It seems like Travelodge sometimes overbooks rooms – A policy that causes additional cost and hassle and may pose a risk to vulnerable guests.
I am 77 years old and have pre-paid for a room in Oxford. The hotel manager called me at 10pm 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 pre-paid guests, including four young women, were told the same thing.
I was booked back into the Travelodge at the service station 21 miles away. I had to take a taxi and arrived at the remote location at 2am to find the place deserted and the hotel closed. It took a long time for the hotel entry phone to be answered and to let me in.
The next morning I had to rebook my train home from Swindon instead of Oxford. Travelodge’s response was that overbooking is rareObviously, this is not the case in online chat forums.
I had to spend some time submitting receipts to get a refund of the £63 taxi and train costs, and I was refunded the £118 room charge, but was not offered any compensation For distress.
mag, London
I chose the Oxford Hotel because it was convenient for an evening event I was attending.
Not only did you suffer from the anxiety of being a lonely woman in a remote location miles from where you wanted to be, you also lost three hours of your night due to Travelodge’s behavior.
It doesn’t make sense that the manager didn’t tell you you were overbooked when he called you an hour before you tried to check in.
Travelodge told me that its terms and conditions warn guests that they may sometimes have to be transferred to a different hotel, but said its policy is not to transfer single women.
So why was she forced out?
The reason changed mysteriously when I questioned the company. Travelodge is now claiming that a “maintenance issue,” not overbooking, made your room uninhabitable. Why weren’t you told this when the manager called and when you arrived at the front desk? Travelodge ignored this question.
However, she belatedly realized how much trouble you had been through, and offered you a voucher for an overnight stay – so you could visit one of her other establishments.
dry He, from Leeds, had an almost identical experience when he tried to check into the Travelodge hotel he had booked in Cardiff city centre. He says he and five other guests were told a number of rooms had been “destroyed” by previous guests and would have to wait to be moved.
“We felt lied to and thought the rooms were overbooked,” he writes. “Housekeeping was aware that morning that the rooms were not fit for use.”
Like MAG, he was eventually sent to another Travelodge – at an M4 service station 12 miles away at Pontyclun. Unlike MAG, his money was not refunded.
Again, the excuse changed when I questioned Travelodge. This time it was claimed that a “maintenance issue” caused by a water leak led to the destruction of three rooms. I apologized for any misunderstanding of the word “trash” and for not telling JF about it earlier. She has now apologized to him, belatedly, and returned the full amount and the voucher.
MAG and JF were luckier than they knew. Travelodge client Confrontation A Londoner spent the early hours of the night on a Brighton street, along with the rest of the hotel guests, because staff were unable to turn off the fire alarm. He walked into his £227 room in the middle of the night after a family funeral.
Four hours later, guests were evacuated when the fire alarm went off. “Most of them were still wearing their pajamas or underwear,” he wrote. “Half an hour later, the manager told us it was a false alarm, but no one could figure out how to stop it, so we have to wait outside for the technician to come.
“Another hour later, some guests sat on the beach with towels. Others took shelter at the reception desk, although the alarm was so loud that one teenager began to feel ill.”
Two and a half hours later, the TA retrieved his bags and took the dawn train home. He had less than four hours in bed. His request for a refund for the ruined night resulted in a £60 ‘apology token’.
After his further complaints, Travelodge charged him an additional £11.99 he had paid for breakfast, which he had never had before, and declared his magnanimity a “fair solution”.
The TA escalated his complaint and was eventually awarded another £49, which left him out of pocket for that four hour stay.
He eventually got his money back and got that predictable voucher for a future stay when I intervened.
“At Travelodge, the safety and well-being of our customers is always our first priority,” Travelodge says, declining to say whether other affected guests will be compensated.