Unfortunately it might be hotel policy that they don’t do returns. I’m currently in a similar situation with Center Parcs and they are refusing to return an item we left in the lodge!
But what's the alternative, if they don't do returns? Do you mean that they won't go to the trouble of returning it themselves or just that you can't have it back at all, even if you go back? What would happen if you left your car keys and only realised when you'd checked out and then couldn't get in to your car? Although, it never ceases to amaze me how some people can leave car keys and apparently not miss them for weeks!
Concerning this thread, though, am I misunderstanding something? Is a courier not basically just a person/company whom you appoint to collect an item on your behalf? If so, why would they refuse that? How is that any different from (the wonderful) Sue turning up to fetch the teddy? Why would it make any difference to the hotel if it's a paid agent or a friend/kind MNer who turns up for it - neither of them is more than 5 seconds' effort for them?
W've never stayed in a Travelodge, but vowed that we never would after we saw a feature on Watchdog some years ago. I don't know if they still have the same policy now, but they had a system to get maximum occupancy and thus would deliberately overbook, banking on cashing in on the no-shows. Their solution was that you would get a room in a Travelodge, but not necessarily your chosen one. Maybe that would be (slightly) less controversial if it was a big city with loads of branches and you 'only' ended up a couple of miles away, but they had some outrageous examples. One person had booked to stay in London on a night which turned out to be massively popular and TL wanted to bump them their nearest branch with an available room - in Grantham!! IIRC, Grantham was further away from London than the person's own actual home!!
Of the two, it would definitely be Premier Inn every time for us, as they don't do shady things like that - and just seem to be better, fairer and more dependable in general, in a number of ways. It's not even a case of protecting revenue, because the no-shows at TL would have either pre-paid or signed to agree that their credit cards could be charged, so they were always bound to pay for the room, whether they used it or not; it just appears that TL saw a clever money-making wheeze that they valued more than fulfilling their basic obligations in providing customers with what they had paid for. Who in their right mind would book (and pay for) something that couldn't be guaranteed - as a matter of policy?