Problems with Travelodge - please help

Crabman

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

Eh?

Because it's in their benefit for them to allow you to cancel, whether they pay a refund or not, as they can then re-sell the room.

But taking payment twice surely is against consumer/trading law?

Anyhow, I'm glad the OP has had a positive experience with Travelodge :T :beer:

MarkyMarkD

Taking payment twice for the same thing isn't illegal. If the first customer has cancelled, that is an end to their contract with Travelodge, and there's no earthly reason why Travelodge cannot re-sell the room.

Similarly with airlines and plane seats, or anything else for that matter.

BernadetteN

I recently booked a £15 Travelodge room for one night too early and realised my mistake as soon as a pressed confirm. I re-booked imediately then had to wait until the next day before I could get contact details in order to ask for a refund. I had exceptional circumstances as I had just returned home after a week in hospital with my youngest and I wasn't concentrating enough when I entered the details of the room. Travelodge gave me an "exceptional" refund because it was my fault I had wrongly booked a non refundable room, not theirs. I thought that was rather good of Travelodge to do this. So sometimes it's worth asking politely for a refund because sometimes there really is another understanding human at the other end of the phone.

MarkyMarkD

It's definitely ALWAYS worth trying asking nicely, before getting stroppy and threatening. Call centre staff are human, and will often do what they can for people with genuine circumstances who ask politely. But equally well, they'll often stick to the letter of the law in response to obnoxious, stroppy, customers.

TunnelVision_2

Crabman wrote: »

But taking payment twice surely is against consumer/trading law?

Does anyone know about the consumer law with paying for a room twice?

I recently had a booking with Travelodge to stay for two nights. My plans changed and i did'nt need the 1st night. As it was a £26 saver room there is no refund so i did not bother cancelling. When i turned up for the 2nd night of the booking they said they had automatically cancelled my whole booking as i had'nt turned up for the 1st night and the Travelodge was now full - hence they must of resold my room!

I politely kicked off and they found a spare room - but demanded i pay another £52 to stay for that night. Effectively i had paid for the same night twice!

If i had made two seperate bookings - one for each night of the two night stay - my room would not have been cancelled automatically and i would not have had to pay for the room again.

When i re-read the small print of the booking the above is outlined but clearly this is an unfair and outrageous condition of booking. The work around to prevent this situation is to make seperate bookings for each night of the stay.

When i made the original booking, I bought two nights of accomodation and fully expected that room to be available for my use on both of those nights regardless of whether i chose to use both nights!

Does anyone know what the law is surrounding the above? Are they legally allowed to sell the same room twice?

MarkyMarkD

Of course they are allowed to sell the same room twice. I've already posted this in post #23 - reading the thread helps! At the point that they re-sold your room, your original contract had been voided by your failure to turn up.

If their Ts & Cs say that they cancel your entire booking if you don't show for the first night, then that's perfectly fair. If you don't read the Ts & Cs, that's your own fault.