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

I would get a copy of the e-mail from the owner where he offered a full refund and then get my money back from MoH via small claims court. I would reject her offer now and file the very next day after the wedding (and encourage the others to do the same). What a vile woman to chance it with other peoples hard earned money.

@Hennightmare What you are now subject to is divide and conquer. ANd I am sorry to say you are in a very difficult position.

If I were you, I would hold back on making the decision for as long as you can. If another hen has contacted the landlord of the accommodation, he may reply giving all the information the MOH & Bride are effectively asking you to hold back and then you are caught in the middle. When the others find out, it will not go well if you have settled quietly although I see why you are tempted.

You are either about to jump into bed with a viper or become public enemy no.1 for the MH and Bride from the sound of it. Are you part of the wedding party, a bridesmaid, or just friend? The brides stress is not your problem, the MOH created this and she needs to resolve it,

You now (presumably) have a text message from the MOH that amounts to an admission and if that gets out, she can't give it to you and not others but if it goes to the small claims court, it will sink her if you go public.

Or you can try and use the power you now have to influence the outcome but that would wreck your relationship with the Bride and MOH. You are between a rock and a hard place.

You could send the MOH a private message something along these lines,

Thanks for offering to cover my hotel, but I’m not sure I am comfortable with keeping quiet about what happened. Other hens are now contacting the landlord, and if he explains the real reason the booking was refused, it will all come out anyway. I don’t want to be in a position where it looks like I knew the truth and stayed silent while others were out of pocket.

Being honest, I think your best chance here is to just admit that with all the stress of arranging the hen weekend you made an error and offer to cover the £130 for those that have an issue with what happened. I think those that are unhappy may settle for that rather than the full £300 each if they can avoid an argument over it and none of us want to make this any harder than it needs to be. In this way it will also minimise the stress to the bride.

But you can head all of this off by making an offer to the group as a lum sum or in installments.

I’d prefer we deal with this openly as a group so everyone gets the same information and we can resolve it fairly

I really think that is just an awful way to behave.
The bride is party to her friends being screwed over.
No way would I keep such low class behaviour quiet.

I'm howling at this. Can't believe she's paying you off. Will you be signing a non-disclosure?

I don't think she should pay everyone back the £300 as you were all willing to pay that anyway.

Sounds like she paid for quite a lot of extra bits too and was quite generous. She's clearly a bit out of touch and throws money at a problem, which is great but she needs to understand that you can't all afford to pay for second accommodation.

Doesn't seem right that some of you get reimbursed and others don't. I think really she should have offered to pay outright at the time for the second lot of accommodation and then hopefully a few people who could afford it would all say don't be silly and then she'd only pay for the poor ones ones in need.

I only say this because sounds like she's not hard up and has gambled because she knows she can buy her way out of these situations but naughty to expect you all to. If she had scrimped and saved to give bride the best weekend and then had been a bit dopey and overlooked the T&Cs then I would hope you'd all just let it go.
Sounds like she knew there was a risk and did it anyway.

What a bitch moh is. How dare she assume that people can afford to loose that amount of money.

It’s not just knowing there was a risk or overlooking the T&C’s the owner actually messaged her two weeks before they went to specifically say absolutely no hen/stag parties and if you need to cancel because that’s what your booking is, let me know now and I’ll fully refund you. She chose to ignore that without giving the other hens a say so I think she owes them all a full refund.

Surely only a refund for the second accommodation thought not the first? They already had planned to pay £300 for accommodation.

Small claims court 😂😭😂😭

Is it worth the effort?

Agree - get everything in writing and put screenshots in the group. I personally would feel uncomfortable being paid off, and would want everyone to know what's going on.

Bride is in a very difficult position. She is about to get married and from her point of view the MoH has spoiled her and probably done all manner of things to help in the lead up.
Equally she doesn't want to piss off loads of her other friends who might then not show to the wedding. I would be tempted to wait until after the wedding possibly?
I think it's unlikely she's going to bin off her MoH just weeks before her wedding, and might be more inclined to make a stand after? I know it sounds cowardly but it's just being realistic.

Surely what’s relevant though is the t’s and c’s when booking? If the owner took the booking (knowing that the party might be a hen party) then there is a contract in place. If they change their mind as to who can use the house after the booking is accepted then they are in breach of the contract. They can’t just message you can cancel and I’ll refund you. They need to find you alternative accommodation that can accommodate you to remedy the breach?

