Travelodge on line double bookings problem

jaymac_2

I had this happen with the Holiday Inn. Four couples were going and I did a dummy run to check they had four rooms available then opened a new browser, started again and booked one room - or so I thought. I realised I'd booked four rooms when the invoice arrived about ten minutes later. I phoned the hotel, who were very nice and changed the booking to one room.

colmil

For those who have experienced these problems with Travelodge, I would confirm that, following my claim in the Small Claims Court and having sent in the bailiffs, Travelodge have finally paid £172 they owe.

They really are utterly useless, obviously they offer very low prices which were attractive to me too, but now I would rather eat my own liver than stay with them again!

If I can help with advice for anyone in the future, please ask, the court action is very easy and straightforward and I will be pleased to help in any way I can.

EmmaLouLou

I nearly had to do the same, until after numerous correspondences and a final email threatening legal action got them to give me a refund. Whether they were aware of your recent success in legal action or they knew that the evidence of a flaw in there system was to important to ignore. But for anyone else who has problems with them please see some instructions below which should result in a double booking. This could be the evidence you need to swing it.

My partner develops websites and managed to find this flaw pretty quickly. I cannot guarantee 100% that it will result in a double booking as to know for sure would mean i have to actually place an order. This was brought to the attention of Travelodge, to which they said they were looking into it. I can't imagine they will fix this though in all reality as the cost would be too high for them to warrant doing it. No doubt people will continue to get duped by Travelodge so I am contacting Watchdog with the info i have in case enough people complain that they do something about it. I have my refund but they shouldn't be able to just get away with it and continue as if they are not aware of a problem in their system.

Instructions on how to recreate the bug:

Using Firefox 3.6 perform the following actions:
1) search for available rooms at a hotel.
2) select a hotel by clicking the red "book now" button
3) You are now presented with a list of available rates, select one by clicking the red "book now" button
4) You are now presented with information about the room. Click the button that says "Complete booking" at the bottom of the page
5) You are now presented with a payment page to enter card details.
6) whilst keeping that "tab" open, open another tab in the same web browser and navigate to the Travel Lodge website and perform steps 1 - 4 again
7) If you now switch back to the first tab. Note: at the top of the screen it states that there is one room in the basket
8) If the form is filled out and submitted the order is placed for two rooms, not one as stated in the basket on the form that was submitted.

NOTE: this is just one bug, that results in double booking. I don't believe that this is responsible for many of the double bookings i have seen in chat rooms. But, the existence of this one surely proves their system is flawed.

colmil

Re the action I took against Travelodge, they owed me £42, when the received the Court papers, they wrote to me offering to pay the £42. I wrote back saying that they also had to pay me the Court fee of £30-they never replied so I also paid out £100 to cover the bailiffs charges, hence the £172 they had to pay.

The sooner people stop using them the better.

PolaBear

Have this problem now

Book three nights last week on website and travelodge took payments, and now a few days later have taken a forth payment. Have phoned customer service number and got through to woman who said that there had been a problem and I would be refunded within 24 hours. This hasnt happened, and now when phoning again get cut off when pressing option to speak to someone.

colmil

Write to them and keep a copy, tell them you expect a refund within 7 days and if they don't you will take legal action.

Don't threaten this unless you are prepared to do it!

If you need any further help, please contact me.

Regards


Colmil

PolaBear

Still no refund, contacted my bank who have said that if I wait 30 days from my initial phone call they will deal with it for me. Have been on holiday so couldnt do more until now.

kidsmadhouse

I have had this problem in the last few days.

Whilst trying to book a room for 5 days the website kept freezing and needed to be refreshed.

I was then emailed 2 room bookings when I was only trying to get 1.

I have emailed Travelodge Customer Services and received an email saying they will respond in 14 days!!.

I have rang their bookings line and told they can not do anything and I will have to wait for customer services to respond. The 'manager' I spoke to Anton in Barcelona???? was very off, rude, smarmy, matter of fact. saying I had to wait. I'm sure their customer services training must include ' leave the customer wanting to smash your smarmy face in!!'. When I said I would ring customer services he 'informed' me there was no number and argued about this when I said there was.

So Anton on Barcelona here is the telephone number for your head office and customer services 01844 358500. And this is the number I will be ringing on Monday to complain about you and the problem with the website.

I now really regret making this booking and will definitely learn from it!!

kidsmadhouse

Received email back from Travelodge today.

"Thank you for your recent correspondence.
Firstly I would like to offer my apologies in the delay in my response. This has been due to a high volume of queries at this time and we are endeavouring to answer each query as soon as possible.
I’m sorry to learn of your inconvenience with your reservation.
If you cancel the reservation you no longer require, you will be provided with a cancellation number. If you can supply me with the cancellation number I will arrange for an eVoucher to be raised into your MyTravelodge account to the value of your stay.
These can be used as full or part payment towards a future stay at any of our UK mainland Hotels and are valid for 6 months across a 12 month booking window.
You can cancel your bookings via the amend/modify a booking section of the website."

They obviously did not read me email re their problems with IT.

Have emailed them back asking for a telephone response before the end of Monday 14th November. Have been on phone waiting for customer services for nearly an hour and I suspect they have now all gone home, but I am still on hold.

Not impressed.

Wendy

redlooney

See my recent thread after having a similar problem recently -

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3601581

Try emailing the company CEO Guy Parsons - worked for me :T