To warn you that Travelodge routinely 'overbook'!!

[badger2005]

We had booked to see a show, and ages ago I also booked a travelodge so we'd be right next to the venue. When we turned up ready to book into our travelodge (about 5.45pm) we were told that they had had to move us into a different travelodge in another place - miles from the venue!
This wasn't because of any kind of emergency - they just overbook on purpose apparently and you just get booted out even if you have booked a room in advance.
When we got back home, travelodge sent me an email asking for feedback, and I asked if I could have a refund. That seems to me like the absolute minimum - I booked into a hotel and they reneged on the booking - surely I should get a refund?! But they just blanked me. I don't know if I can get a refund - I'm guessing I will just be talking to a computer about it forever if I try.

I've found out since that not all hotel chains do this. I'm NEVER booking Travelodge again. Just warning you all!

So, for my own clarification, if you book a hotel room, it is not and never will be a guarantee that you will get the room you actually booked? There will always be a possibility you will be booted out due to overbooking? You can never be sure of a room? Have I understood that correctly?

Pretty much, and don't listen to the but it never actually happens but if it does you should be honoured because you will be carried in a gold carriage to a 5* hotel 3 minutes away where you will be checked into the presidential suite and showered with free gifts which you don't deserve because it's your fault for arriving late (or on time).

Yes.

Same as if you book a room but the hotel has a technical issue and cannot accommodate you.

Same as if you book a room but the hotel has a technical issue and cannot accommodate you.

Yes, but there's a massive difference between an unavoidable 'technical' issue and one that has arisen through greed and deliberate carelessness.

Call your boss and tell them that you can't come into work because your Gran has just died or your kitchen has flooded, and most reasonable bosses will accept that. However, if you say you can't come in because you were enjoying it too much at the pub last night and got home steaming at 5am, they probably won't take the same view of your circumstances.

Just to reply to this: "Expecting a full refund as well as the alternative accommodation is being unfair on your side"
I'm being unfair?!
To be clear, I have had zero compensation. The accommodation that I had "booked" and paid for had been given away, and they put us in much less convenient accommodation instead.
And there has been exactly nothing in the way of compensation. They have not even replied to my email asking for it. They just reneged on our agreement and then ignored me!
I think that reneging on a contract is really big deal. (And I don't buy that it is not reneging just because the details are in the T&Cs - you can't put whatever you like in there and then do what you want). Who's to say that a full refund plus alternative accommodation is too much? Some other hotel chains obviously think it's not enough, as they also offer return vouchers - obviously worrying (rightly) that you will never return.
But for travelodge I think this must just be standard practice and something that happens all the time. I will never book with them again!!

I'm in a Travelodge now. Arrived on Friday. Thanks to OP, i sent an email to customer services informing them that I'd be checking in late. They replied pretty quickly, informing me that they'd made a note of this on my reservation details.

Thanks OP. And sorry for your trouble.

Great Wanttobeme, and hope you are having a good stay!

IT IS reputational suicide - look at all the people on here who say they will never 'book' with Travelodge again (and I certainly won't with Great Western Hotels either).

Booking a hotel is to secure the room - otherwise what is the point?

You are entering into a contract and the hotel is liable if it breaches that contract - as I suspect they well know even if it is their 'policy'. If consumers took it to court who do you think would win @StarlightLime ?

When businesses let their customers down to this extent they are not normally successful for long.

IT IS reputational suicide - look at all the people on here who say they will never 'book' with Travelodge again

People say a lot of things ....

Well you'd be a fool to book a room with a hotel that has a reputation for not booking you a room....

I think most people can see the logic of that @SerendipityJane

Yeah, you'd think.

Until they see the price.

In other news, Ryanair are still in business. As are Currys.

It would be interesting to know where the relocation policy would fail on a test of reasonableness. Eg you book a hotel in one town and the alternative offered is in a totally different place. When we book a hotel room, the goods we are buying are not just a bed for the night; we are buying a bed in that specific place, almost certainly because that it where we need to be. So being told a room in a totally different place is the same thing that has been booked and paid for, because it’s in their T&C, feels very dodgy on legal grounds. Less so a different branch in the same place, which feels far more reasonable if all additional costs like taxis are paid for.

