didn't contact reception for through the night was the lumpy mattress and as soon as I showed the receptionist (got them to lie on it) there were no issues.

Totally against my experience.

Stayed at the one at Heathrow airport 3nights over NYE a few years ago.

I was yawning as we checked out, and the receptionist asked if I was tired. I laughed and said yeah, it was noisy with everyone coming back from their celebrating NY, but hey who could blame them?

She refunded us both rooms for the night. Needlessly, it was New Year, in London, I expected noise.

You have reported it at the time. We had this, I rang reception to report, we had our stay refunded.

We used to stay at Premier.Inn quite often before Covid. On one occasion the Inn was clearly accommodating lots of people who went to a wedding reception. They were staying in rooms on either side of us and a few rooms opposite too. They came back singing loudly. Appeared drunk. 2 of them we re arguing outside our door and when DH opened door and asked them to be quiet and let's others sleep they started singing loudly again. We rang reception and reported and a security person told them to go quietly into their rooms or they would have to leave. When we went to pay we were told no charge and we got free breakfast too.

Yes, you're supposed to complain at the time the disturbance happens which has been the case for years but I've been refunded when I haven't because of noisy guests. Not stayed at a P.I for a few years, though, so I wonder if they've got strict with this policy recently.

I had to leave a premier inn room with my children at 5am after finding the room was infested with bed bugs. It was really distressing, not least because I was travelling alone with little ones who’d spent three days unpacking their suitcases on the infested carpet (which hadn’t been hoovered once in three days because housekeeping wasn’t happening due to COVID). Anyway I even handed over a little tissue at reception filled with squashed bugs . It was awful… I had to cancel my onward journey, my first holiday in years because I couldn’t risk taking bed bugs to the onward destination.
Anyway they refused to refund me, even suggesting I must have brought the bugs with me. Bed bugs are not covered by the good night guarantee, and premier inn has a massive problem with them , evident in their TripAdvisor reviews and candid photos of said critters.

I haven’t read full thread admittedly but having stayed at many premier inns over the years I’ve noticed in the past year it’s all gone downhill.

We stayed at one last year with no staff. Literally no staff. One guy trying to do everything and an apprentice. Check in queue up the street. I was given guest services number to complain and “guaranteed” a refund - it didn’t happen. Another stay we had fruit flies in our room - literally crawling on us - made a complaint and changed rooms (to a cheaper one) and didn’t hear a thing.

I get covids a thing and they’re not fully staffed but they shouldn’t be booking out the entire hotel on a bank holiday weekend without the staff to cater for people.

I loved premier inn; simple, comfortable, big bed and you know what you’re getting… or you used to. A recent stay even a couple of weeks ago wasn’t great - reception staff didn’t seem to know what was going on!

@tintodeverano2

Didn't you post this recently...

Wasn't that the bloke moaning they were woken at 6am by staff moving breakfast tables and was his child wouldn't go back to sleep?

I suspect he was just after a refund as he mentioned he couldn't afford another night in an expensive hotel (never heard PI described as expensive)

@ImInStealthMode

I used to work for PI many many moons ago and it was no quibble back then. I once had to refund someone because he saw a rat in the car park (we were in an enormous park, it was more likely a squirrel) and couldn't sleep for worrying about it

Just before I left I refunded a Woman who complained the fire alarm had gone off at 5am. She hadn't bothered to evacuate, but rocked up to reception 7 hours later bang on check-out time waving the guarantee in my face. I put through her refund while asking if she'd rather have been left unawares if it had been a real fire?

As a PP has mentioned, notes went on both of those client profiles. Chancers.

Well, I did wonder if it used to be more lenient, because once I went down in the morning to pay my bill and just mentioned at the same time that the TV in my room didn’t work. I didn’t care, it was just for info. And the receptionist said, was I claiming under the guarantee?

I was very surprised. But then, she was very surprised when I said no.

I had one refused.