I can't find it now, but this is roughly how someone explained it earlier. Imagine you had agreed to stretch your budget (£300) to pay your share in a gorgeous Villa, where you could take your own booze, socialise and play games.

You get ejected and end up paying for a shared travel lodge room with no shared facilities and so you need to go out and spend even more money on top of the £130 you had to pay for a shared room in a travel lodge.

They paid £300 for the luxury villa and all it offered and that is not what they got. So I see the argument that she should refund the money for the original booking because the hens were willing to pay more for better facilities which they did not get and instead didn't get the experience they had signed up for.

Or maybe this hits home more...image you had forked out for a meal at a Michelin starred restaurant that costs a lot and then got given a MacDonalds happy meal on a paper plate. Would you expect the refund for the posh meal you had signed up for or the happy meal you got?

The MoH is offering to pay £150? The second lot of the accommodation for just the OP, to shut her up and the whole thing down.

I really think SHE messed up and she should pay everyone back their £300.

She could easily avoided this but she chose not to.
She has caused this upset, her alone.
She has messed up through her own stupidity.
This was not an accident.

Yes £300 for a better accomodation. It’s like booking a holiday at a 5 star hotel and then being changed into a 3 star, would you just accept the same price because that’s what you were happy to pay originally?

They would also have presumably spent more time and less money not buying as many drinks/meals out if they were able to stay at the house.

MoH choose to risk booking against the rules without checking with the owner and then ignored the option of a refund. Based on that she needs to refund them all their £300.

It’s a form that would take about 20 minutes to complete and send to the local court, so yes for £300 I would be doing that.

” As I suspected - MoH chanced it. At the time of the booking, the T&C’s stated the owner would use discretion as to whether stag/hens/same sex groups would be permitted to stay. MoH didn’t declare it as a hen at this point”

But it's not £300? They were going to be parted from the £300 anyway so there's no way they would get that back. It'll be the cost of the second accommodation at best.
My time is worth more than £160.

No it’s the £300.

MoH took their money and booked the house knowing that hen/stag parties were not allowed. She effectively threw their money in the bin when booking it and then set fire to it when she ignored the owner e-mailing her to specifically say NO HEN/STAG PARTIES, if that’s what your booking is, tell me now so I can cancel it and refund you. If you don’t cancel I can’t put the house back up to rent for that period so you won’t get a refund. She still choose to ignore that and “chance it”, but expects everyone to just accept it. No chance.

Yes so at the time of booking that means the owner could use their discretion. If the owner didn’t raise any objections at the time of booking and confirmed the booking they couldn’t just use that discretion on the day They turn up. That would be a totally unreasonable term. It is on the owner surely to ask the question directly not rely on the booker having to disclose off their own back?

No, because the MoH, as required by the booking agreement, needed to tell the owner if she was booking a hen party. But she didn't. The question is asked when booking. The owner didn't raise objections because she wasn't made aware of the facts. Despite that, she offered another opportunity for her to fess up and get a full refund, which the MoH again failed to use. There is no way any of this is on the owner. I really don't see how "If you're a hen party, you must message to discuss" could be any clearer!

He did. He e-mailed the MoH to confirm and offer a refund which she ignored. He was clearly suspicious so was at the house when they turned up and caught the MoH out.

Sorry I didnt the see the bit where the owner directly asked the question when booking. If the question was directly asked ‘are you a hen/stag do? And the MOH answered no in writing then absolutely she’s in the wrong. She didn’t have to volunteer it though unless she was directly asked. Just saying it is at our discretion whether to accept isn’t a direct question. I thought it was just a bit ambiguous that she just didn’t volunteer the info to the owner

Yes but what I am saying is unless the owner directly asked the question and the MOH responded in the negative then it was on the owner to confirm themselves. Asking for Confirmation later on after they have accepted the booking seems like a breach to me. But as I say if the MOH directly answered No when asked directly then obviously she is in the wrong.

Personally if I was organising a hen do and read that there was a possibility the booking wouldn't be accepted I would never book and would immediately look for somewhere else.
I think when you are spending other people's money you have a duty to make them aware too.

They are out 130 which is the extra they had to pay for new accommodation. The MOH is out a whole lot more, never mind she organised the whole thing- for her friend .Yes she messed up; they also got unlucky, but she's not a professional booking service, she's just a person giving up her time and money for her friend.
This thread is actually insane. I can't believe people are encouraging the OP to sue the MOH for compensation.

This is unbelievable.. I'd be telling the bride exactly what I thought of her MOH.