Out booking is just so incredibly rare though. Like I've said above, I worked in the industry so was aware that it happens, and I have never one single time worried ahead of checking in that my reservation won't go 100% as planned.

Because in all but one in a million check ins do

Why bother with check-in is between X and Y if you are going to arrive later than this please let us know as we might then re-sell your room if they are happy to re-sell it a fortnight before your stay?

What? They don't "re sell" rooms. They system allows the bookings to go 1/2/3 rooms over. Not specific rooms just volume of rooms.

When you make a reservation, your actual room is not reserved then. Just a room from the number for sale.

Apparently airlines do but not realised these.

But they say they operate a relocation policy. But nowhere do they say they operate an overbooking policy that might lead you not getting your room you have already paid for. That's actually the real issue. Why do they not say this in the t and c. Why do they say all this about providing an alternative with the strong implication it will be due to something out of their control. They do not state they create the risk this will happen. If they did we can make an informed choice and choose to take what everyone in the industry says hardly ever happens but evidence is that it actually does more than they are letting on. And if it is so rare then why not proper compensation as per airlines. No charge for the room and 200 for inconvenience and all travel paid.

Yes so why set a time after which a room might not be available if you can turn up well within the allotted check-in period and still not have a room? Ultimately the same room has been promised to more than person.
I've never arrived at a theatre, cinema, sports event or music gig and found someone else in my seat only for the venue to shrug and say we assumed not everyone would turn so we have sold 103 tickets for every 100 seats.

From Travelodges T&Cs:

• No booking shall be binding on Travelodge until we issue you with a confirmation number.

This implies that once they issue a confirmation number the booking is binding but that only appears to work one way. I can't book a room in Leeds but turn up at Bradford and expect a room but they can do this to me.

• Your booking is not transferable. You cannot transfer or resell your booking.

Again I have to uphold my end of the arrangement but they can transfer my booking if they want to.

Hotels 'managing revenue' at 2 to 3 overbooked will generate aroundb1k a week in revenue they wouldn't get from no shows. So when it goes wrong, which aledgly hardly ever happens, and the hotels breach their contract to their customers, the two of 3 bookings effected per year could be paid proper compensation out of the 50k per year pot of 'managed' revenue generated.
That's actually what airlines do, so the hotel scam is not the same. Some obviously pay como better than travelodge, but they should all be forced to refund the cost and provide alternative.

Maybe not every hotel does this, but plenty do. I've been bumped from many hotels, even though I've paid in advance. The UK and the US seem to be the worst.

That doesn't apply for accessible rooms.

YANBU

airlines do this too! I remember fuming with easyjet years ago as they told me this at the airport as they put my friend and I ‘on reserve’ even though we had checked in prior days ago.

it’s a disgrace that they double book like this and get away with it

This is what is actually happening. The hotels are incentivising people to use their service by saying they can cancel last minute of not show and there will be no consequences. A good incentive if you are booking with a possibility of changing plans. The hotel knows full well there is a cost to offering this incentive in that a no show will cost them revenue from the room, so they double book the room to ensure revenue if the original booker takes them up on their offer as a no show without financial cost. But their is a risk to mitigating the cost of their incentive in that if all show they can not provide the service they said they could.
So what they have done is passed this risk to customers who have booked and paid in advance in that it is them that have the consequences in having to change hotels to places they didn't want to be. So all the risk is on paying customers to fund an incentive for them to attract customers.
It is a scam.

I cannot speak for all chains but ours never over booked accessible rooms.

I've already suggested the outcomes if it happened.

(Mind you that's quite aside from the piece-of-string definitions used for "accessible". Personally I don't consider a 20 metre crunch across a pea shingle car park to a ground floor room "accessible" even if a hotel in Corsham did).

And as for "accessible family rooms" - I still have nightmares.