Hotel for wedding trying to double rates! Help!

laurathree

Hi all,

I'm getting married in Cardiff on an international weekend in 2019 (Wales v Ireland). I knew accommodation would be tricky so back in May I booked out a whole hotel (30 rooms) outside the city for my wedding guests through booking.com. I called the hotel at the time to check the booking was ok, as I was concerned they may say no as we are not actually having our wedding ceremony or reception there, but when I spoke to the person on the phone they said no, that's fine, we just need a list of names nearer the time to make check in easier, and will need to know if people are or aren't having dinner here so we can get staff in for that. All great.

The hotel's details were on my wedding invites and wedding website - we have asked people to let us know if they want a room when they RSVP and have got most of the rooms assigned already (haven't yet sent out the evening invites but no doubt we will fill the few remaining ones - lots of out of towners). We have told everyone the rates they will be paying.

I emailed the hotel a couple of weeks ago to ask some detailed questions. E.g. we are getting a bus to take our guests to the wedding from the hotel - are there any trees that would block a double decker from entering your carpark - and they didn't respond. Chased them last week, and still nothing. Rang them yesterday, and the same woman I had spoken to in May said "Oh yes, I have seen your emails, but the manager needs to talk to you - it's an international weekend and we need to charge you different rates."

I am absolutely horrified - my guests have already been told rates as I said, and there is now no time to book anything else - everywhere is booked up! If they told me when I made the booking, or even within a month, I would have had time to sort something else out, but now it's too late. Photographer, hair and make up, transport have all been arranged to this hotel too, and guests from as far afield as Chicago have already made their travel plans. I have had the confirmation of our booking (in writing and over the phone) for five months. The woman I spoke to yesterday said the room rates might be £225 a night - for reference, we have booked rooms for £171 for the whole weekend. That is genuinely such a massive price hike that there are members of our family that will not be able to afford to come. Even worse than not contacting me for five months, the only reason this has even come up now is I got in touch about a separate issue. What were they going to do, just charge everyone double at check out?!

The manager wasn't in yesterday but is in this afternoon. I will speak to her then and I sincerely hope she will be reasonable. But I am terrified that our wedding is about to be thrown into chaos. Moneysavers - what can I do?!

Laura

Tom99

Does your booking confirmation have anything along the lines 'Rates quoted are subject to availability and alteration'
Have you paid any sort of deposit or booking fee?
What do the hotel's T&C say?

laurathree

No deposit or booking fee, no. But I can't find anything anywhere, in email or on my account, that says rates are subject to change. Booking.com FAQs says "obvious mistakes are not binding" but it certainly wasn't obvious to me. And I would argue if it was obvious to them they would have noticed at the time of booking.

martindow

I'm afraid that the W word tends to increase prices for everything. I hope you manage to sort this out.

Tom99

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Let us know how your talk with the manager goes. Try and look up the hotel's T&C before you make the call.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Is this hotel part of a chain, if so your next call will be to head office, if the manager is not accommodating.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]If its a privately owned hotel try and find out who the owners are.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]When was the game date first announced, before or after your original booking?
[/FONT]

laurathree

Tom99 wrote: »

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Let us know how your talk with the manager goes. Try and look up the hotel's T&C before you make the call.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Is this hotel part of a chain, if so your next call will be to head office, if the manager is not accommodating.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]If its a privately owned hotel try and find out who the owners are.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]When was the game date first announced, before or after your original booking?
[/FONT]

Thanks - the hotel is family owned. And the rugby dates were announced long before we booked - they are announced over a year in advance so had been live for about 4 months I think. We have known when the matches were some January at least.

laurathree

Update: I couldn't speak to the manager yesterday, which in itself is shocking given the severity of the situation. They said they sent me a message on booking.com but I have had nothing and they can give me no date for when this was sent. They hadn't email address and my phone number on the booking and because I had emailed them about the booking and then called to confirm it at the time.

The rates that they have now quoted are in some cases more than double the original rates. The lowest increase is 42% on the cheapest room. I am talking to the manager this afternoon. At the moment they are holding firm in spite of all the above.

Arrrrrrrgh. I just cannot believe a business in the hospitality industry would act like this, and after so long.

gettingtheresometime

Not saying you should name & shame but if you can give a rough idea of where you'd booked then perhaps some of us can offer an alternative

Vectis

I hope you can get this sorted out, but...it seems a little strange not to have even paid a deposit, especially when you are apparently renting every room in the hotel on a busy weekend nearly a year in advance? Didn't that seem a little odd, both from your point of view and the hotel's?

I guess it will depend on what is stated on the booking confirmation that you have, not just the price but the right to cancel, amend bookings etc.

warby68

I can quite easily imagine that without a deposit or upfront payment, your booking is only provisional and can be cancelled in favour of much more lucrative ones by the hotel.

Plus you are only going to be using the minimum of the hotel's services, with all your events elsewhere so possibly not all that attractive. They don't need to keep your goodwill and if accommodation is in demand for sporting events they're unlikely to suffer much from bad publicity.

Manager giving you the run around is not a good sign either that an easy solution will be forthcoming.

I'd tread carefully, hopefully and even possibly tearfully in the first instance rather than full on indignation unless you can find something more black and white about the fixed nature of the booking and prices.

Perhaps an enquiry with Booking.com might help too if you can't find all the T&Cs.

A 30 room booking without a deposit does however seem a little odd in the first instance as would a guaranteed cheap price when you know full well that demand would be high. Perhaps someone didn't follow up from the hotel properly at the time and is now wriggling.