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!

Flexible rates mean you can cancel within g hours of your booking. This means that sometimes the rooms will not be filled at such short notice, hence the overbooking

Those of you who are absolutely certain that your hotels don't do this just haven't experienced it

If you don't have any accessibility needs you may never know that your room was shuffled around.

But if you can only use an accessible room, and it's taken you are (to use a phrase) well fucked. Then it's back home for you - and no we don't care that there are no trains or flights back (that is assuming you had the wallet full of cash to afford an on the spot ticket).

If people are seeing more tents in city centres, it may well be a result of overbooked hotels.

@FatherJackHackettsUnderpantsHamper That’s all really irrelevant though. Whatever the business, if you accept their T&Cs then you don’t have a leg to stand on.

Eat the alternative food, stay in the alternative room, whatever the alternative is that you accept, you have to pay for it. You only get a refund if you refuse the alternative.

This has only happened to me once when we booked a Travelodge as we were going to Old Trafford, and when we arrived they told us that we were in the one on the M62 instead. They said they didn't have a room. We had everything printed out - booking reference, booking confirmation, confirmation of payment (we'd paid in full) etc. I told them that they'd better find us one PDQ as we had paid to stay at that particular hotel and not one on the motorway.

They were very off with us, but I stood my ground and made them find us a room. I've been very wary of booking with them since however.

Echoing other posters, I check in online where I can, or use Booking.com where I've never (touch wood) had a problem.

TheJubileePortrait

You are correct about whatever T&Cs a business has. I suppose it's just a lesson to learn and spread the word about which businesses do not like to act in a way that shows basic respect to their paying customers, so that we can know which ones to avoid, if integrity and an assured booking is important to us.

That said, I believe it is legally possible to challenge T&Cs when they are considered unfair or unacceptable.

Suppose a shop sold gift vouchers and put, in tiny print on the back, that the face value was actually meaningless and it was just a piece of worthless paper with "£20" printed on the front, for which they had been paid £20 pure profit: a 'novelty voucher', if you will - I can't imagine them getting away with that for very long.

I can see why businesses do this if it maximises their profits. But I think that they should not be allowed to! They are just being allowed to renege on agreements. And I don't think the T&Cs cover it - really no-one reads those and I agree that we can challenge them.
I would really like to know of a hotel chain that guarantees that it will never do this. I would pay extra to book with them. Had we not been able to leg it across the city in time, we would have missed the show and the tickets for that were really expensive - so it's just not worth the risk of booking with a hotel that might not honour the agreement.
I also think that - just as a business model - if they find it maximises their profits to do this and it happens really really rarely (as lots of people on this thread say) then they should refund the customer when it happens! They should give you the best alternative they can and also a refund too or other compensation. Otherwise as the unlucky customer you are just getting shafted!

Plus with the 'all hotels do it' idea - I'd really like to know if all hotels do it to the same extent. Is there a chain where it happens only really rarely? If so maybe I'll try to book with them instead.
My guess is that travelbodge do it quite often, which is why we have so many stories here from people using them, and also why they won't offer an automatic refund. If it was rare, the number of refunds would mean that they could do this for peanuts. But I bet it is quite frequent. Anyone know how many bookings end like this with travelodge?
I should add that the 'please provide feedback' email from them was one where it was automated, but tailored for people whose bookings are moved. Must happen quite a lot!

They did find us another - it took quite a while though. I don’t recall having to pay any more - just as well, because I really would have exploded.

I would say it does happen more in budget hotels. Higher cancellation/no-show rate, easier to resell the rooms etc.

Also this hasn't happened to me (yet), I was aware hotels overbooked in this way. The difference will be the extent to which they overbook and how they treat you afterwards.
I seem to remember that there was a flurry of articles complaining about over bookings of accessible rooms a few years ago, with disabled people being offered completely useless alternatives (like a room with no lift access) or being told to lump it.

It’s not just luck. The main reason you haven’t been turned away from a hotel you booked is that Premier Inn’s Revenue Management team know exactly what they are doing and are good at their jobs.

Did you mean to type "travelbodge" OP? 😂

Even if they no show, don't they get the money anyway?

