Man let into my Premier Inn hotel room late at night

[jennylamb1]

Looking for opinions. While staying in a Manchester Central Premier Inn, reception gave a key to my room to a strange man who gained access to my bedroom at 10.30pm at night when I was in bed. As a lone female traveller I was obviously very upset and went down to reception to find out what was happening. Receptionist apologised and said that the man had the same name as me- it wasn't the same name- and even if it was, she shouldn't have given him a key. To make things worse, I ended up in the same lift as him up to my room and he made a somewhat sexually suggestive comment which made me wonder if he was deliberately trying to get into women's rooms. Obviously didn't sleep well after double locking and putting chair up against the door. Complained about it and she offered to credit the breakfasts I'd booked which I accepted at the time. Been waiting 15 days for the refund to go through, which I've already had to chase up and which they reassured would clear within 15 days and which hasn't.
I'm now thinking that I didn't make enough of a fuss over this given the issue of safety for lone women and the additional poor service on top. Should I email the CEO and make a big thing of it?

Unfortunately hotels aren't safe spaces

(same as not all police are trustworthy but people have been too scared to speak out or didn't have the capacity to information share for a while).

I had a (very brief) student job on night shift reception in a chain hotel, and left after a week due to the behaviour of the other guys there. The woman who had started before me had also left after a week.

They were creepy and had access to rooms.

Of course management was aware of them but hardly anyone wanted to work nights on a flexible rota for minimum wage? So management turned a blind eye

Same with other staff. Hospitality isn't all slick professional types who are DBS checked and certified. Don't trust the smart suit.

I didn't see any specific evidence of them targeting rooms before I left, but I would certainly have believed anyone who said they had done something dodgy.

(Read in the papers someone who joined after I left was jailed for attacking a woman...).

My point was people are insinuating he is some serial rapist and in reality a serial rapist would have more sense that to leave such an obvious trail leading to his arrest.

I've said more than once this is a Premier Inn fault, people making out all sorts of extreme conspiracies are getting carried away.

This is terrible. I'd 100 percent take it higher and perhaps even complain to the police.

There wasn't two though, she was alone. This would be on their system.

I'm you are taking this action. I'm questioning a booking I have with them, next month.

glad

this is shocking! id be terrified in your shoes, even and with a partner there it’s scary. Definitely make a fuss, I’d also put it on socials to make sure it gets picked up!

Absolutely escalate it. This is disgraceful, even if it was a genuine error. Don't let them fob you off with corporate-speak.

You really. Need to take this further. This is a thing in Manchester & Birmingham grooming gangs use the Travelodge and premier inns and they know what they are doing. We were in a Travelodge in Birmingham and all the outer doors were left open deliberately to allow men to frequent the building. Then the key we were given for our room turned out to fit all locks to corridors, outer doors, cupboards and other rooms and vice versa it was horrendous. We reported it to police and they went next day to do checks.with council. Unsure what happened after but we were told by others that had noticed the key issues about how the gangs often gain access to the cheaper budget hotels because master keys often fit all locks a d are given out on the pretence they are different keys for each room when they arent etc. That's why the newer premier inns and Travelodge are trying to go fully electric. But some of them just still an electric key fob on that only works one door to the reception and the rest is still a master key.

This is really worrying to hear this. I could've been staying in both cities recently but decided not to do so for Birmingham as could do a day trip but could've stayed in one of these 2 hotel brands for the other city. I'm relieved I didn't stay overnight in Birmingham but did one as a day trip and the other trip to Manchester I stayed in another hotel, Doubletree by Hilton.

I don't normally say this but you should take this further as I said earlier.

I have to choose hotel accommodation as part of my work as an EA/PA and I would pass on feedback to the relevant travel bookings team if I felt my colleagues and in particular female colleagues, didn't feel safe staying there and at risk of attack from men.

The pp who said that the hotel staff laughed when they heard that a man had got into their room, that is absolutely disgusting behaviour and I'd expect that person to be spoken to for that behaviour. That is definitely not how I'd expect hotel booking/reception staff to behave ever and I would definitely complain myself about that.

A friend of mine was given the key to someone else’s room in a Premier Inn.
PI receptions are often chaotic with just one person trying to check people in, sort out the ridiculously inefficient self check in units and even staff the bar as well.

