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

In this situation as the bride I would try and get MoH to split the cost of reimbursing everyone £130 each. Minus the cost of things MoH paid for out of her own pocket already that weekend.
So bride pays £65 and MoH would be looking at giving you all something less than £65.

@2026letsgo I agree with this. She might have gone to the group and explained and get lots of classic MN "this no longer works for me" type responses and the hen do falls apart.

I actually organised my own hen do because of situations like this which made it much easier. I actually think the Bride needs to sort this out as it was her weekend which she asked MOH to organise/it's her friends. As the bride i would have sorted to avoid conflict at the wedding

avoid recourse?? She probably didn't have her own legal liability front and centre of her mind- rather she was thinking about how to ensure her friends hen party didn't fall apart by some people dropping out, having to cancel the whole thing and no where else to stay- all of which she felt was avoidable by simply not disclosing to the owner it was a hen.
In hindsight this was the wrong decision but she didn't know that at the time.

👍🏻

i think you’re probably right. Meant more that, if I was the host and I had very strict rules, I’d want the added protection of approving the booking and making it clear again, before they accept. I think lots of people (including me sometimes) can be guilty of not reading everything properly. I know that might not be the case here and maybe it was clear and the host doesn’t have to return anything. But I’d rather make it crystal clear than have the hassle of having to physically turn people away and deal with (perhaps unjustifiable) complaints x

That's terrible !

Please don't accept this offer. MOH should be refunding everyone who seeks it

I’ve had the money transferred to my account before I’d even replied (bride to be gave MoH my bank details). Still nothing back from the owner yet.

I can’t believe she is bribing you to keep quiet. Wow.

But she was gambling with other people's money! And not giving them the choice. From the very start she could have declared it was a hen to the owners and negotiated e.g. a damage deposit. Then, when the email came through, she could have told everyone else and asked the group if they wanted to risk it. It was nearly £3000 of their money, it should have been up to them. NOT controlled by someone whose response to the loss is "Fuck You".

Someone mentioned small claims not being worth it but can you do it as a group?! Of course she should refund everyone. She knew the rules and didn't care

You need to make it very clear in a written message that you do not accept the terms of their refund. And that you don’t appreciate the refund being offered as hush money. Tell them that all the hens deserve the same level of explanation for what’s happened and the same level of refund and that this transfer to you will not buy your silence.

Your integrity has been challenged OP.
You now need to stand up very firmly against their shenanigans.
I know the bride is your good friend but the onus was on her to choose a MoH who was up to the job and she failed.
Between them, they need to sort this out pronto, before it snowballs.

That is bizarre

Oh that’s awful behaviour from her, forcing the money on you with the requirement to keep quiet.
I think you need to speak up to the other hens now about this whole thing otherwise if you leave it much longer and they find out that you know, and find out you’ve had a refund it’ll look really bad for you. What a horrible position they have put you in with their shitty behaviour.

So what if the bride doesn’t want things to get awkward. That’s her MOH fault for chancing it when she was offered a full refund.

Please make it very clear that the refund is not buying your silence.

Given that you didn't agree to the bribe I would just tell the others anyway.
Sue can hardly tell the others that you weren't supposed to tell them can she

You could always post on the group chat something like ‘thanks for starting the refunds for the accommodation issue last week. Really glad to get my refund and I’m sure everyone will be pleased to get their extra costs back!’

I’m actually floored by the number of people saying the MoH should refund all party members.

Are people forgetting that she was described as a “single career woman”?! She is the bride’s friend, and I imagine, NOT a professional events organiser.

8 additional grown women allowed this woman to plan it alone, they transferred money and were able to look at the details themselves.
In what world, and especially the current climate, should a single woman be reimbursing over £3000 to hen party members?! If this woman works full time, has to lay out bills single handedly etc then shame on you all for harassing her about this. You all could have checked and you didn’t, therefore you are all equally responsible.

She probably put a lot of effort in to planning and panicked that all plans would fall through, the week before, when she received the email- yes she should’ve communicated this but it doesn’t excuse any of you for not helping throughout the process.

If I was her I’d be slowly distancing myself from such people and questioning whether I still even wanted to attend the wedding. What you are planning to do now is wrong. Take some accountability for goodness sake, you had every opportunity to send a WhatsApp and help. You could’ve informed yourself and you didn’t. You all left her to it and just wanted to show up for a nice weekend 🤷🏽‍♀️ lesson to be learnt maybe?

I think we are agreeing but I also feel that is exactly what the landlord did, from the MOH own confession to the bride which she conveyed to the poster. She saw the terms and conditions saying if it was a single sex or hen/stag party, they had to ask prior to booking, she did not. From Instagram she knew other hen/stag do's had happened here, presumably secretly or with permission, who knows.

I know when I have booked on AirBnB, Cottages.com or Booking.com I have normally only had to put the lead booking name unless insurance is involved.

Then following a problematic booking that highlighted the hen/stag problems, they emailed her 2 weeks before the event saying strictly no hen/stag do's and offering a full refund if she withdrew at least 7 days prior to the arrival. She ignored, gambled and lost. I don't think the property owner is at fault here.

What a load of nonsense.

She hid the facts and gambled other people's money without their consent. She had a private email giving her the chance to cancel for a full refund and chose to ignore it.

Now she's trying to bulldoze and bribe her way out of it.

She's a real cow of a woman.

Everyone saying what should MOH have done, it was too late to book anywhere else etc … clearly it wasn’t as they managed to book the cheaper hotel. Had the hens known they would have had a week to find something else or used the money to plan different activities given they no longer had the house space. What MOH did was take the choice away and make everything tense and frantic instead

Oh ffs. She’s perfectly capable of booking accommodation online. Lots of us plan holidays & events it’s part of day to day life. This wasn’t a round the world trip it was simply booking a house with several bedrooms for two nights. The MOH fucked up big time and cost people a lot of money.

In that case you need to let the rest of the hens know.

Yes but the cheap hotel was a terrible option and they weren't able to do their games etc.

The cheap horrible option was what was available on the day in last minute panic.

not what may be available 2 weeks out with 7 days to consider options.

and I imagine, NOT a professional events organiser.

It doesn't take a professional events organiser to spend half an hour on Airbnb to find accommodation. It's not planning a trip through the Amazon, it's a hen weekend. And yes, I've done it myself, for similar numbers. And no, I didn't have to hide anything or lie to anyone else involved.

😂 jeeez, women can be awful to each other. I feel bad for this MoH. Yes, she f*d up but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t done on purpose and she’s likely sat there thinking she wished she’d not even said yes now.

It’s way too late for what if’s but all I’m saying is, under no circumstances would I- as a hen party attendee- expect a person to plan a hen do alone without offering help. I also wouldn’t be transferring amounts of money that I felt was substantial, without checking the details of where I’m going or what I’m paying for.