Exactly when is a contract formed?

Jon_01

Right, advice please...

At the start of November last year I booked 2 rooms at the Hilton hotel in Dublin. Both advanced payments.
I received email conformation that both were booked and paid for.

I emailed with one of their duty managers about prebooking a quite room as my wife suffers badly with insomnia and he arranged one for me.

I arrived at the hotel 2 weeks back (some 9 months after booking).
Had a issue with check in as they had 3 rooms on the system, one not paid for. This I believe is because the duty manager changed the original booking. After clearing that up it was confirmed that both of the other rooms were fully paid for.
I had to return to check in an hour later as one of the rooms wasn't ready and again had the issue with the 3rd room. Cleared that and again confirmed that both the other two were prepaid.

Checked out 5 days later, checked that the 3rd room wasn't going to be charged for and they confirmed it wasn't.

Came to complete my expenses 3 days later (it was a business trip) and found 3 charges from the hotel. two were for the meals taken, which I knew about. The third was for something over £1500 and was changed to the card some hours after the first two.

Call the hotel and get told that there was an error on the booking system back in Nov and that the second room hadn't been changed for??
I said I had both the conformation emails from them and that the bookings were showing as paid for on the Hilton app. I'm told that both those are worthless?

I asked why in the 9 MONTHS after the booking was made no one bothered to contact me about this, and they don't know.

Asked how it is that three staff had checked this at the time and confirmed that both rooms were paid for, and again, they don't know.

Asked if they think it's good customer service to charge £1500 without alerting the customer, no answer.

At what point was the contract formed here? If they have confirmed by email and on their app that both rooms are paid for is that it?

At the moment I can't check the CC statement as it's company card and the accountant is away on holiday for the next 3 weeks.

I'm already going to have to form a complaint about their terrible customer service, but where do I stand on the change if they have confirmed a number of times that it was paid. If it's their error (which they admit), do they have to honor the conformations?

cono1717

Not entirely sure on the legalities here (I suspect you are still liable to pay) but I don't really understand the issue here, providing the money hasn't left your account originally back in November, don't you think you should pay what you owe?

Did you not contact the hotel to ask why the money hadn't left in 9 months?

gettingtheresometime

I always thought to form a contract an offer has to be made which has to be accepted but then there also has to be consideration for that offer.


So I guess the question is did a payment get taken before your stay?

bris

This has nothing to do with the contract anymore, that's done and dusted.


The issue is was the room paid for or not. You will need to wait to find out, or you can call the CC co and find out, yes it's called a phone, pick it up and speak to them.


If it's confirmed the room was paid for you get the proof and send them it. if not then they keep card details for this reason and it's now paid.

Gavin83

I think you're confusing matters here by listing a number of issues.

Essentially your post appears to boil down to asking if you need to pay for the room or not. Obviously the first step is to check if the payment was originally taken. If it wasn't then yes, you're still liable to pay it. However I do agree just taking it without discussing it with you first is bad form.

I have to ask though, given that it's a company account why do you care so much? Surely it's up to your company to handle this?

Jon_01

cono1717 wrote: »

Not entirely sure on the legalities here (I suspect you are still liable to pay) but I don't really understand the issue here, providing the money hasn't left your account originally back in November, don't you think you should pay what you owe?

Did you not contact the hotel to ask why the money hadn't left in 9 months?

I don't get the statements, they go to the company accountant, so I wouldn't be aware that the funds hadn't left the acc.

Yes, I agree that I should pay for the room if it really hasn't been paid, I'm just very p***ed off at the attitude of the staff at that branch.
They admitted over the phone that they were aware that there was a problem well before we arrived, but they refuse to answer as to why they didn't do anything about it and why they think it's ok to just grab £1500+ after confirming three times that the rooms were paid for. I was there for 5 days, they had more then enough time to contact me and let me know. IF that's the problem, I still have it in the back of my mind that it's the third room that they might have changed for. . .

LilElvis

Jon_01 wrote: »

Right, advice please...

At the start of November last year I booked 2 rooms at the Hilton hotel in Dublin. Both advanced payments.
I received email conformation that both were booked and paid for.

