Hotel Has Stolen Our Christmas Party

SandC

If the venue had cancelled due to bad weather then I would have expected a full refund. As you the customer cancelled then I would have expected no refund. However, did you state at the time you would hold it in January and was a new date set straight away?

To be honest, I think you are on to a losing battle here.

I had the same issue with a coach trip we had planned from work. One bright spark said we should cancel as it had been snowing 4 days before and we didn't know what the weather would be like on the day. I, as the main organiser, told this guy we'd do no such thing as a cancellation by us would mean we would lose the money. I told the coach company that I would leave it up to them whether they would go ahead on the day or not and inform us asap of any change. As it happened, the weather cleared by the day of our trip, and all was fine. But had we cancelled I could not have expected any refund from them as they had been fully prepared to go ahead as planned. Which is the scenario with the restaurant you booked.

The only thing you can do is appeal to their better nature and argue the case that the £25 per head was a Xmas meal special price with a larger mark up than usual as all Xmas functions are and ask them to reconsider and try to strike a deal with them. Be nice!

aheaton46

Turn up tonight, pay again and then steal £850 of fixtures from the hotel. Problem solved.

eyeinthesky

aheaton46 wrote: »

Turn up tonight, pay again and then steal £850 of fixtures from the hotel. Problem solved.

This made me laugh!

To answer an earlier post, yes, we arranged the new date immediately. The hotel t&cs require a deposit, with the full amount due 1 week before the function. If they had said that we would lose our money, then they would surely have asked for a new deposit straight away. They did not do this, nor did they ask for the full amount to be paid 1 week before the function.

We have contacted the hotel group's head office, by telephone and followed up by email. They sounded very helpful, and said that they would take it up with the hotel, and try to get a resolution within 10 days. So the "do" is now cancelled until further notice. If we still get nowhere, I am thinking of asking the local paper to run a story on it. Small claims track might also be an option.

eyeinthesky

!!!!!! wrote: »

The party was postponed on the day of the function? I would see such short notice as cancellation rather than postponement I would say that the hotel are within their rights to expect you to pay again. They have already paid out for the food, preparation and staff for the function. Why do you think that doing all that cost nothing and they should lay on your party again for nothing?

If the hotel had said the money would be lost, then the function would have gone ahead, for those who could get there, rather than simply lose all our money.

The food and preparation would have been covered by the deposit, the hotel staff are on zero hours contracts, and will not have been paid for staying home. The hotel have simply pocketed the rest of the money, which is a lot more than they would have got if the party had gone ahead.

whitewing

What happened next? Any updates?