Alpha rooms messed our booking up

Mum7

Hi

At the end of June I travelled to fuengirola for the weekend as a group of 10 ladies celebrating our birthdays.

I'd booked accommodation through alpha rooms the previous December so 6 months in advance!

I'd booked 4 studio rooms for 10 people in the pyr hotel at a cost of £400.

Upon arrival at the hotel the receptionist informs us that alpha rooms had booked just 1 studio room for 2 people. We phoned alpha who said our booking was correct and it should be 4 rooms for 10 people but the hotel said alpha had booked it wrong and they were now full.

After 90 minutes of phoning backwards and forwards and complete lack of care for our predicament alpha rooms said they had found us a 'similar' hotel 10 minutes away.

We walked the 10 minutes to the el peurto hotel where we had to wait another hour before alpha rooms sent the hotel the booking voucher that they needed to check us in!

When we went to the rooms we found they were not studios - just beds and small bathrooms, some rooms faced a building site and the pool area had no shade umbrellas or snack/pool bar that our original hotel had.

We rang alpha to say we were not happy with been downgraded to a lower class hotel and were told that they now had rooms in a better hotel but we would have to pay E30 a room for cleaning fees??? After discussing it for the 5 minutes they gave us to decide we opted to move to new hotel as this one was awful and just debate the cleaning charge when home! We rang alpha rooms to accept and move but the incompetent staff told us they now had no rooms left at the other hotel!!

From then on we just ceased correspondence until returning home as we were only there for 2 nights and had wasted 6 hours already trying to sort out their mistake!

When we arrived home I emailed the complaints address telling them all of this and how bad it was.

They replied last week acknowledging it was an internal booking error on their part and offering me 25% of booking few back if I signed saying no further action would be taken!

I declined as had found out that this cheaper hotel was £22 a room cheaper so the 'goodwill' gesture was really the refund they owed me anyway from downgrading our hotel!!

I'm disgusted as do they normally just put you in a cheaper hotel and keep the extra money you've paid for a better hotel?

Have just had a reply saying they will not offer anymore and it's basically tough!! 25% refund or nothing!!

Can I do anything more?
The £98 on offer is what's owed to me as a lower hotel difference!
I feel let down. They've not honoured my booking contract?
Is there a holiday watchdog or anything that I can complain too??
Tia

alpharooms.com_2

Hi Kirsti o,

Thank you for your feedback.

I'm so sorry to hear about the problems encountered whilst you were at the hotel and for the inconvenience and upset this must have caused you.

Kindly e-mail alfie@alpharooms.com with your itinerary reference number and I will look into this for you.

Best wishes,

alpharooms

lea2012

Obviously Alpha rooms have admitted that it's their error and have gone some way to try and resolve it but maybe not as much as you wanted.

From what you've said the hotel they moved you to was cheaper, but how do you know this? If you've been shown a hotel invoice by the new hotel then you will need to consider that it won't include agent commission or anything (although in fairness if it's their error you shouldn't be paying that anyway). Alpha rooms probably don't have a direct contract with the hotel and probably had to book through a supplier so if you've seen an invoice then maybe thats the suppliers price and not what they charged alpha rooms?

Was the new hotel the same star rating as your original? If so there isn't really much else you can say. It would be classed as a 'like for like' property. The description of the studio room in the new hotel sounds right too, a studio is usually just beds and a bathroom (with self catering facilities if you've booked self catering) and would be quite small.

I would ask for the refund of what you were owed and then perhaps ask for another £50 as compensation. Anything else would be unrealistic, after all if you only paid £400 for 10 of you for two nights you only paid £20 a night each so you get £150 back it works out at £12.50 a night each which is pretty cheap really!!

Mum7

The hotel I originally booked was a studio apartment which states had twin beds, bathroom, kitchenette, fridge and satellite tv.

We were moved to a twin room which states twin beds and bathroom! No kitchen, no fridge, no tv!! We didn't have self catering facilities that we'd booked!

This is not like for like?? We wanted to make our own breakfast in mornings and have a fridge for drinks, snacks and water bottles.
I specifically chose this hotel because of the amenities it had!

What annoys me is that no one from alpha rooms ever apologised. They made me feel at fault and refused to speak to the original hotel. They even tried to split our group up into different hotels.

I just don't think they should be allowed to get away with this?
I shouldn't book a hotel for them to not honour the booking?

I understand it only cost £400 for 10 of us. But surely again that doesn't mean they should just disregard our custom and booking.
It's no good making yourself the cheapest provider if you can't fulfil the bookings?

richardw

No they shouldn't get away with it! Apalling treatment by Alpharooms.

real1314

I'm not sure lea's post stacks up on the fees - if you'd walked up to the hotel you ended up in, you'd presumably have got the rate quoted, why would alpha rooms have paid more than this?

And how "cheap" it was or wasn't depends entirely on the going rate, which on the booking side was set by alpha and on the actual hotel used was set by that hotel. The "cheapness" factor doesn't seem to exist, it's just the going rate.

If alpha think you should have 25% discount for inconvenience, perhaps it should be after adjusting for the lower priced accommodation. At that point, it would probably be easier to just refund 50% of what you paid?

Mum7

Thanks all for your advice

Alpha rooms have now come back upping the money back by £50!

So out of my £398 they are offering £149 back!!

I still am cross. I can't get the point across that I had booked 6 months in advance in a hotel that I'd spent days searching for to avoid all this.

I'd booked self catering rooms which should have included kitchenettes, fridges etc but got moved to an 'apparently' like for like accommodation with none of these facilities?? How can that be acceptable?

An in all honestly I might have just turned up without booking anywhere in advance for all the good it did me!!

lea2012

It certainly sounds like they cocked up somewhere along the line, I know £50 doesn't seem like much for the inconvenience but it does mean that you got a bit more than just the difference in price.

I didn't realise that the new room wasn't self catering, so as you say no it's not like for like really, but it might have been the only thing they could find for you at that time that could fit you all in. By the sounds of it they could have got you self catering but you would have had to be in different hotels which is no good when you travel as a group for a short stay.

In terms of rates not stacking up, the price a hotel charges if you turn up on the door is often not the same price that you will pay via travel agent or supplier. The hotel will often give a preferential rate (not always I know) to an agent if they book a lot of rooms with them. That agent will then either sell directly to the customer, or will sell on to a travel agent (such as Alpha Rooms) who will add on a commision and sell it to the customer. What I was saying was that dependent on where you saw the price for the new hotel will depend on whether or not that is the price Alpha rooms will have paid. If you saw a hotel invoice then that price will then have commission etc added to it which bumps up the price, but if you saw it the alpha rooms website then that will be the price the customer is charged. Hope that makes sense.

Mum7

The price different is off alpha rooms website. I can put in any dates and the difference in price between the two hotels is always £11 a night per room!!

budgetflyer

Ive stayed in el puerto. Great location but Its pretty shabby.

NiftyDigits

Is their offer in hard cash or just off a new booking? If just a credit, reject it. Take it to Small Claims if they won't budge and approach your credit card company if necessary.

They would have been happy enough to grab all of your money if you had cancelled seven days before arrival.

The fact that you are still not happy speak volumes. You are supposed to feel better after 'resolution'. You clearly do not.

Is £50 ample compensation for the downgrade and the inconvenience?
The price difference was due to you anyway, so simply does not count.
Neither of the parties fulfilled their contract to you. Not AlphaRooms, nor the accommodation provider.
Poor. Very poor.