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

Ah, someone else who is incapable of reading all of an OP’s posts 🙃

Why do you assume that anyone who disagrees with you hasn't read your posts?

I have read all of your posts, and nothing you have said, changes or contradicts that assessment.

She clearly hasn’t read the one which clearly stated the MoH was offered assistance with booking and declined. Or the one which stated we had sight of the accommodation listing.

Exactly. The MOH had two weeks and the help of the other the hens if she’d bothered to ask them, to reorganise different accommodation, she chose not to do that, instead she decided to ignore the email and pretend she didn’t know. This caused the group to loose a lot of money and to have their weekend completely spoilt.

You had sight of the accommodation listing, but by your own account you didn't check the terms and conditions, just how many towels the place had.

I read as much as I could stomach before deciding that your group’s behaviour is borderline bullying if I’m completely honest.

You are an adult, right? You can ask questions before paying for something. It appears to me that you are all just wanting to pass the book to this poor woman.

At the end of the day, it’s not like she wrote out contracts between her and party members, she is a friend organising a hen party and it’s a massively unfortunate incident. The house had previously allowed hen party bookings and it later changed. In my opinion, that’s the only thing she’s done wrong is not communicating that final email. That said, she maybe did panic, felt overwhelmed at the thought of trying to change all plans again and chanced it. I dare say that if it had just been a lock box, and not the owner waiting to greet you, none of you would have given a single shit that she was the one who’d had all the stress and worry of planning.

If I was her, I wouldn’t have even transferred you anything back out of my own pocket (who can afford to reimburse 8 people £300 each?!)- unless the accommodation obviously provided a refund. It’s just one of those things that could’ve been prevented with more attention to detail from all involved.

Are you deliberately difficult or just a bit dim?

I suspect the latter.

The T&C’s were provided at the booking screen to the MoH.

What do you make of the MoH ignoring the email offering a refund, out of interest?

“she was the one who’d had all the stress and worry of planning.“

What is it with hysterical Mumsnetter’s over complicating normal tasks?

Wow! I hope you’ve already had your hen party or don’t plan on asking someone to plan one for you. The way you speak to people is appalling.

It seems to me- from your rude response to @Lacksie - that you don’t like to be disagreed with. You also sound angry- hoping some of that is because you realise now you’ve lost £450 to acconodation, that you could’ve asked more questions and put in more effort to know finer details- and not just at this poor woman who made a mistake…a big one, yes! But still a mistake.

Please take some advice and maybe work WITH the MoH as a team to try and work out a solution instead of her ending up feeling ganged up on. Temporary actions have long term consequences and I’m pretty sure she’s likely out there feeling like crap over this right now. Making someone feel isolated isn’t going to get anyone’s money back anyway.

How is it bullying by the group? One person has asked in the chat what’s going to happen about the extra costs they had to pay- that’s not bullying.

She has only transferred to the one person who actually knows the full story and asked her to not tell the others about the email she received offering full refund.

Not communicating that final email to the group is crucial to this whole thing.

Also it’s not really £300 that people want, it’s the extra cost they had to stump up for extra accommodation.

She chanced it and has kept crucial info from the group which meant they are all out of pocket.

Giving someone money to keep someone quiet from the others about this is dishonest.

I agree with this.

OP, as much as I'm glad you've got your £130 back, surely the position is now even worse (ie one person has been refunded, but no one else)?

The MoH is making a bad situation worse

I meant more the plans sounded very harsh. If OP puts a message in the group- as suggested by many others- that the MoH is providing refunds…how is that fair to put her in that situation? What if she can’t afford it.

It was a mistake. It’s happened now, maybe next time be a bit more involved if you’re attending group events.

I would return the money as it's blackmail.
MoH has cocked up big time and needs to put things right for all of the group not just a hush hush payment for one - it wasn't a "mistake" - it was willful ignoring of the Ts&Cs and then the email offering a refund.
And as for @BaDaBaDaBaa - are you the MoH? So glad I don't know either of you in real life.

Now you are calling me "dim"?

I think your behaviour is appalling. This was a hen party for your friend. The MOH did the bulk of the work and invested significantly more money of her own- paying herself for the bride twice and lots of other activities. Yes she messed up, but it was a challenging situation and she was trying to organise a party for her friend- she's not a business or your staff. Lots of others have made the same choices and the outcome has been very different- it was unfortunate that there was an event just before your weekend that changed the LLs attitude. I can't believe you are expecting this women to fork out 1000s rather than spreading the extra cost of the budget hotel across the whole party.

You may disagree with me and others in this thread, but to assume we have reached our conclusions simply because we haven't read your posts, or because we are "a bit dim" speaks volumes for your capacity to have any insight beyond your own singular perspective.

Haha thankfully I aren’t!!

I just think life is difficult enough and when I saw this thread I felt bad for this woman who’s being asked to pay big amounts out of her own pocket, after trying to plan something nice for a friend. We’ve all messed up at some point, it’s just that her f up has been a bigger one.

I’ll ask again seeing as you ignored the question (perhaps you are a bit dim!) -

What do you make of the MoH ignoring the email offering the refund?

Ah doubling down on the name calling.

If you had read the thread you will see that this has been discussed at length including by me.

The accommodation was booked months ago, if a couple of weeks before she received this email saying the position had changed she was in a really difficult situation. If she had put it to the group, people may have had very different perspectives, if one or two withdrew that would lead to needing to cancel the whole event and finding somewhere else at the last minute- this could be really challenging especially as most places state they don't allow hens. People do this all the time and get away with it and she probably assumed it would be the same. on the balance she was trying to ensure the whole weekend plans didn't fall apart for her friend, yes in hindsight that was the wrong call: a bad decision but we all make mistakes. You cannot assume her intentions were bad.

Congratulations, you can read after all! 😘

Why are people who don't know each other trusting some other person with their money? It's not like she's a professional hen do planner. Literally just a friend of the bride.

I would give my mates mate £300 unless I looked over exactly what they were proposing. And if it said no hen parties I'd raise it. It wouldn't have got to the booking stage.

I beg your pardon?

They could have worked with the MoH if she'd let them in on the fact that she'd had an email saying hens wouldn't be allowed. They could all have looked for somewhere. MoH kept that info from them

This is nuts, she took on booking accommodation, booked somewhere that said no hen parties, ignored the email reiterating that and now people are saying it's not her fault that everyone lost their money?!

She's a nob, of course she should be refunding everyone. She concealed the fact that hen parties were banned rather than asking everyone who would be impacted and just hoped the owner just wouldn't notice a booking that was clearly something like a hen party. Clearly there were other options that the party was allowed to use because they ended up going there instead.

They needed to cancel and find somewhere else anyway! If one or two pulled at that stage they would have been refunded.
Are you telling me that if it was your 300 quid and you knew that 7 days before you could have had the chance to find somewhere else you'd be OK with not being given that opportunity. Not forgetting that she "couldn't find the email" of course she couldn't!

That’s handy. You have your money but haven’t agreed to keep quiet!