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?

That's awful. I can believe it as I was given the wrong room in a Premier Inn once - one that was clearly occupied, although the guest was not in fortunately. I've also heard of it happening in other hotels. I always double lock the door. Definitely worth an email to tje CEO. There should be systems in place or staff training so that can't happen.

Yes, on this, I would raise a formal complaint, and escalate as high as possible.

I'd also be tempted to use social media to tell everybody what happened, and incite a bigger response.

This. Credit the breakfasts?!!! You need proper legal advice. I'd be threatening small claims court and a nice spread in a Sunday paper.

As a PP said, I’d expect a full refund under their good night guarantee policy at the very least! You were already in bed so they disturbed your sleep. You then slept with a chair against the door for fear of someone else entering. Definitely not a ‘good night’. Can’t believe she only offered to refund breakfast.

Sorry to hear this @OP. 3 years ago PI gave a key to a male friend of mine (he knew which PI I was staying at, my name, address & dob & is v persuasive) He let himself in whilst I was in the shower, which I was not happy about.
2 years ago, at a different PI, we had trouble with a drunk group of men in the room next to ours (me - disabled & 2 kids). PI told us to 'lock ourselves in & call reception if it gets bad'. It did (one of the men had heard me complaining at Reception & tried to kick our door down!). Police removed them in the end. I was also offered free breakfast both times. V poor. I eventually got refunded but it put me off staying with them again. Complain & keep complaining till refunded.

This situation was raised as a risk at work recently as same happened to a female colleague. We were advised to carry one of those lightweight door stops but ffs why oh why is it always women who have to barricade themselves into a room to feel safe is beyond me! I have in the past had to wedge a chair under a door handle of a broken lock in a London hotel that was fully booked with no moving room options. Needless to say I slept terribly & didn’t get the internal interview I’d travelled for.Definitely raise it further.

I'm glad you are going to escalate this and please don't accept a financial fob off (though you deserve one). The priority has to be a change on process to stop this happening again.

They are, frankly, extremely lucky this guy did not do you any harm and it is not acceptable to hand out spare keys to anyone else but the person checking in.

but ffs why oh why is it always women who have to barricade themselves into a room to feel safe is beyond me!

Because - despite what we may think - men are very much in charge.

You should get a total refund. Premier inn do a good night sleep guarantee where they refund your cost if you don't have a good nights sleep.

I'm sorry that happened to you, it sounds really scary! It probably was just an innocent mistake but it could have had much more serious consequences than just scaring you so it's not one that should have been made.
I would definitely be emailing the CEO and making a big thing of it.

I travel alone for work and I bought one of those travel lock things from Amazon. However, I've never been able to get it to fit on any hotel door! So now I just take a plastic door stop and use that + any deadbolt that's already fitted to the door. You need a physical bar to entry as well as something that can be opened by anyone with a key.

FFS, lightweight door stops. What else, a knife under your pillow?

If hotels can't be trusted with electronic keys then perhaps they should all go back to regular keys and put the spare key in a safe when single person is occupying the room.

Some hotel locking systems are remotely controlled.

You can take solace from that or not, depending on your faith in technology.

Blocking the doors is surely very dangerous in a fire? Or if you are unresponsive or some other emergency?

Obviously something needs to be done, but these are not the safest. Hotels should be providing a safer solution.

That is quite the posting history there 🤣.

Blocking the doors is surely very dangerous in a fire? Or if you are unresponsive or some other emergency?

Which was why I said doors should be internally lockable with a firepersons key. No need to block or jam.

However as with everything everywhere, the cheapest possible solution will have been deployed - after all shareholders dividends don't grow on trees. So somewhere in PIs corporate vaults will be the calculations that saving a few millions on lock systems will more than offset the odd court case. They might even use the same software they use to decide whether to follow data protection laws or not.

DH and I often stay in hotels and we both ask for a separate key card. We're not always coming and going at the same time. Last visit to an Ibis and the key cards seemed to only work once and had to keep being reprogrammed for the second use. One evening DHs key card didn't work (so couldn't even access the lift) asked for it to be reprogrammed and he came up in the lift - got to door and keycard didn't work - back down he goes and asks man on reception to sort it out. Man on reception disputes this and comes up to the room and the keycard doesn't work for him either. He gets shouty at DH accusing him of trying to get in to someone else's room because the card was reprogrammed for the room next to ours - not ours. DH bewildered asks what he's on about and man form reception says you said you were Mr Roberts from Room 332 - DH says no, you misheard me, I said I'm Mr Robertson from Room 333! Apparently and totally randomly Mrs Roberts was in Room 332 and reception guy made an error but thought DH was trying it on to access some other room. He did apologise when he realised it was his error, but the point is, it was a human error and there should be some other failsafe to protect people.
(changed the name but it genuinely was only two letters different to our name)

Email has been sent to the group CEO and UK MD, thanks all. Hasn't bounced back, so presume it's gone through. They actually have a lone female traveller policy on their website which I have quoted to them and it also says that they are 'proud to be associated with the Suzy Lamplugh Trust,' which I also quoted!

We've had this happen a few times in our hotel and it's always down to human error somewhere along the line. It could be that the wrong room has been put clean and vacant after you checked in or double booking the room.

When you stay in hotels always make sure you use the deadlock from inside, in premier inn you have to turn it once the door is shut. Usually only supervisors and managers have a key card that can override the deadlock.

No need for a knife - the doorstop would prevent anyone getting into the room. I'm not relying on anything that can be overridden by anyone, including hotel staff.

Well done OP, this isn't ok, so many of us would just shrug and accept it because it's what we're programmed to do. In fact we should have complained on behalf of the woman whose room DH didn't access but could have. Think I will now, prompted by this thread....

Yes and I think sexual predators in general look for situations where they can wrong foot people and then take advantage, big companies should do everything they can to safeguard against this.

It happens all the time
I have both been let into rooms that are occupied and some have the occupier in and had people enter my room

Typical redress is a bottle of wine
Why didnt you lock the door?

I made a thread about that same hotel, my DH had a room with a faulty door and a sleepwalking man came in his and DS room in the night and got in bed with him, DH got free breakfasts, the room refunded due to their 'good night sleep' guarantee and DS was given a bag full of trades and chocolate

Absolutely escalate this. It’s appalling.
Premier Inn make a big deal about their ‘good night sleep guarantee’ so at the very least they should be refunding you the full cost of your overnight booking, nevermind massively apologising for the breach of safety by giving a stranger a key to your room.
Don’t bother filling out the online complaints form; I had to request a refund from them when they accidentally overcharged us on a booking and did it through the form as thought it’d be easier than calling them. It took a month to get a response and they failed to process the refund properly so I had to ring up anyway! Spoke to a very friendly and competent lady who sorted it straight away (refund showed in bank account the same day).

It has happened to me in reverse - I was given the key to someone else's room. Not as scary as what happened to you, OP, but it still put me at risk (though luckily the other guest was very nice about it).

I now always travel with one of these. They are brilliant - work on any door that opens inwards, but can be instantly removed in an emergency.

To those saying women shouldn't have to barricade themselves in, of course we shouldn't. We shouldn't have to look over our shoulders, walking home, or keep our keys in our hands, or do any of the other myriad things we do to keep safe. But we do them. And I sleep much more soundly for knowing no one can get into my room.