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!

There was a massive thread on this before about a lady arriving late but wanting the use of her room in the morning or something like that.

Loads of people had experience of over booking at hotels and loads of staff came on to say their hotel did it.

I think what some posters are missing are that for hotels this is a calculated gamble. Most of the time they'll get it right. If you've never had a problem at a certain hotel - well no, you shouldn't do - but it doesn't mean they don't overbook.

This happened to us with a Travelodge two years ago booked and paid three months in advance arrived at about 5.pm (so not exactly late) were told there wasn't a room available and the would arrange another hotel.
We were left in reception for over an hour while they frantically rang around and eventually offered us a room 30 miles away. Dead handy for the party we were attending a 5 minute walk from the hotel we had booked.
We lived 25 miles away so the alternative was further from the event than our house. We told them they only way we would accept was if they paid for cabs to and from the party (it was the first time we had both been out as a couple with a big group of mutual friends for years and we both wanted to be able to have a few beers) and covered the petrol costs for the extra milage I would have drive to the oh so handy alternative hotel.
At that point they had a quick look down the back of the sofa and found they did have a room after all. We had booked a family room and we told them we would take a standard double (the 10 year old could have squashed in with us) over being moved but it was a family room they found. I haven't booked with them since and won't again unless it is absolutely the only option. It's one thing if you make a flexi booking but the wankers had my money for months.

Tbf, the chances of this happening to you again are very slim. Think of it as being hit by lightning.

You can be as sceptical as you like, but people who literally work in the industry are telling you it's common practice. Like PP says, using the data people figure out the likelihood of it happening and set room availability to match.

This is also why free room upgrades can happen. If they have 80 standard rooms and 20 premium, they'll probably sell around 85 standards. If they don't sell all 20 premium, they'll upgrade some of the standards and outbook any 'extras'

This happened to me with a family room in a Travelodge. We arrived exhausted after a long trip and they wanted us to drive another 40 miles to another TL.
The only reason they magically found 2 rooms (instead of a family room) was because we had screaming kids and it was clear I was going to make a fuss. Not ideal the family was split up but better than the alternative.
I’ve never stayed in a Travelodge again.

This has been common practice for ages. It doesn’t happen often but it always has been a thing. It’s happened to us on 3 occasions I remember. First time was when we booked in to stay at a boutique hotel for a friends wedding and got moved to a highly mediocre B&B owned by same people a 15 min walk away. I was deeply unimpressed and complained but the staff really didn’t care. If we’d been there for anything but a friends wedding that I didn’t want to make a fuss at I’d have demanded a refund and just gone home after a day out since it wasn’t far from home.
Second time 12 years back we were moved from a central Dublin hotel to one in the outskirts in same chain. Wasn’t ideal location wise but the place we stayed was a much nicer room/better facilities and since we got a taxi to take us there, some money for transport into the centre & a free dinner we were happy enough.
Most recent time was a trip with work where we arrived and they informed us we couldn’t keep our rooms for the Saturday in middle of our stay as so many people in their loyalty program top tier where they guarantee a room were booked in for that night. After reviewing options with the concierge we ended up with Friday & Saturday rebooked to a nice hotel in the group in a different city with transfers and had a mini holiday. When we got back they also sent fruit platters and cakes to the room with vouchers for a free 30
minute spa treatment.
So net while everyone does it how they treat you while doing it differs

I worked as a receptionist in a holiday inn about 25 years ago
awful job
but we did it back then.
it’s normal. Airlines are the same.
tbh usually the no shows materialise so it rarely caused a problem. I only remember twice not being able to fit someone in and they got sent to a rather fancier holiday inn in the city Centre so no complaints.

Often, we'll give the person being outbooked something by means of an apology. Paying reasonable transfer costs obviously but also discount off their next booking, free upgrade next time, free meal and or drinks etc.
One hotel I was in, our 'rival' hotel was across the road and we had a great relationship with them, so if we outbooked to them we'd also pay towards the customers meal in their restaurant and vice versa.

