Help Needed - ruined wedding night

heretolearn_2

Hi

I think that your wedding night is special no matter how long you've been together/lived together/had kids together. Very few people marry as virgins these days so it seems odd to suggest it's only special for those people.

I can understand totally why you are feeling upset and annoyed, OP. The hotel DID let you down seeing as the porter took your name and luggage and knew you would be back later. It's not like you just dumped your bags in a bags-room and left without them knowing exactly who you were.

However...

I think you have over expectations of what compensation you could reasonably expect or be awarded. They made a mistake. They put it right to the best of their abilities on the night, and have made an offer of compensation with a free night stay in addition. They can't help your personal circumstances, and although Best Western is a group each hotel is privately owned, so they can't offer you a stay in an alternative hotel instead.

The £500 is just anger talking. You can't really put a £ value on that. Why £500 and not £450 or £600? Or £5000? It's just a random figure from a hat and it's from a desire for 'revenge'. If you took them to court, you wouldn't get it.

Could you take your toddler with you for a night away? Might be fun too. Or ask if your free stay could be in one year so you could celebrate your anniversary (maybe they'll agree to a nice dinner as well?).

In 20 years time this whole thing will be a hilarious dinner party story you'll love to repeat - everyone has a wedding disaster tale to some extent or other (you should hear one of my brother's!) and in time you get perspective, calm down, and see the funny side. My wedding night hotel it turned out the restaurant was shut, we had no transport , we had to treck about 2 miles through pouring rain to a pub for some grub and then back again...

It's the marriage that's important. If the only thing that goes wrong with your wedding day and your marriage is a messed up room arrangement, you'll be doing great.

System

I bet if you hadn't turned up they would have still charged you for the room, even though they had released it for another guest.

I would suggest you ask for a 2 night stay in another Marriot hotel. They probably won't give you £500 but would probably give you a free weekend away somewhere nice.

fresh_start

Couldnt your best man have gone back later to make sure you was booked in, would have been part of his duties for me

Torry_Quine

purple.sarah wrote: »

My husband and I didn't check in till about that time on our wedding night by the time we had seen all our guests off from the reception (not at the hotel), packed up the presents and decorations etc, there is a lot of organisation involved. I did check the hotel allowed late check in when I booked though. The problem does not seem to be the time of the check in but that the hotel had overbooked. You say "as far as they knew you weren't coming" but they should have known because he booked a room, dropped his bags off and was told he could check in later. I would not book a room at a hotel and leave my luggage there if I was not staying!

The difference is you checked that the hotel allowed late check-in which makes a difference. It's not unusual for people to book rooms and not turn up and although he did leave luggage didn't return.

Personally I think the fact they didn't pay anything really limits what they could get especially as they've been offered a free night's stay.

If that had been me my anger would also have been directed at my husband for not checking in.

thistledome

Torry_Quine wrote: »

The difference is you checked that the hotel allowed late check-in which makes a difference. It's not unusual for people to book rooms and not turn up and although he did leave luggage didn't return.

Personally I think the fact they didn't pay anything really limits what they could get especially as they've been offered a free night's stay.

If that had been me my anger would also have been directed at my husband for not checking in.

Me too. If my Husband had gone for a booze up instead of checking in I'd be furious.

mynameistallulah

Which Holiday Inn did you stay at?

With regard to the suggestion of asking for a stay at another Marriott, you should be aware that many (all?) Marriotts are franchised, so asking for a stay elsewhere is little different to asking for cash i.e. very unlikely to happen.

DevCoder

thistledome wrote: »

Me too. If my Husband had gone for a booze up instead of checking in I'd be furious.

But the queue was 20 minutes

real1314

thistledome wrote: »

Me too. If my Husband had gone for a booze up instead of checking in I'd be furious.

nail. Hit. on. head. the. the.

or something like that.

Anyways, as others have said, you could try to sue the Hotel for compo, and ordinarily I'd expect you to win, but....
...the hotel have offered compensation in the form of a free stay. If you do try to sue, you can expect the judge to throw it out as frivolous; imho. :cool:

Valli

BristolDavid wrote: »

Thank you all for the advice. Please keep it coming if you have anything to add.

This is the first time I have told this story and not been met with similar outrage to mine!

That's because WE are strangers on a forum and not personally involved in any way. As has been said, your 'proveable' losses are negligible.

Accept what they have offered, or don't. They won't offer anything more because they haven't broken any contract. Sorry to be abrupt.
And your colleagues seem to have a skewed view of consumer law, BTW.

arcon5

real1314 wrote: »

nail. Hit. on. head. the. the.

or something like that.

Anyways, as others have said, you could try to sue the Hotel for compo, and ordinarily I'd expect you to win, but....
...the hotel have offered compensation in the form of a free stay. If you do try to sue, you can expect the judge to throw it out as frivolous; imho. :cool:

On what grounds? And why would op ordinarily be awarded the sum of £500?