Refund + compensation for nightmare hotel

Sandtree

The small claims court generally deals with special damages which are explicit financial losses... I paid a builder £500 to build a stud wall, I had to pay another builder £300 to rectify errors so I am claiming £300 from builder 1... you cannot claim the £800 because you now have the stud wall you paid for.

If we assume the chargeback is unsuccessful then your claim would probably be the £350 paid on top of what was already paid to cover the first 3 nights that you did have plus the 4th night paid so £479.50. This is no comment on if you will be successful at all!

Loss of enjoyment falls under general damages because there is no explicit financial loss and is a much more difficult head of claim to prove or quantify and is normally tacked onto other general damages like a personal injury (where technically the claim is for pain, suffering and loss of amenities). If you think you have a claim for special damages then there is little harm tacking on some general damage figure but its really going to be token... if it had been your honeymoon or a real "once in a lifetime" event then it may become slightly more material.

Thundercloud

maisie_cat said:

According to tripadvisor it's a 2 star hotel so expectations need to reflect that.

Yes but no hotel should be filthy. Crisps in a bed is unacceptable. For the money they charge i expect a lot better. Blackpool is full of slum hotels but they charge £20 a night and don't pretend to be anything better than a doss house to sleep off a boozy night.

powerful_Rogue

Thundercloud said:

maisie_cat said:

According to tripadvisor it's a 2 star hotel so expectations need to reflect that.

Yes but no hotel should be filthy. Crisps in a bed is unacceptable. For the money they charge i expect a lot better. Blackpool is full of slum hotels but they charge £20 a night and don't pretend to be anything better than a doss house to sleep off a boozy night.

Not defending the hotel, however the last thing I would ever do is lift a matress to see what is underneath! As longs as the sheets/duvet etc are clean, tha's enough for me.

Thundercloud

powerful_Rogue said:

Thundercloud said:

maisie_cat said:

According to tripadvisor it's a 2 star hotel so expectations need to reflect that.

Yes but no hotel should be filthy. Crisps in a bed is unacceptable. For the money they charge i expect a lot better. Blackpool is full of slum hotels but they charge £20 a night and don't pretend to be anything better than a doss house to sleep off a boozy night.

Not defending the hotel, however the last thing I would ever do is lift a matress to see what is underneath! As longs as the sheets/duvet etc are clean, tha's enough for me.

The mattress was too small for the bed

Caz3121

Thundercloud said:

JJ_Egan said:

What is the relevance of the outside pipework ?

Covered in cigarette ends, filthy windows and that was the view from our room, nothing like the clean bright look on the website photo.

The hotel appears to offer sea-view and standard rooms, I suspect they will use their best sea-view rooms on their website. Did you book a sea-view or a standard room?

Sandtree

Looking at the reviews on another booking site for the hotel... people really need to have the scoring taken away from them. Lots of 8-10 out of 10 when the comments are average at best but also a few scores in the 2-3 range with relatively minor comments.

Stay was ok, did find a sock in my room that suggests it wasn't cleaned properly - 10 out of 10

Room was small, very tired and not very well cleaned. Food was ok but often long delays. Staff were friendly though - 9 out of 10

Went for three nights and had a great time. Paid £450 for half board but then met someone else there doing the same and they'd only paid £200 for four nights - 5 out of 10

Breakfast was slow coming - 3 out of 10

pbartlett

you could certainly report the hotel to the local council - sorry not certain which dept but whichever one is responsible for licencing and inspection hotels and restaurants

ThisnotThat

Thundercloud said:

Sandtree said:

Thundercloud said:

The second hotel was £175 a night (no entertainment). The first was £129.50 (entertainment included). I have not received a refund or any communication from the hotel. The credit card company told me they will contact the hotel as part of the chargeback rules, so i have not received any money yet. The hotel have 45 days to challenge the chargeback. I booked the first hotel because i could leave the children in a safe playroom with a professional entertainer while i had a relaxing break by the pool. The holiday was ruined for all of us. Here are a few photo's of what we got compared to what was shown on the website.

So you have already gone down one path that will more than cover your financial losses and so you need to wait to see how that process plays out first.

The night rate doesnt really matter as you are looking at the whole weekend and the cost of the new hotel was less than the total cost that you are reclaiming from the other hotel.

