Holiday Inn: £20 room sale - Laugh!!

PeterMac_Stroud

Wanting to jump onto this special offer for an important birthday booking in January, I tried 3 central london Holiday Inns ALL listed in their offer which started today. I made sure I started my booking tries early just to be sure....

Suprise! Each one of the 3 hotels I tried return "no rooms available in your category" - but then proceeded to offer rooms at their usual rate (exactly as available on Booking.com). :mad:

Doubtless this will be like many other promotions from cynical companies like Ry**A*r etc who want the positive publicity but make it impossible to actually secure a real 'deal':(

susancs

PeterMac_Stroud wrote: »

Wanting to jump onto this special offer for an important birthday booking in January, I tried 3 central london Holiday Inns ALL listed in their offer which started today. I made sure I started my booking tries early just to be sure....

Suprise! Each one of the 3 hotels I tried return "no rooms available in your category" - but then proceeded to offer rooms at their usual rate (exactly as available on Booking.com). :mad:

Doubtless this will be like many other promotions from cynical companies like Ry**A*r etc who want the positive publicity but make it impossible to actually secure a real 'deal':(

Lots of London hotels have the £20.12 rate for 1st to 3rd Jan e.g. 4 star Kensington Crowne Plaza. Just make sure you put London, England and in drop down box rate pereference select 20.12 sale rate, on results page click sort by rate.
http://www.holidayinn.com/hotels/gb/en/reservation/searchresult?destination=London,+England&checkIn Date=01&checkInMonthYear=002012&checkOutDate=02&ch eckOutMonthYear=002012&ratePreference=IDOLY&number OfAdults=2&numberOfChildren=0&numberOfRooms=1&sort By=RATE_SORT&radius=50&inMiles=false&smokingPref=3 &roomPref=3_3&brands=IC%2CCP%2CIN%2CHI%2CSL%2CSS%2 CEX%2CRS%2CSS%2CCV%2CSB%2CCW%2C6C&isFormSubmission =true

Welcome to MSE. I hope you get the dates you want. Think availability in London at Saturday may be very limited or gone by now. If a special birthday you could link up with the get in London January Theatre ticket sale.

susancs

LONDON - KENSINGTON
100 CROMWELL RD,
LONDON,
ENGLAND SW7 4ER Back to Search Results

01 Jan 2012 to 03 Jan 2012
2 Adults, 1 Room
Change

DELUXE 2 DOUBLE BEDDED ROOM NONSMOKING
4 PERSON(S) MAX PER ROOM
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Your Rate


Average Nightly Rate: £20.12 GBP
Rate Type: £20.12 Winter Sale
View Rate Description & Rules

Rate Description and Rules

Rate Type:£20.12 Winter SaleRate:£20.12 GBP per room, first night Currency Converter Rate Description:Book rooms for £20.12 rooms on 20 December 2011 from 00.01 hours to 23.59 hours for stays between 26th December 2011 and 31st January 2012 at participating hotels. RESERVATIONS REQUIRE PREPAYMENT FOR THE ENTIRE STAY WHEN BOOKED. RATE IS NON REFUNDABLE AND NO CHANGES ARE ALLOWED.Deposit Required:A deposit for the entire stay is due at time of booking.Tax:20% per night included in rate effective 1 January, 2012 thru 3 January, 2012
VAT. 12.5 PCT DISCRETIONARY SURCHARGE ON ALL FOOD AND BEVERAGES IN REST AND BARVAT:Rate Includes VATEarly Departure Fee:£50.00 GBP




Deposit Required:
A deposit for the entire stay is due at time of booking.


Estimated Total Price £40.24 GBP
View Reservation Price Details

Bedsdriver

Just grabbed a room for one night at this Mayfair Holiday Inn for friday 13th January.

If you fancy just one night in London and are not fussy about dates, this may suit someone.

I wanted a Saturday in London but gave up around 1:40am when their systems were still not updated.

8leg

Like many others, I stayed up last night thinking I could book a room at 12 and be in bed a few minutes later. Well, it did say I would be able to on Holiday Inn's website! But at 12..... nothing happened! There were no £20.12 rates available. So I called the reservations 0871 number. They had no idea what I was talking about (impressive eh?) So I called the hotel directly. Again, no idea what I was talking about.

I gave up at 12.30am, and tried again at 1.30am. Still nothing. Tried again at 5am. Still nothing. At 7.30am, at last the deals were there - but surprise surprise not at the hotel and dates that I wanted.

Very tired and p*ssed off!!! :mad:

connect123

I can shed a bit of light onto this, and you won't believe it - I think this would make a great story on Watchdog.....

I too waited up until 12am, refreshed the website at which point the message regarding 'starts at 00.01...etc' went away and we were good to go. Clicked on my hotel of Choice in Chester, and what do you know? Full price. Clicked another one, full price. Randomly clicked a few others, all full price. No offer whatsoever.

So, called the 0845 number, spoke to them (in America) and like you mentioned they didn't have a clue. While I was explaining they cut me off. Tried another number on the page, also never heard of the offer. Called the hotel front desk, never heard of the offer.

Infuriated at this point, called the 0845 again, and get this - finally spoke to someone who had heard about it, and explained: "the offer does not start until 00:01am AMERICAN TIME, since thats where the booking line is. It's a BRITISH offer for the LONDON olympics, staying in a BRITISH hotel, on a BRITISH webpage but does not start until 00:01am US time.

So, in a nutshell, it was an offer that was impossible to purchase under the terms they laid out on their site. All I could do was get a few hours sleep and try again. I tried at 7am, and.... you guessed it.... offer sold out for my hotel. AAAAAGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Ended up staying at another Holiday Inn that DID have rooms left, but that's not the point. I'd like to post a watch to the MD of Holiday Inn UK......:(

Mark_Hewitt

Sounds a bit like the travelodge offers which supposedly go live at 7am but often do so much earlier.

wealdroam

connect123 wrote: »

All I could do was get a few hours sleep and try again. I tried at 7am, and.... you guessed it.... offer sold out for my hotel. AAAAAGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

What is this 'American Time' you speak of?

New York time is only five hours later, so trying at 7am would be about two hours too late I guess.

redvanman

Managed to get 3 nights for the end of january :T