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!

Many, many, many people who are no-showing won't reply to a message asking if they'd be happy to be shifted to a different hotel due to overbooking, so the hotel would have to keep the room for them while shunting someone else. The hotel loses out. They don't know that anyone will be outbooked until everyone is checked in.

Unlike an airline, there is a set take off time. If everyone has checked in, they know that they have X many people too many. A hotel won't know how many no-shows they will have until the next morning.

It's happened to me at Hampton by Hilton and Novotel. Also at a crappy independent hotel where I really kicked off because I was running a training course there at 8am the next morning. They sent me to a really posh 5 star hotel though so it made up for it a bit!

Most hotels overbook. It's a standard practice.

But when it happened to us not everyone had checked in. Because when we pointed out that the nearest room they had been able to find us was 30 miles away and we would need them to arrange and pay for taxis they suddenly found a room after all.

I mentioned up the thread that there can be more to it than just 'last person gets outbooked', but each hotel/chain will have their own process so who knows why you were selected. Like a PP said, you could have been given the room that a live-in staff member was due to have or a room a staff member on a late/early shift was due to have.

TL say they will find you alternative accomodation of the same or a higher standard. There's hardly likely to be something of a lower standard around, is there😀
It does seem it's more common ar TL. Maybe they over book higher that industry norms or they have higher levels of people showing.

To those who are saying "not all hotels do this" - it's just never happened to you.

I worked for a massive American chain (here in the UK). Overbooking levels were set by head office, and done on stats. So any regular night there wouldn't be any overbooking allowed in the system. But on nights where popular events were happening in town, overbooking would he allowed in the system at a rate which has been calculated based on how many vacant rooms we had the same event prior years.

When we had to send someone to another hotel, it was a big deal, and the whole day will have been taken up worrying about it and searching for the right booking to send elsewhere.

We would rule out, in this order:-
Any loyalty card holders
Anyone booked on an event rate for an event held in our hotel (eg wedding, conference)
Anyone on an agreed corporate rate

Then, we would ring round everyone left to find out if they were still coming and what time they would arrive. Once we had spoken to them and got a check in time too, we would then scratch them off the list.

So, left on the list would be everyone we couldn't get through to on the phone who wasn't a rewards member attending an event at the hotel.

Then, we would scour the remaining bookings and allocate rooms to any lone female travellers. The disabled access rooms don't overbook so they would be fine too.

Then, it's first come first served. We may try and outlook someone at say 6pm, as its easier to deal with that then rather than wait til midnight, but if they then told us they were attending the wedding (but not booked on the wedding rate), or some other pertinent reason, we would check them in.

I worked there for 10 years and we probably only ever out booked reservations maybe 5 times?

Well what is the reason why someone who has booked a hotel room within walking distance of a wedding venue or next to an airport ready for their early morning flight should not get the service they have booked?

So people paying full price out of their own pockets and arriving late at night were most likely to get bumped then?

Lovely.

Yes.

Not my personal choice, but I worked for an employer who permitted overbooking and the staff on the ground then have to deal with that.

How would you choose who to out book? And saying "not allow overbooking" doesn't work here, because these things are set at a Head Office level.

I think that hotels who do this should be forced to have a pop up warning that booking a room doesn't mean the room is reserved for you and that if not being bumped is essential for you then you need to book a different hotel.

Well realistically they aren't going to do that. It's not like it's a very common occurrence so the majority of the time the way they do it works well.

But it's standard practice within the industry. There aren't any that don't do this.

No I mean I think it should be a legal requirement.

So people understand that booking a room doesn't mean you have actually booked a room.

Like a cookie warning only actually useful.

Are you seriously suggesting that all hotels, even small ones, do this?

We had probably 1 million night stays at the hotel in the 10 years I was there - and 5 out bookings.

Planes do it too you know!

Yes.

I'm calling bullshit on that one.

Are you seriously suggesting that all hotels, even small ones, do this?

There are numerous current and past hotel and tour operator employees on this thread telling you that that by and large yes, they all do it.

Exceptions might be tiny privately run enterprises where they don't have decent revenue management. The kind of places that are on Four In A Bed. Or extremely unique properties with no reasonable equivalent to out-book to. I know of a 5* superior hotel that's the only hotel of it's grade on an island. They don't overbook up to the day of arrival, but they'll certainly be overbooked for busy periods months in advance when they've got flexible rate bookings, allocations and groups to drop back in.

Call bullshit all day if you want, but it won't make it not true.

Big powerful OTAs like booking.com that pressure hotels into offering late cancellations without charge, and penalise them for closing out sales when they're full, do not help matters. If you want to take your money elsewhere take it away from them.

You call all the bull shit you like- you clearly don't want to listen to the people who work in the industry and have actual knowledge about this.

Hotels overbook
Airlines overbook
Sometimes restaurants serve frozen mash
What you see in adverts for stuff isn't always that actual product
Santa Claus isn't real

Had this once at a Holiday Inn Express. I checked in with a group of friends. For most of us they held the booking. When I got the desk they said congratulations Cyclebabble you have been upgraded. Of course I hadn't they had moved me to the Holiday Inn some miles away in a dodgy part of town. I complained at the desk and eventually they admitted they had overbooked. Given the situation of the hotel I would never have booked it on my own. It was pay on check out so when I left I said given the change and the separation from my friends I would not be paying. I left my name and address and asked them to contact me if this was a problem. No charge was ever made to my card.

Small independent hotels, probably not, unless they happen to employ a smart geek to analyse their data. Or they like to gamble…

Large hotel chains; yes. All of them overbook. As has been repeatedly explained, it is normal industry practice, based on analysis of data & trends. If the clever Revenue Management people know what they are doing very, very few customers are ever aware that their hotel was overbooked on the night they stayed there.

Yes, happened to me on a few occasions and not just a Travelodge. The worst one was when I came to attend and speak at a conference being held in that hotel and they tried to move me to another of their hotels about 20 miles away. I pointed out that I expected them to pay for taxis to the venue and back everyday for the entire week I was due to be at the hotel to attend the conference. They did this for a day and then mysteriously found me a room on the next night despite saying there was no room all week (because there was a conference on apparently!). Luckily it wasn't my own money or they'd have been getting a small claim against them.

The worst one I had was with Travelodge though where I arrived at a centrally located one at about 9 pm on public transport. They told me they had over booked and somehow expected me, a lone female, to find their way out to the outskirts of a town I had never been to before under my own steam and at my own expense to a Travelodge located off a road junction near a lorry park arriving about 10:30 at night. I was able to get lodgings at one of their competitors down the road and (eventually) got a refund.

Right, so not all hotels do this then.

As I said, the ones that do should be required to advertise this fact up front so customers understand that their cheap, or indeed, not even that cheap, tariff has been achieved because the hotel has taken a gamble that not everyone will show up.

Why should they be required to advertise this?

Airlines don't advertise that they oversell seats.