Travelodge guest suffers sleepless night as hotel says it is ‘overbooked’ | Money

It seems that Travelodge sometimes overbooks rooms. – a policy that causes additional costs and distress and is potentially harmful to vulnerable customers.

I’m 77 years old and I paid in advance for a room in Oxford. The hotel manager called me at 10 p.m. to ask if I still needed it. I confirmed that I would arrive within the hour.

When I arrived at reception I was informed that my room was overbooked. Five other prepaid guests, including four young women, received the same information.

I was transferred to a Travelodge at a gas station 21 miles away. I was forced to take a taxi and arrived at the remote location at 2am to find the place deserted and the hotel locked. It took a long time to answer the hotel intercom and allow me to enter.

The next morning I had to rebook my train home from Swindon instead of Oxford. Travelodge’s response was that overbooking is rarewhich is clearly not the case on online discussion forums.

I had to spend time sending receipts to recover my £63 taxi and train costs, and was refunded the £118 room charge, but was not offered any compensation. for distress.

MAG, London

You had chosen the Oxford Hotel because it was convenient for a party you were attending.

Not only did you suffer the anxiety of being a single woman in a remote location, miles from where you wanted to be, but you also lost three hours of your night due to Travelodge’s behavior.

It is absurd that the manager did not inform you of the overbooking when he called you an hour before you attempted to check-in.

Travelodge told me its terms and conditions warn customers that they may sometimes need to be moved to another hotel, but it said its policy is not to move single women.

So why were you expelled?

The reason mysteriously changed when I questioned the company. Now, Travelodge says a “maintenance issue”, rather than overbooking, made your room uninhabitable. Why weren’t you told when the manager called and when you arrived at the front desk? Travelodge ignored this question.

However, she belatedly recognized the distress you had suffered and offered you a voucher for a one-night stay. You therefore have the opportunity to try your luck in another of its establishments.

J.F. from Leeds had an almost identical experience when he tried to check in at the Travelodge he had booked in Cardiff city centre. He says he and five other guests were informed that a number of rooms had been “ransacked” by previous guests and that they would have to wait to be rehoused.

“We felt like we were being lied to and thought the rooms had been overbooked,” he wrote. “Housekeeping would have been aware that morning that the rooms were not usable. »

Like MAG, he was eventually sent to another Travelodge – to an M4 service station 12 miles away in Pontyclun. Unlike MAG, he was not reimbursed.

Again, the excuse changed when I asked Travelodge. This time, he claimed that a “maintenance problem”, caused by a water leak, had destroyed three rooms. He apologized for any misunderstanding about the word “ransacked” and for not informing JF sooner. He belatedly apologized and gave her a full refund and voucher.

MAG and JF were luckier than they imagined. The Travelodge customer YOUR from London spent his early hours on a street in Brighton, along with the rest of the hotel guests, because staff were unable to deactivate a fire alarm. He had checked into his £227 room at midnight after a family funeral.

Four hours later, guests were evacuated when the fire alarm sounded. “Most were still in their pajamas or underwear,” he wrote. “After half an hour, the manager told us that it was a false alarm but that no one knew how to turn it off so we had to wait outside for a technician to come.

“After another hour, some guests sat on the beach with towels. Others took refuge in reception, although the alarm was so loud that one teenager started to get sick.”

After two and a half hours, TA collected his luggage and took a train home at dawn. He had spent less than four hours in his bed. His demand for a refund for the ruined night prompted a £60 “proof of apology”.

After his further complaints, Travelodge calculated the extra £11.99 he had paid for the breakfast he never had and declared its magnanimity “a just resolution”.

TA escalated her complaint and eventually got an extra £49, which still left her out of pocket for those four hours of accommodation.

He was finally refunded and given this predictable voucher against a future stay when I intervened.

“At Travelodge, the safety and well-being of our guests is always our number one priority,” Travelodge said, declining to say whether other affected guests would be refunded.