The room we were given was right next to the lift, as in our door was at right angles to the lift door. Throughout the night, we kept hearing the robot lady announcing "floor 2, doors opening!" "doors closing!" and general chit chat from people coming and going in the lift.

I did ask if we could move rooms, shortly after settling in, but there were no spare rooms we could move to.

They refused a refund as it's expected to encounter some noise if your room is next to the lift.

@SpicyTinkle

It really spoiled our trip. We had 3 DC with us too. PI said it didn't come under the guarantee thing. Fair enough, but I think that having facilities to wash for a 4 night stay is a pretty basic assumption to make. We won't book with them again because of it.

It didn't have to come under the guarantee. It was a straight breach of contract. If they couldn't mend it reasonably quickly they should have offered you another room and, if they were fully booked, they should have arranged for you to move to another hotel.

They refused a refund as it's expected to encounter some noise if your room is next to the lift.

That's another ridiculous reason for refusing, unless they warned you at the time you were booking that that was where the room was and that noise from the lift would be audible in the room. Really they shouldn't be letting out rooms as noisy as that unless they can soundproof them.

I had a refund in the past after reporting after the fact. I've had an account for years and use Premier Inns regularly so that may have made them more open to refunding. I do think they need small print as it's massively open to abuse without some kind of restrictions.

Wasn't that the bloke moaning they were woken at 6am by staff moving breakfast tables and was his child wouldn't go back to sleep?

I suspect he was just after a refund as he mentioned he couldn't afford another night in an expensive hotel (never heard PI described as expensive)

That’s him. It didn’t go his way here so he slunk off to the MSE forums and had a moan there instead. AFAIK he still didn’t get his refund 😂

@wlv12

We had a really negative experience recently.

Stayed in a London premier inn, first floor with a disabled guest. We found out late at night on our return from the theatre that both lifts had broken. We couldn’t get our wheelchair bound relative up the stairs. Manager was aware and was mortified and did all he could to help, including helping us find a hotel locally last minute ( not premier inn as no rooms available locally) which was expensive given it was London and last minute.
Manager said he needed to escalate it to management through the good night sleep policy, refused a refund at site saying he was unable to. It took them a full month to respond via email to the good nights sleep claim, which was rejected because the room was available and it was outside of their powers that we were unable to use the room. They totally ignored the fact we had booked a room for a wheelchair user, and while they couldn’t help the fact that both lifts broke down, the room still couldn’t be used. They replied saying their findings were final and no further emails or phone calls would be responded to. Which is a joke as there never was any response to phone calls.

Never ever again. Terrible company.

I’d send this account to Watchdog.

We had a similar experience but it was filthy. The room was absolutely disgusting, stank of smoke and air freshener, the sheet didn't cover the stained mattress, proper rank. We were there for one night, had tickets to an event and our transport had been delayed so didn't have time to arse about moving rooms before the event. Told the reception staff when we got back but she appeared not to understand my accent and couldn't help. So slept fully clothed on top of the bed and returned home early the next day and contacted customer services. They took 35 days to respond and said cleanliness doesn't impact sleep 😵‍💫🤢🤮
We just won't be back to be honest. They were really rude in every encounter we had with them. Weren't expecting the ritz but we thought it would be clean at least. We were very wrong 😵‍💫

@CherryMaple

As a PP agreed, the marketing for this is misleading. That’s my point.

And if you contact them in the middle of the night, they’re not rectifying it or putting it right - it doesn’t magically turn into a great night’s sleep. If you’ve had to speak to reception in the middle of the night to complain about the noise, even if they come up and bang on the door of other guests, it’s still not been a great night’s sleep. You’re basically just providing evidence that you’re awake and the noise is real. The evidence we provided that we were awake and the noise was real was reporting the times the noise happened - this could have been evidenced on the CCTV.

People who are saying ‘it’s a cheap hotel, wear ear plugs’ are missing the point.

No. You are missing the point by not scrutinising the small print. If you don't do this then you won't understand what's on offer and what isn't. Of course the boast sounds better than the reality. That's what PR is.