Advice! a hotel stay with no heating and hot water

[onefineday2019]

I am back from 2night holiday in Devon with my family. We booked the hotel through Groupon and everything was great for the first day. Second day we had a long walk and climbing in Exmoor. We all wanted a hot bath but after running it for a while we found out there was no hot water. When my husband called the reception they said they will find out the problem and get back to us. After more than an hour there was not a call back but we didn't want to chase so had a quick cold shower and went to bed. For all night there was no heating on so I had to wake up several times to check my radiator. Next morning my kids started caughing and I had bad cramps in my neck due to curled up sleepling position. We found out there was no hot water again so called the reception and heard there was boiler problem. After breakfast we still had no shower or bath and there was no apologise. When my husband went to complain, the receptionist said it's not his job to fix the boiler and there is nothing else he could do apart from waitiong for the plumber. He offered a late check out for free but we had a day planned before 4hour journey back home. My husband was upset because of the receptionist's attitude and we all left the hotel unpleasantly.
When I came back, I wrote an email complaining the situation and they replied that they can't offer compensation because we booked through groupon and for our caughing kids, we should visit GP rather than contacting them. I feel so humiliating because it sounded like we're just after money. Of course, I would have accepted it if they have offered any compensation but proper apology with respect should have been enough.
I feel so upset but not sure if I should complain again or just let it go.
What do you think, ladies?

Write a damning review on TripAdvisor. The way the hotel handled it was unprofessional and shockingly bad.

That's terrible.
Did you read tripadvisor reviews before going?
You know Groupon often means cheap but crap right? Groupon don't have any minimum standards.

Whether bought through Groupon or not the stay is still subject to the terms of the consumer act 2015.

This letter is well-written..

www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/letter/letter-to-claim-for-unsatisfactory-hotel-accommodation

Groupon are a bloody nightmare. I used to work for a company and Groupon did offers for us. We’d handwrite the script of the offer but Groupon would always completely change the wording to make it sound 100 times more impressive than it was. They’d always insist on leaving out the ‘limited days and times’ part so we’d have so many pissed off and disappointed customers. Then they’d take months to actually pay us and would only do it when we threatened legal action. We then refused to deal with them again and two hours later we were getting phone calls about the Groupon offer that they’d decided to reoffer without asking us.

Not excusing the hotels behaviour btw, that’s obviously really poor. But a lot of smaller providers feel very pressured by Groupon and can end up as feeling resentful towards the customers themselves (who are essentially getting a freebie on the company).

Thanks, ladies. It was a small country hotel and the reviews were very good. We quite liked the hotel at arrival too.
I wrote another complain letter and the manager replied with sincere apology and offered the same deal we had if he plan to come in 3months which we are not taking. Now I am thinking of dropoing the case or chasing it to receiver proper compensation.

we had similar in a wannabe boutique hotel in the wilds of Scotland, no real hot water...you'd get about a basinful and then barely luke warm, so very chilly to shower and hairwash, and no chance of a bath!

it was DBB, two nights, dinner free first night, also a coupon type deal, we were refunded the small upgrade fee we had paid to stay on the saturday night and the second dinner was not fully charged

Looking at the reviews showed it to be an ongoing issue, albeit intermittent so I think it was hard to diagnose and correct. Those reviews had been after I had booked though otherwise I would have thought twice about the stay.

The boiler broke, so you couldn't have showers. Annoying but it's part of normal life. No heating, it wasn't cold last night, I don't get why that would mean you had to wake up several times, or why it would make your children cough. It sounds like you are at the very least trying to turn the situation to your financial advantage, and this probably came across to the receptionist.
Now you are talking about "a case" .
Did you not believe them when they said the boiler was broken and they'd called a plumbet? What do you want them to do?

what proper compensation do you want? The manager deal seems fair

DelphiniumBlue, I know the weather is milder this February but after sleeping in a cold room just after cold shower made us shiver and woke me up.
Usually I'm not a person who complains often but because there wasn't an apology I wanted to raise an issue. After a reply from the hotel, I felt even worse. Appropriate apology or free drink or lunch should have been enough compensation. Instead they treated us like people who is after money although we didn't mention about any refund or discount at all. Now I want money back because they didn't treat us like customers.

Quartz2208, we live 4hour away from the hotel and the price match with Groupon deal is not very attempting because we can always find deals in various places.
However, the manager's apology and approach was good enough to calm me down so I guess I will just leave it.

I've heard so many nightmare stories about Groupon that I would never book anything through them. If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.