EMAIL REPLY FROM SNOTTY STRATTONS HOTEL - Soap and Lotion debacle

[NadineBaggott]

Dear XXXXX

Thank you for your e-mail.

It is always worth bearing in mind that whilst website reviews can be useful they can also be misleading and only give one side of a story.

Strattons is well publicised for its strong green policies for which it has won many awards both locally and nationally. We offer a luxury experience without sacrifice to the environment - something that we pride ourselves on and have worked for 17 years to create. We have stuck to a comprehensive environmental policy since our doors first opened in 1990, it is now a hot topic in the media and Strattons has been used as a leading example for the last few years and regularly features in the glossy magazines and broadsheets.

We have been using refillable dispensers since 1996 and have never encounted a problem with them.

Our website explains our toiletries, a refillable dispenser with fantastic products. We offer 6 x 250ml dispensers in each bedroom (no soap bars) each costing £17.50 each - £105 per room. If every guest took away the dispensers we would have to increase the room rate or decrease the quality of product, I am sure no hotel could justify £100 of a room rate only covering the toiletries.

'Luxury bathroom miniatures have been replaced with refillable pump dispensers helping to reduce plastic bottles to landfill by 97%, instead one excellent product that can be used as shampoo, bath foam or shower gel, manufactured by a company which does not test on animals and has their own environmental ethics which re-endorses Strattons own position.'

Our hotel also offers an extensive DVD and CD collection for borrowing, would you expect to take these items as part of the room rate? or even the towels from the bathroom?

We appreciate that our hotel is not to everyone's taste. However we do not hide our policies and have been successful because of them.

Kind regards

Hannah Scott
Manager

expat - they'd fish the bottles out of the bin I assume

It sounds like Stratton's is so tight they would!

From under the used condoms and snotty tissues uurgh
Not implying that's what would be in the OP's bin, but in general!

they aren't tight they have green policies

biscuit, anyone? No?

Yeah, cos replacing two plastic bottles is going to save the world, isn't it.

How green is it to waste paper, postage and vehicle miles chasing up a plastic bottle?

And then ask someone to post it back and waste packaging it?

Don`t worry, I used a shoe box to post it back to them in, in true recycling fashion although I did drive to the post-office and the postvan will need to deliver it to them. The postage cost £2.40 by the way, should I ask for them to reimberse it . The letter they sent would have cost part of some poor tree somewhere too

I hope you enclosed a snotty letter and are postign a review on Trip Advisor. I would.

Two plastic bottles: 50p

'Designer' lotion and soap: £2

Harrassing letter to former guests: £2 (including man power)

Return postage: £2.40

Publicity and loss of business: priceless

Way to go, Stratton's, the tinned chopped tomatoes of the hospitality industry: all the swept up bits off the floor repackaged as staff!

You'll serve as a great lesson to all those who are being taught what the industry is really about: its guests.

'the tinned chopped tomatoes of the hospitality industry'

Blardy brilliant!!!

How rude is that letter?! I spent 10 days in Canada before Christmas, for work, and stayed in an incredibly posh and expensive hotel, with Miller Harris stuff in the bathrooms. They weren't huge, but they weren't miniatures either - I just assumed they were up for grabs and took some back with me - as did everyone else there, I would imagine. OK, I didn't fill my boots, but did take a couple of soaps (100g bars, so not tiddly) and some body lotion for our guest loo. They haven't sent me a bill.

was it moulton browne i lurvvvvvvvve that stuff

I am so shocked at that reply. That is the kind of snotty letter that is banged out and sent before it is reviewed by someone else in a slightly calmer light. They're handling this very badly aren't they?

I think hannah is the owner..or daughter of the owners

oh please post Hannah's email address so we can all have a go

[email protected]

Nice website despite crap pr!

i don't understand why people are having a go. surely she shouldn't have taken them in the first place

perhaps not south but its lotion fgs! hardly worth actually sitting down and writing to someone for its return!

This is a 'posh' hotel, where guests spend a lot of money and apparently they've been doing this since 1996 with no problems so it ain't gonna break the bank.

Yes maybe she shouldn't have taken it but come on!

shouldn't have taken them. we provide the small bottles but have thought about doing the larger ones and will probably do so next year. However for some reason people take our flannels

so if someone takes one of the smaller bottles do you harass them for it back after they have left??

I love the way that anything can be justiyfied if you get enough support on here.

Why take it, if the guest knew it was wrong? Same as nicking from the sweet shop innit?

Yes, the hotel is being supercillious, uptight etc but if the stuff hadn't been taken in the first place none of this would be an issue.

She did NOT think she was doing anything wrong. In hotels, the toiletries are complimentary - ie yours. This hotel has a very different policy but doesn't bother to make that clear, just harasses and embarrasses people who have spent more than £500 at their establishment over a couple of plastic bottles.

It is much more like eating the cubes of cheese put on on the deli counter as samples than stealing from the sweetshop.

Maybe if they had phoned afterwards and said maybe the customer wasn't aware but the lotion/soap etc was not meant to be removed, just a misunderstanding and due to the cost of the item, they would have to charge the customers card.

Must be very posh if they would put £105 worth of toiletries in the room, I don't have that much in my house!