A male friend of mine staying at a travelodge went back to his room after a night out and there was another guy sleeping in there who had been given a key card to the same room. My friend’s bags etc were still there. Reception just said sorry and gave him another room.
I physically bolt/chain the hotel door ever since hearing that.

Normally I would say give over you're making a meal out of it when people complain, but this is horrendous. Yes 100% complain.

Idon't know wtf these places are doing but this has happened to my husband, who travels a lot for work. He came out of the shower one night to find someone in the room! Can't remember now if it was a man or a woman, but it's happened more than once, Premier Inn or Travelodge. DH went and complained at reception. It's more worrying for a woman, especially if she's on her own in the room. They really need to get their act together.

This has happened to me too - only the reverse where I have been given keys to a room that was already occupied.

Once at a Sofitel and once at a Hilton garden inn.

Both times the occupiers were out but I could have helped myself to their stuff!

I am a lone female traveller and it totally freaks me out that hotel systems are capable of issuing multiple keys to the same room. There should be a control on the system to stop it?

Can this get raised up as a female safety issue somehow?

The same happened to me in a Birmingham Premier inn, the male reception staff let himself into my room in the middle of the night. I made a complaint and called the police, non of this has been successful I’ve just been fobbed off with poor excuse s. This is not the only one I’ve heard about in premier inn, I’m now speaking to MPs to see if anything can be done. I’ve since bought a door lock from Amazon which I use all the time now.

I hope you get somewhere.

Luckily I don’t have to regularly travel for work, but my colleagues do, one female colleague travels regularly to London from Manchester.

Women in particular shouldn’t have to worry about this issue.

All hotels should get their act together and employ the relevant number of staff to do the relevant number of jobs. There shouldn’t be one member of staff doing multiple jobs.

I guess the hotel chains would whinge that since Covid and Brexit that it’s harder getting the staff. Well tough luck, do it. And this happened pre Covid and Brexit as I stated above, so it’s just sloppy behaviour by those hotel chains.

They don't need to be a serial rapist to be a rapist. Many of them are opportunists. Especially if drunk or coked out his nut.

What if an intoxicated man walked in and got in bed with op? Thats bad enough but what if he then decided to feel her up? Or rape her? Or strangle her?

Someone being given access to a room someone else is in needs to be zero tolerance with full blown conseqences for the incompetent member of staff, end of

I'm travelling in June, in a room alone, not Premier Inn or Travelodge, but I'll definitely be taking a door wedge/stopper with me now.

I get the impression most hotels are run on an extreme skeleton staff. Sometimes they look very young and inexperienced. I wonder how much training the person who gave you your key had had?

We stayed in an amazing old hotel on the south coast partly because I know it from my childhood and loved the building and the was curious to stay there despite iffy reviews.

The staff at breakfast looked so scruffy and unkempt. My feeling is the hotel industry must be in a dire position to be hiring staff that look like they're going to a goth party.

Security and training and people cost money and companies owned by offshore hedge funds don't care about the customer. They won't lose money will they if 5% of keys are mismanaged?

I am gobsmacked that there are people out there who don't always double-lock doors in hotels. Are you people crazy? Thieves love hotels - more expensive devices under one roof than an Apple store. Sexual assaults in hotels are also common, unfortunately, and often the perpetrator is someone who has followed you back to your room, opportunistically. I always double-lock, even if I'm in the room for 2 minutes.

However, you can't just rely on double-locking doors, because there are ways of over-riding the locks, even those bolts that some hotels have (5 minutes on TikTok will show you how). That's why I always travel with a door-jammer.

We've had similar things happen in a Travelodge. First key did not work so we trailed all the way back to reception. Second key worked but it was obvious that somebody else was already booked into the room. Moved us to another room and we heard somebody else trying to get into our room later, they'd been given the room too.

And I agree with a previous poster, this was probably due to there only being a skeleton staff of inexperienced younger people working there over the weekend.

Yes, you absolutely should email them. Anything could have happened to you, and it's very worrying that he made a sexually suggestive comment to you in the lift too. Tell them that the whole thing has left you afraid to be alone in their hotels now, and that you feel all women should be warned, of the possibility of something like that happening in their hotels!