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?

Holy fuck that’s horrendous. Anything could have happened. Yes if I were you I’d be mailing or tweeting the CEO. Completely unacceptable.

Escalate it as high as you can

Weirdly I had a similar-ish incident in the same hotel. About 5am I was woken by 2 men shouting in what I thought was my room. Turned out they had an adjoining room with a flimsy partition/inter connecting panel wall. I was really scared, then angry, then freaked out.

Escalate.

PI have very clear & robust procedures for looking after solo female guests (or they used to when I used to audit them) and these are there for very good reason. These were clearly not complied with.

They also have a good night guarantee so I've no idea why she's only refunding breakfast, it's a shit night's sleep if it's disturbed by a letchy man.

I saw your thread, I was wondering how often it happened.

I have usually been asked by PI if I want one key or two checking in, and then needed to go downstairs to let DH in if he arrived later. This is what should happen, or they put the second key in a named envelope and require ID to hand it over!

Absolutely yes you should escalate this.

It happened to me the other way around - I was given a key to another person's room and they were asleep in bed when I let myself in - very embarrassing.

I always use the chain lock in case - but hotels need to be held to account when they cock up like this. If it happens often enough sometimes the person given the wrong key will be a thief or worse.

This really infuriates me. I trained at a top hospitality college, so know the security measures to protect guests, particularly lone females. The problem is, most hospitality staff have not been trained, certainly not adequately.

When I'm staying in hotels, and the receptionist announces my room number out loud in front of a crowded reception, I very firmly inform them that they have breached security protocols, and get them to allocate me another room and not announce the room number. It's like GP receptionists bloody announcing your full address and DOB to a full waiting room, it's like these people have no common sense.

Then you get others who don't check guest names or details when they come to reception to ask for a spare key. It's shocking how little common sense or security sense these receptionists have.

OP, really glad you have contacted the top brass, I really hope they are very apologetic. This is utterly appalling and I hope they are equally appalled and implement security training for their reception team.

Same - it’s happened a few times now.
I’m a (pretty tall) man so it’s not the safety aspect from my perspective that worries me, it’s the poor people in the room suddenly faced with me late at night I feel sorry for!

Every time it’s been met by disinterest at reception, even when I woke an entire family up at 1am (post-flight hotel).

One thing that did piss me off is the family tried to blame me - like I have XRay vision and should have known the room was occupied!
I get they were probably shocked, but they were proper wankers about it to me.

I haven’t even read others replies yet but i would absolutely flip if this happened me !!!

OMG initially I was also thinking that poor man, it must have been awful for him too to mistakenly let himself into a woman's room, but to then make a suggestive comment in the lift?!

I'm not generally a complainer. I think someone doing a miserable job, likely for minimum wage made a mistake, and let it go, but I do think a complaint is in order here.

When I'm staying in hotels, and the receptionist announces my room number out loud in front of a crowded reception

This drives me crazy. Are these people total idiots? They shouldn't do it for any guest - a man is unlikely to be sexually assaulted, but he could easily be the target of thieves.

I would, I'd go fucking mental, everyone who works for them would know of me by now. Don't back down, this is so disgraceful it's mind boggling! I'd be emailing and calling everyone on the SLT daily until I had a full refund for the stay, details of what they'll do to prevent this happening again, I'd probably push for the receptionist to be at least disciplined and a written apology 🤷‍♀️ I'd also go to the papers and get some publicity. A friend of mine did this just last week with a very well known employer and they couldn't help her fast enough when a damning article was written in the BBC.

I’m a receptionist at premier inn , the receptionist broke many rules , they should of checked names and by doing so it would of come up that only one occupant was in there and it was a lone female , we have training on lone females and where to place them in the hotel . We are notified of both first and last name on the system so it’s not like just having the same surname would cause confusion , definitely escalate this ,

No, a person in a position of responsibility dropped the ball and put a customer in a very unsafe position. It's gross misconduct and a likely sackable offence.

How upsetting. Definitely escalate.

We were once given keys for a room at a Travelodge, which already had someone’s belongings in. The guest wasn’t in the room luckily. But we could have easily stolen items. (We didn’t obviously).

I hope you are refunded and Premier Inn learn - we regularly stay with them, and your experience is very concerning!

That's totally unacceptable. Escalate to head office pronto!

A friend of mine experienced a man trying to get into her hotel room at night. He just went on and on trying to get in. She called reception but no answer. As she had experienced stranger rape when she was younger, it was her worst nightmare. In the end she called the police. The guy wasn’t even a guest at the hotel!

I'm very glad you are escalating this OP. A very similar thing happened to friends of mine in a Premier Inn a few years ago. It was a genuine mix up by one of the night staff (a man was booked into their room the night before but was moved to a different room for some reason. He got drunk and forgot his room has moved and somehow managed to get one of the night staff to let him in their room - frightened them half to death)

If I recall correctly they got a full refund for the room, free breakfast and evening meal and a credit voucher of some kind.

Thanks, I do think I should be getting more in recompense, at the time I was flustered and my main point to the receptionist was that of the safety of lone women. Having reflected and having waited longer than stated by them for a small refund I feel ignored which is not acceptable given the issue.

Even if he had the same name and was your husband, he still shouldn't have been given a key to your room if he wasn't on the booking!

Don't these people have any domestic violence training?!

That's shocking Op - definitely make as big a fuss as possible. They need to have better measures in place for other females.

as well as escalating the way you have claim on their good night guarantee. This is something you need to do within a specific time period but I think it counts as particularly awful night as a direct result of their poor management. We have had nights refunded for very very much less.

Had you used the internal lock OP?

I’ve just been on Instagram and seen this - I’m not saying it’s any good, but I thought I’d post it anyway.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C290-Y8NO7y/?igsh=azcxNDh6aXVxdTU=