Grievance procedure against Spanish hotels etc.

NoodleDoodleMan

A few posts in recent(ish) Covid times where customers have experienced ongoing issues with their hotel in Spain.

I wonder how many punters are aware that there is official machinery for formal complaints - in Spanish it's called Hojas de Reclamaciones.

All business establishments are legally required to hold this document and make it available.

This link should be help - https://www.caserexpatinsurance.com/blog-typical-non-spanish/la-hoja-reclamacion-what-it-is-and-how-it-works

Several other links can be found using prime search engines.

It's administerd by officials of the appropriate regional autonomous government  - so it's very important to study what's required locally.

Hotel and business proprietors do not like it when this form is called into play, and a customer's threat to go formal is often enough to resolve matters.

CKhalvashi

It works for many countries in Europe in general.

Very often just asking for the book of complaints and suggestions is enough to have things fully resolved very quickly.

NoodleDoodleMan

Interesting, I only have experience of Spain, having used the system once - many years ago.

TELLIT01

If a business is breaking the rules in some way that can certainly concentrate the mind.  If, however, it's a case that the hotel (in this case) refused to refund when they were open but certainly countries banned travel, it's a much greyer area.

NoodleDoodleMan

Yes, of course, there needs to be reasonable grounds for a complaint.

CKhalvashi

TELLIT01 said:

If a business is breaking the rules in some way that can certainly concentrate the mind.  If, however, it's a case that the hotel (in this case) refused to refund when they were open but certainly countries banned travel, it's a much greyer area.

If a hotel is open and the country is closed to nationals of certain countries then the hotel does not need to refund on a non-refundable, non-package basis as this will be a contractual issue.

'Advice' from the British Government with no legal backing should not persuade a non-British company otherwise, unless it's backed up by local legislation in the country of the hotel, which it won't be.