It does clearly state that some elements are only available in school holidays and that management can vary the hours of the pool. Ideally the detailed terms and conditions would state that its their local school holidays but I don't think its beyond the wit of man to realise that school holidays are not globally the same and so its going to be local dates... else an Australian visitor could demand why there is no mid week entertainment for the whole of January given that's there summer school holidays.

People booking a hotel would not be locals so it would make more sense to put actual dates rather than say school holidays. I booked four nights and only got two. The first was wasted due to constantly complaining about things, each time i went to reception i had to join a queue of other angry parents with similar complaints. The second hotel could only accommodate us for two nights in the suite. They did offer two separate double rooms for a third night but that was even more expensive.

I suspect they were just assuming that their guests would have enough common sense to realise that they'd clearly be referring to local school holidays.

A misguided assumption apparently.

user1977

ThisnotThat said:

Thundercloud said:

Sandtree said:

Thundercloud said:

The second hotel was £175 a night (no entertainment). The first was £129.50 (entertainment included). I have not received a refund or any communication from the hotel. The credit card company told me they will contact the hotel as part of the chargeback rules, so i have not received any money yet. The hotel have 45 days to challenge the chargeback. I booked the first hotel because i could leave the children in a safe playroom with a professional entertainer while i had a relaxing break by the pool. The holiday was ruined for all of us. Here are a few photo's of what we got compared to what was shown on the website.

So you have already gone down one path that will more than cover your financial losses and so you need to wait to see how that process plays out first.

The night rate doesnt really matter as you are looking at the whole weekend and the cost of the new hotel was less than the total cost that you are reclaiming from the other hotel.

It does clearly state that some elements are only available in school holidays and that management can vary the hours of the pool. Ideally the detailed terms and conditions would state that its their local school holidays but I don't think its beyond the wit of man to realise that school holidays are not globally the same and so its going to be local dates... else an Australian visitor could demand why there is no mid week entertainment for the whole of January given that's there summer school holidays.

People booking a hotel would not be locals so it would make more sense to put actual dates rather than say school holidays. I booked four nights and only got two. The first was wasted due to constantly complaining about things, each time i went to reception i had to join a queue of other angry parents with similar complaints. The second hotel could only accommodate us for two nights in the suite. They did offer two separate double rooms for a third night but that was even more expensive.

I suspect they were just assuming that their guests would have enough common sense to realise that they'd clearly be referring to local school holidays.

A misguided assumption apparently.

Surely the common sense assumption would be that the hotel guests aren't likely to be families from Blackpool?

Sandtree

user1977 said:

ThisnotThat said:

Thundercloud said:

Sandtree said:

Thundercloud said:

The second hotel was £175 a night (no entertainment). The first was £129.50 (entertainment included). I have not received a refund or any communication from the hotel. The credit card company told me they will contact the hotel as part of the chargeback rules, so i have not received any money yet. The hotel have 45 days to challenge the chargeback. I booked the first hotel because i could leave the children in a safe playroom with a professional entertainer while i had a relaxing break by the pool. The holiday was ruined for all of us. Here are a few photo's of what we got compared to what was shown on the website.

So you have already gone down one path that will more than cover your financial losses and so you need to wait to see how that process plays out first.

The night rate doesnt really matter as you are looking at the whole weekend and the cost of the new hotel was less than the total cost that you are reclaiming from the other hotel.

It does clearly state that some elements are only available in school holidays and that management can vary the hours of the pool. Ideally the detailed terms and conditions would state that its their local school holidays but I don't think its beyond the wit of man to realise that school holidays are not globally the same and so its going to be local dates... else an Australian visitor could demand why there is no mid week entertainment for the whole of January given that's there summer school holidays.

People booking a hotel would not be locals so it would make more sense to put actual dates rather than say school holidays. I booked four nights and only got two. The first was wasted due to constantly complaining about things, each time i went to reception i had to join a queue of other angry parents with similar complaints. The second hotel could only accommodate us for two nights in the suite. They did offer two separate double rooms for a third night but that was even more expensive.

I suspect they were just assuming that their guests would have enough common sense to realise that they'd clearly be referring to local school holidays.

A misguided assumption apparently.

Surely the common sense assumption would be that the hotel guests aren't likely to be families from Blackpool?

And so what would you read "school holidays" to be as someone not in the area @user1977? London? Sidney? New York? Dubai? I mean they also say weekend so do they mean local weekend of saturday and sunday or middle east weekend of friday and saturday? 

The common sense assumption is that most guests aren't local but that the hotel isnt offering to cover the global range of definitions of both school holidays and weekends but the local one.