I worked in 5 x 5* hotels over 17 years, they all did it. Not very often, about once a month/6 weeks, but they all did it.

The difference was though, that if you were one of the unlucky people, you got a full refund, your accommodation at the other place paid for, and a voucher to come back for free another time (and a note on your booking to definitely not book you out!) I used to be the Duty Manager and I had to tell people - I absolutely hated it!

This is one that baffles me, I get they overbook and rely on no shows, however they pulled this on me once. I'd travelled by train to this city, plan was to see a show at a venue 2 streets away. We arrived at about 4pm to be told they'd moved our booking to another travelodge, miles away and next to the motorway as they had overbooked! When I quizzed them about how many people had checked so far that day, we weren't late arriving and that we didn't have a car to get to the motorway, would they pay for taxis, they then decided they did have a room and that not everyone had checked in so they could allocate us one.
I don't think they are the brightest bunch, surley it would be last to check in would be refused a room as they would then be truly overbooked. Who knows!!

There are loads of different criteria for who gets chosen to be outbooked. You may have been 'selected' and they then decided it wasn't worth the hassle and bumped someone else. Or, like a PP says, they could have bumped a live-in staff members.

But no, they don't always refuse a room the last person who checks in. Bit rude and uncalled for to call hotel staff "not the brightest bunch" for following a procedure that works more times than not.

I’m glad they found you another but it still sounds like an absolute nightmare!

I’m glad this thread was started as so many people wouldn’t have a clue that this happens.

That seems very odd though

They over book because there are no shows. Then someone shows up and there's a room available, but they're not given it because it's saved for someone else who still might not show up?

What are some of the other criteria apart from 1st come first served?

Maybe they ask everyone until someone says yes?

I think the moral of the story is that, for anyone this happens to, is to make it clear the level of inconvenience the move would cost, both in time, money and any other difficulties, and that you expect to be fully compensated for it.

So if you've planned an evening that involves relaxing in a hotel before dinner and a show, then walking back to a hotel that you'd deliberately booked near to the venue, they'd better put you at another hotel close by and that a hotel a long taxi ride away is not a suitable alternative.

How they've booked (direct, 3rd party, as part of a conference/event), if they've no-showed before (either at that hotel or within the chain if it is one), what rate they're on, if they're part of a membership programme or loyalty programme, if they work for a company or person who sends the hotel lots of business, if they've been previously outbooked...these are just some of the examples I can think of. Any 'unmovables' are taken out of the outbooking pool.

We and some friends all booked and prepaid for rooms in a Travelodge for a trip to the theatre in London some years ago. We arrived in the afternoon before check in time so left our luggage with them and headed out. Turned up back at the hotel after the play to find they had given one of our rooms away. One couple had to get a taxi to another Travelodge miles away at midnight. AFAIK they didn't get a refund and none of us has used Travelodge since.

Their hotels are grotty anyway.

But with airlines you may be lucky and upgraded to business class - as long as you look well behaved, not the type who’s going to get pissed and make a nuisance of yourself. A very demure-looking DSis has been upgraded more than once - BA London to Boston.

This happened to us after a wedding, the nearest hotel available was actually very close our home (about a 40 min drive) so we said we would just go home.
They said we wouldn’t be allowed a refund as they have offered us another hotel but once we explained that the wedding we had just been to was someone who worked for a well known news station, we were refunded the very next morning!

Since when is 5.45 a late check-in? If you turned up at 5 minutes to midnight, maybe.

Airlines also generously compensate people, eg they'll tell the waiting crowd that they'll pay £x00 to anyone who is willing to take a later flight.

I was once booked on a cheapy indirect flight that would have taken about 5 hours to get to my destination. One of the legs was overbooked so they put me on a rival airline that flew direct in 2 hours, on the flight that my client had refused to book because the cost was about 4 times more than the indirect flight.

I've also been bumped once from a hotel, they did it by telephone mid afternoon (booked via a corporate travel agent). The new hotel was about 20 miles away and much nicer. However, so was the restaurant and just about everything they served was well above my employer's expense allowance, which I couldn't claim extra for.