I emailed with one of their duty managers about prebooking a quite room as my wife suffers badly with insomnia and he arranged one for me.

I arrived at the hotel 2 weeks back (some 9 months after booking).
Had a issue with check in as they had 3 rooms on the system, one not paid for. This I believe is because the duty manager changed the original booking. After clearing that up it was confirmed that both of the other rooms were fully paid for.
I had to return to check in an hour later as one of the rooms wasn't ready and again had the issue with the 3rd room. Cleared that and again confirmed that both the other two were prepaid.

Checked out 5 days later, checked that the 3rd room wasn't going to be charged for and they confirmed it wasn't.

Came to complete my expenses 3 days later (it was a business trip) and found 3 charges from the hotel. two were for the meals taken, which I knew about. The third was for something over £1500 and was changed to the card some hours after the first two.

Call the hotel and get told that there was an error on the booking system back in Nov and that the second room hadn't been changed for??
I said I had both the conformation emails from them and that the bookings were showing as paid for on the Hilton app. I'm told that both those are worthless?

I asked why in the 9 MONTHS after the booking was made no one bothered to contact me about this, and they don't know.

Asked how it is that three staff had checked this at the time and confirmed that both rooms were paid for, and again, they don't know.

Asked if they think it's good customer service to charge £1500 without alerting the customer, no answer.

At what point was the contract formed here? If they have confirmed by email and on their app that both rooms are paid for is that it?

At the moment I can't check the CC statement as it's company card and the accountant is away on holiday for the next 3 weeks.

I'm already going to have to form a complaint about their terrible customer service, but where do I stand on the change if they have confirmed a number of times that it was paid. If it's their error (which they admit), do they have to honor the conformations?

Did they take payment for both rooms in November, or only one?

If there was a system error that failed to debit your card for one of the rooms then you still owed them the money. Their customer service might not be too great but as long as they have charged you the rate you agreed in November then the charge is valid.

LilElvis

Jon_01 wrote: »

I don't get the statements, they go to the company accountant, so I wouldn't be aware that the funds hadn't left the acc.

Yes, I agree that I should pay for the room if it really hasn't been paid, I'm just very p***ed off at the attitude of the staff at that branch.
They admitted over the phone that they were aware that there was a problem well before we arrived, but they refuse to answer as to why they didn't do anything about it and why they think it's ok to just grab £1500+ after confirming three times that the rooms were paid for. I was there for 5 days, they had more then enough time to contact me and let me know. IF that's the problem, I still have it in the back of my mind that it's the third room that they might have changed for. . .

So get a copy of the statement from the accountant and check the charges in November. Whilst complaining that Hilton didn't alert you earlier to the non-payment the same could be said of your accountant as, if you completed expense forms showing a charge to the card which wasn't processed, he should have contacted you to explain the discrepancy.

LABMAN

How come you knew in three days the £1500 was taken but didn't know it was or wasn't taken nine months ago?

Mistral001

The think the OP seems to be asserting that just because the hotel made an error in confirming that he had paid when he had not that they cannot insist on him paying now. If you use the services you have to pay for them. The fact that they made a mistake when they confirmed payment when they had not receive payment will not hold up as a reason for not paying.

However, I would go through the company accountant as has been said and let him/her deal with it. I can understand why the OP wants to sort this out themselves as it could reflect badly on him when essentially it seems like not his fault but the hotel's fault that the payment request is only going through now. It might even mess up the firms accounts for expenses etc, especially if the booking was taken in a different financial year. However, I would bite the bullet and let the company deal with it.

gettingtheresometime

Thinking about it the accountant would have (or at least should have) reconciled the statement and if I was the accountant I would have wanted some sort of Invoice to justify the payment to the Auditors.


So this begs the question did you receive any sort of Invoice when the room was confirmed - might be worth looking on the email.


If you did then the hotel it would appear that the hotel have doubled charged you


Who booked the hotel rooms originally? I only ask as it seems odd to use a company card to pay for the rooms yet use your own card to pay for meals .