Hoxton Hotel £1 sale Starts 2nd July 12PM

brook_son

did anyone get a room?

patrick0

People did manage to book after 20 mins (not me), but there is a lot of abuse on Twitter directed towards Codegent (who did the £1 sale part of Hoxton Hotel's website) and Hoxton Hotel.

People are understandably annoyed that Codegent made such a mess of it (they don't appear to have done any sort of testing). It seems Codegent were relying on free Google web hosting and when the load increased massively (as you would expect) their free quota ran out.

Hoxton Hotel are used to people complaining about missing out on these sales, so the next one will probably be run by Codegent again. Let's hope Codegent get their act together - this sale has been disastrous publicity for them.

patrick0

UKHCGirl wrote: »

Against the rules. i hope you get caught.

If you get two consecutive dates booked under different names then you can stay two nights. I've done it before with partner several times (and explained to the staff at the time). Perhaps they no longer allow it.

They definitely don't allow the same person to book two £1 consecutive nights.

The trouble is the don't state the rules very clearly so there's a lot of confusion about what you can do and can't do.

mhmcdermott

patrick0 wrote: »

People did manage to book after 20 mins (not me), but there is a lot of abuse on Twitter directed towards Codegent (who did the £1 sale part of Hoxton Hotel's website) and Hoxton Hotel.

People are understandably annoyed that Codegent made such a mess of it (they don't appear to have done any sort of testing). It seems Codegent were relying on free Google web hosting and when the load increased massively (as you would expect) their free quota ran out.

Hoxton Hotel are used to people complaining about missing out on these sales, so the next one will probably be run by Codegent again. Let's hope Codegent get their act together - this sale has been disastrous publicity for them.

Hi Patrick and everyone else on the forum,

Firstly can I please extend my sincere apologies to everyone that was disappointed by the Hoxton Hotel £1 Sale today. I can appreciate how frustrating it must have been for you.

I am co-founder of codegent, the digital agency responsible for Hoxton Hotel. I have spent my time since the sale reaching out to people on the internet to apologise and also offer anyone who would like one a full and frank explanation of the circumstances that resulted in the server downtime. In fact Patrick I have already tried to contact you via twitter earlier today with my phone number. If you would like to talk to me the offer still stands and will continue to.

Understandably there is a perception amongst many that we did not test the system thoroughly enough or did not anticipate the heavy load. This isn't strictly accurate in either sense but I have to accept that although it was human error that derailed us (which happens) our failover plan was simply not strong enough. Our technical leads are mortified by what has happened, we all are.

Inviting that many users to simultaneously hit your site presents a huge, but not insurmountable, technical challenge. I am genuinely proud of my team and the architecture they devised for the sale does stand up to scrutiny in principle but on this day we let ourselves down and more importantly, we let a valued client down.

I would like to extend my offer to talk personally to any user with further questions on 020 7720 4040. In my experience you have to accept that not everything in life goes to plan, regardless of your endeavours. However how you react is ultimately how you are judged. In some small way I hope this post has helped.

kind regards,
Mark McDermott (@mr_mcd on twitter - mark@codegent.com via email)

UKHCGirl

patrick0 wrote: »

If you get two consecutive dates booked under different names then you can stay two nights. I've done it before with partner several times (and explained to the staff at the time). Perhaps they no longer allow it.

They definitely don't allow the same person to book two £1 consecutive nights.

The trouble is the don't state the rules very clearly so there's a lot of confusion about what you can do and can't do.

I would be happy with one night to be honest and think that people that do this are greedy and it should not be allowed but thats just me getting on my high horse i suppose.

Also, to all the people complaining.. have you never done this before? Whilst i understand that there was a coding problem, it was and has always been luck of the draw. I complained both other times i tried but this time i just kind of thought "if i get one, awesome, but if i dont, its not the end of the world). People seem to think that they have some kind of right to these rooms.

There is a message from the general manager up on the page and he states that there will be another sale in april.

inspiron1200

Hoxton put a message up on twitter about people booking more than one night :
We realise some people have been very lucky and managed to grab more than 1 room - you know the rules! We will have to find out who you are
To all those greedy people who booked more than one night be ready to say bye bye to your rooms

amandatee

Can someone explain to me exactly how to get a £1 room. Last time I logged onto the site and watched the countdown - when it reaches zero does the site automatically refresh and become the booking page? With me, nothing happened so I tried going onto the booking page but there were only the normal rates available. How do I get to book the £1 room?

insurgente

bumping an old thread here, but Patrick0 is an absolute genius

Followed his instructions and breezed through the site in about 2minutes, got a £1 room :beer:

now i just wish i'd been more ambitious than a tuesday night in september

gillette147

insurgente wrote: »

bumping an old thread here, but Patrick0 is an absolute genius

Followed his instructions and breezed through the site in about 2minutes, got a £1 room :beer:

now i just wish i'd been more ambitious than a tuesday night in september

Count yourself lucky.
I spent 10mins clicking the link and getting "Site Very Busy" or a flash page that didn't completely load or a white page with just >. on it.

After 10mins of constantly trying, a new page saying the sale was over appeared.

ep0910

This whole thing is stupid, I got on, put all my details in and pressed submit and then it would not accept it, I checked I had entered details, so the stupid website can't cope. Typical.