Ha! I'm sure it's not. Can you tell us anything? 😀

Treatment of staff is one of the biggest gripes I have with the industry.

I regularly worked a late DM shift (3-11.30pm) then back on and early the next day (7am-3.30pm). Yes I know this is illegal but couldn't say no. 12 hour shifts with no break or food, being forced into dangerous situations, never being able to take holidays or having them cancelled the day before. I could go on and on.

Training is shite as well which means staff can make potentially dangerous mistakes and then just get sacked for them (ie giving out room keys, telling other guests what room someone is in etc).

Obviously a number of cleaning issues as housekeeping are often expected to flip a room in 15-20 mins and after a weekend this could include scraping pizza off the ceiling and fishing noodles out of a kettle, trying to get rid of smoking evidence etc, they just don't have time to clean to the expected standards so cut corners.

Pouring cheap wine into expensive wine bottles and serving them to pissed guests, if someone has a bar tab open, adding extra drinks on to max the tab out quicker, massively underpouring event wine but charging the hosts for the full glass, charging cards on file just because they can....

Im sure others can add to this list as well lol

I think this is awful - I've never had this happen to me. Although rarely stay at Travelodge and will avoid in future.

I agree with a pp that I'd do a small claims court claim. I do this often when I get shoddy service (or no service!) and it works quite well.

Worked in a Hilton. Yep they did it.

it’s not isolated to cheaper hotels

Im sure others can add to this list as well lol

as a teen i also used to work in housekeeping at a fairly well known boutique hotel that was a fave with actors, celebrity photographers, and JK Rowling.

we were taught to dry bathrooms with used towels to save laundry. The massive beds were often zip and links with two single duvets - if one side didn’t look slept in, we weren’t to change that side. There was no guarantee that was the case.

the soaps and shampoo bottles etc? All the same cheap all purpose product.

I’m pretty sure they do charge you anyway if you don’t turn up?

but yes, I’ve seen people in reception at various different travel lodges get turned away as overbooked. Really puts me off using them. Work used to book them for me and I used to be checking in as early as I could!

Woah 😲

Worse than that, a colleague who had previously worked housekeeping at a posh hotel told me they were told to clean the CUPS with the used towels.

She told me this as we returned to the (different!) hotel we were staying at on a work trip and I said I was going to make a coffee.

I now either take my own cup to hotels or wash the provided cup with boiling water and soap before I use it.

And try not to think how many hotel cups I had used before she told me.

I don't get the stories from the posters who are saying they got to the Travelodge and there were no rooms, (as they had overbooked,) but when they kicked off/threatened to camp out in the foyer/said Travelodge would have to pay their taxi fares to a place 30 miles away (and back,) they suddenly found a room.

Never known this happen. If the rooms have all been allocated and they are full, how on earth are they 'finding a room down the back of the couch?' Are they tidying up the broom cupboard and sticking a couple of Z-beds in it?

Because flexible rates exist and are appreciated by many travellers. I was due to stay in central London on Sunday night this week. Unforeseen circumstances meant I couldn't travel so I cancelled on Saturday and got a full refund.

But that shouldn't affect people who have booked and prepaid for a non-flexible, non-refundable room. Theirs should be prioritised, even if the idea of those who take the flexible option means that the hotel can be flexible with them as well.

If you have 100 rooms to sell, and history shows that 2 rooms normally don’t show up then you can sell 102 rooms and make money.

Does honesty not even register with them as a concept? I mean, you can get extra money by going into a bank with a balaclava and a shotgun, but it doesn't make it the obvious sensible choice of action, does it?

I suspect in our case someone else got told there was no room at the inn instead. I assume that as we had booked early and paid in advance we were the 'cheap' option and once there were fewer rooms available later bookers had been charged more so they wanted us to be the ones that missed out so they got a higher fee for the room/4 person occupancy fee. Once we started asking for 60 miles worth of taxis we were no longer the cheap option.
Let's put it this way there were a couple of other families at the party that were told there wasn't a room available when they tried to check in. One decided to stay sober and drive home the other were the party hosts relatives and put up by relatives.

