New Travelodge Hotel Openings: £15 rooms

Did anybody see Watchdog tonight?

I dont think I will be using Travelodge for a while

Apparently, according to Watchdog, Travelodge routinely overbook their rooms on the premise that not everyone turns up. However, when this is not the case, and everyone does turn up on the night, somebody is inevitably left without their room.

Normally you pay upfront as you book the room with Travelodge. Therefore I'd say that they are in breach of their contract if they failed to provide it. In the case where they fail to provide then I think it is reasonable to expect Travelodge to spirit you off to another hotel and that they should be liable for any additonal cost you incure in so doing. I would urge anybody encountering such a difficulty at Traveodge to find a suitable alternative and keep an account/receipts of all costs incurred so that you may claim from Travelodge for your trouble.

The Office of Fair Trading ought to be taking an interst in this sort of activity.

Here's an extract, regarding overbooking, taken from Travelodges' help section:

What is overbooking?
Like almost all other hotel companies, we overbook some of our hotels because we know that a percentage of our customers make a reservation but then do not arrive to check-in.

While we are aware that overbooking might sound negative, it allows us to accommodate customers who would otherwise not be able to make a reservation once availability at the hotel has been booked up. In these instances, we calculate the level of overbooking through computer forecasting (based on historical data) to ensure that we can be as accurate as possible. Our aim is to make sure that people who arrive to fulfil their booking are allocated their rooms, while also ensuring that rooms that would have been left empty due to other customers not arriving are also used.

Back to questions

What happens if the hotel I am staying in is overbooked?
On rare occassions, it becomes necessary for us to find suitable alternative accommodation for our customers in the local area or offer to refund the room. While we recognise the inconvenience this may cause a small number of customers, we believe that this is outweighed by the added convenience for the majority of customers who are able to find improved availability in hotels as a result of this policy.

Everyone in the Leisure industry overbooks always were demand allows. Inevitably there will always be no shows which is why this policy works.

Everyone from ryan air to BA, from travelodge to sheraton/raddison 5 star.

If you are unlucky enough to be inconvenienced by this, you will be looked after.

i_love_it wrote:

If you are unlucky enough to be inconvenienced by this, you will be looked after.

How is being told to drive two hours to the nearest Travelodge with availability, being 'looked after'?

And what will happen when it's a single woman turned away late at night who then sleeps in her car and gets attacked by some nutter ... or the family (who were following all the advice about breaking your journey regularly) asked to drive another 2 hours along the motorway who are then involved in a fatal accident?

Guaranteed should mean just that! They've got the credit/debit card details, so they can charge the no-shows. (Even more profit: they get the money but don't have to service the room!).

Or if they're saying the 4 o'clock (or whatever it is) cut-off for cancellation with no charge is too late to resell the room then make it earlier. Or even have two classes of booking - one with no cancellation option and you'll be charged anyway for those who want guaranteed to mean guaranteed, and one where you get that option to cancel, but equally may find yourself overbooked. At least one would know what you're letting yourself in for!

In the meantime, I shalln't be using Travelodge, and would certainly not want my aging disabled parents to run the risk of being turned away!