To expect MoH to refund hen accommodation after we were refused access?

[Hennightmare]

I attended a hen party at the weekend - Friday to Sunday, staying close to a seaside resort in a private accommodation. I paid my share in advance - nearly £300.

Upon arrival, we were greeted by the owner who refused entry on the basis that hen parties (and same sex groups/stags) are not allowed and this is stated in the booking terms and conditions and elsewhere on the website. Despite reasoning, the owner was not backing down, and said there’d been an incident with a same sex group two weekends ago which required costly repairs.

MoH said she was aware of other hens who had stayed and this is how she found the place on instagram. She was told no refund would be given as there wouldn’t be time to let it again for the weekend.

We managed to find budget hotel rooms in the area but this scuppered the plans which were in place for the house - games etc.

I have looked myself and it is prominent on the website about the rules around hen parties etc. It is clear there has been inconsistent approaches in the past though.

Should the MoH cover us for her mistake? I am out of pocket after the hotel booking.

YABU - suck it up, it happened
YANBU - her mistake, she should offer to cover it

MOH displaying complete initiative failure for not briefing the party that, should anyone ask, they were all doing ParkRun/choir competition/charity treasure hunt. She could have had alibi t-shirts made and everything.

I’d definitely be asking Moh for a full refund, and generously offer to accept it in installments!

She chanced it and gambled with other people’s money. It didn’t work and now she needs to reimburse you all

Why should the owner check, it was clearly stated on the website.

I dare say the owner did. When they sent a further email to inform them that if it was a Hen and they cancelled with 7 days notice they would get a refund. @hamnish would be like the bride wanting it to blow over. Someone else’s fault.

I am torn re. whether to contact MoH. I don’t want to upset my friend - none of this is her fault. But at the same time, MoH messed up massively and cost us all financially.

I said it previously, but I’m led to believe she is fairly well off - she is a single career woman with a high flying city job.

One of the girls relayed to me a comment she made on the night we were refused entry. It was along the lines of shrugged shoulders, ‘£300 is my Friday night in London these days’ as if it was a insignificant amount to just write off.

In that case I would definitely be asking for a refund, and I think all the others should too.

Should have rocked up at different times or said you were competing in the regional church choir comp . YABU. Costly mistake to make however the guilt MOH will feel about ruining the weekend is punishment enough. Suck it up.

Not to mention that the bride isn’t out of pocket - MoH paid for her accommodation both times. It’s not reasonable of her to expect everyone else to suck up the loss without fuss ‘because my wedding’.

@Hennightmare try and get some of this in writing and lodge the claim. Fuck em all.

You are the company you keep after all.

That comment would have ben the straw that broke the camels’ back for me. I hope her job in the city doesn’t involve the management of other people’s money because from what you’ve said she’s fundamentally dishonest and lied to cover her tracks. I think maybe a quiet hint dropped about small claims court action might be enough for her to cough up a refund - there’s a paper trail cataloguing her dishonesty that she’d find difficult to justify in court.

This is a really tough one!

I suspect moh just didn't see the email. She's well off so she might not value 300 the same as everyone. However from her pov, she paid for the bride twice and didn't ask the rest of you to chip in. Did she also front the cost then collect? The comment about Friday night out suggests she was defensive and thought you were all being melodramatic.

300 would be a lot to me and I would actually be unhappy with the bride as you are HER friend.

My advice: see if the others are in agreement then approach bride and communicate "listen this lies with moh and she does need to compensate us. The group is unhappy." Then accept a partial refund in installments if necessary.

Er, no - if you read the whole thread you’ll realise the situation regarding hen/stag parties turned out to be significantly more nuanced than was initially presented.

and also that as a holiday let owner myself, I’m hardly likely to be ‘wanting it to blow over’. The reason I always follow up bookings with a polite message is because in my experience, people do secretly think they can ignore t&cs, but most chicken out and cancel if you ask them a direct but friendly question.

For the initial accommodation, she got final numbers attending, booked and paid £3000 in full and then requested payment by end of the month (about 2 weeks away at the time).

The additional accommodation was booked by her and two others, it was easier to do it that way and sort out the money transfers in small groups.

Why do people pay £300 for Hen Party accommodation? why is the brides mother even involved? Thank God it wasn't in one of those tacky Northern towns - even worse.

Not at all if you don't want your business possibly trashed/smashed up!

Having read your updates I think that if MOH had any sense of decency she would refund the £300 to each person who paid.

when she was contacted more than 7 days before the booking date by the owner about the fact that hen parties were not permitted she could have shared that with the group and if all the group decided to “chance” it that would be different .

As it is she chanced it to start with, was then given a firm “no hens” but offered a full refund but still went ahead and chanced it - if £3k is “nothing to her” then she won’t mind refunding everyone that is out of pocket

The owner has pulled a flanker imo, she is up 3k for a house that noone stayed in. I understand it was the organisers fault for not checking, nut I think the owner could have offered maybe 50% refund

In this case the MoH is completely at fault and should refund the rest of you, in my view. If she'd even told the rest of the group about the change in circumstances and asked if you would prefer to risk it or book elsewhere then it would be different, but from what you've said it's all on her.

Aside from the Bride, are the other hens as pissed off as you?
If so, collectively you could tell her, for the bride’s sake, it won’t be mentioned before or at the wedding, but you are all expecting her to refund you by [date after the wedding] - provide bank details after which time you will be filing a claim with the SCC.
Given what you have heard about her lackadaisical attitude to the expense, this makes it worse and would further fuel my resolve to seek recompense from her 😏
I’d be reassessing my friendship with the bride too after this tbh.

Well no. The owner sent the email because the T&Cs had changed following the hen two weeks earlier. Hens had gone from discretionary to banned because of that incident and the owner was upfront in offering a refund if it was a hen. There was clearly something about the booking that aroused suspicion with the owner because instead of key safe entry, they were met at the door. There’s no getting away from the fact that MoH is entirely at fault.

Yep, this. However it’s handled, the bride is naive to think that the people affected won’t be thinking about it at the wedding. And asking them to let it go, especially when the bride isn’t out of pocket, is just going to get people’s backs up even more.

The owner has pulled a flanker imo, she is up 3k for a house that noone stayed in. I understand it was the organisers fault for not checking, nut I think the owner could have offered maybe 50% refund

Why on earth should the owner give any kind of refund? She made the revised booking restrictions clear, gave the MOH a chance to cancel for a full refund (and at a week’s notice she might not have got another booking) but instead the MOH went ahead, knowing she could be refused entry. The fact that the owner was ready to risk losing £3k on an unbooked weekend rather than have a hen party in there, surely says something about how much damage the last one did…

Many venues do not accommodate single sex/hen/stag groups and they say this very explicitly in the T&Cs. The MOH should really have clarified this with the company before booking. I would be pissed off and I would expect the MOH to return the money if she had any decency.

Why ? She offered a full refund if they cancelled in time for her to re let the house on those dates, and MoH refused it. Why on earth should she be out of pocket because MoH is a chancer ?

were the rules in place when it was booked?