This is also why free room upgrades can happen. If they have 80 standard rooms and 20 premium, they'll probably sell around 85 standards. If they don't sell all 20 premium, they'll upgrade some of the standards and outbook any 'extras'

I have no issues with this - where they take the gamble and then have to give a free upgrade; but why should they be allowed to gamble in a way that they can't fail to win, at the customer's expense?

Never known this happen. If the rooms have all been allocated and they are full, how on earth are they 'finding a room down the back of the couch?' Are they tidying up the broom cupboard and sticking a couple of Z-beds in it?

They probably kick the can down the road. If you're assertive enough and demand they make good your booking, that likely just means that somebody who arrives later will get turned away instead, and they hope that they'll be less assertive and will be able to be fobbed off.

I don't get the people who are suggesting that, as long as TL find you somewhere to stay, you've got what you've paid for and have no reason to complain. What if you pre-paid for a meal at a posh, expensive restaurant and then, when you turned up, they'd run out of all of the choice desirable foods, but they could bring you as much beans on toast as you could eat? Would that make it OK, as you went there to eat and you've left full up?

This is a revenue management strategy - they use it to compensate for no shows, last minute cancellations. The only other option they would have would be upfront payment and no cancellations.
Hotels usually calculate their overbooking % though so that it affects very few guests. You obviously got unlucky.

This is a revenue management strategy - they use it to compensate for no shows, last minute cancellations. The only other option they would have would be upfront payment and no cancellations.

But they also do this with people who have booked and pre-paid upfront, with the clear understanding that it's not a flexible deal and thus no refunds will be made.

They don't need to be compensated if people have paid in full and then actually cost them less money in overheads, as their room doesn't need to be cleaned and they haven't had any breakfast. A paid-up, no-refunds no-show is a bonus to them, not a loss!

Overbooking happened in the hotel I worked in 20 years ago (big chain) and also happened in all the other big chain hotels in that city. It is standard. The fact that so few people on here have ever experienced not getting their room explains the reasoning, there will always be people who don't show up and hotels will always try and maximise profits.

I'm not saying it's right but it has been common practice for years and in many hotels.

I thin some of the better hotels used to have a policy where if you were outbooked it had to be equivalent or better than the room you booked. It’s only happened to me once, but I was bumped out of a Radisson hotel in Bloomsbury in 2017 and taxied to the Conrad St James. I was very grumpy as it was 11pm at night, but my grumpiness dissolved when I unlocked the door to a one-bed suite with lounge, walk in dressing room and huge bathroom with double shower! It’s the best night in a hotel I’ve ever had. I asked the receptionist how much the room rack rate was the following morning and she said £900 per night. Apparently it’s usually booked out by a Middle Eastern family for the whole of August.

It’ll never happen to me again, and I’ve never been lucky enough to be upgraded on a flight - I’ve only flown economy. But it was really lovely to experience how the other half live. If I ever get bumped again I’ll insist on an upgrade.

I don't get the people who are suggesting that, as long as TL find you somewhere to stay, you've got what you've paid for and have no reason to complain.

@FatherJackHackettsUnderpantsHamper Complain all you want, but if you accept their resolution then of course you don’t get a refund because you still used a room.

By booking with them you accepted their T&Cs which alert you this can happen. If you’re not okay with it, don’t book! And if you didn’t read the T&Cs, that isn’t TL’s problem either.

Your restaurant example doesn’t match up because you don’t pay in advance and you don’t accept T&Cs to book. If you did then no, you wouldn’t be entitled to a refund in that situation either if you still went on to eat all the beans on toast!

But surely if you're hundreds of miles from home, used public transport to get there you have no choice but to accept whatever they offer. It doesn't make it in any way acceptable. You're entitled to compensation if they sold you a product they had no intention of giving you, it's fraud.