Hotel now charging more than advertised rate- Eurovision!

trakky14

We booked a hotel room in Chester for the night of the Eurovision song contest and paid £143. Fast forward a week later and the hotel rings me to say that booking.com made an error and they had the wrong rate stated on the site. It should have been over £400 but as a gesture of good will they will discount it to £385. They want payment now (not at checkout as we reserved) and you can now only have free cancellation up to the 23rd of December (not May the 12th which is on our booking).

Obviously what's happening here is the hotel has realised they can charge 5 or 10 times more because of the demand for accommodation and are now making us pay more in the hope we will cancel then re-sell the room for a much higher rate.

We haven't paid any money yet but they want me to decide by today if we want to cancel or pay the higher rate. I've contacted booking.com who said apparently there is a technical error which is affecting more than 100 bookings and they will look into it....but I got the impression we'd end up having to pay more.

Do we have any rights to that lower rate that is on our booking confirmation??

DullGreyGuy

You need to read the T&Cs that you agreed to.... A6.3 states that in the case of an obvious error they reserve the right to cancel the booking. 

So the question is... was the error obvious? Presumably you were booking after the announcement? Did you book because it looked really cheap?

sheramber

There was report last week of hotels  overcharging due to Eurovision

https://www.thesun.co.uk/tv/20042440/eurovision-fans-fuming-hotel-prices-surge-liverpool/

mattyprice4004

It’s just them price gouging - you booked at a rate which doesn’t seem to be an error (£140 is fairly sensible).
Booking.com are usually good at things like this, they found me alternative accommodation and charged the original hotel the full cost when they played sillybuggers. 

I found this out because the original hotel contacted me to moan about it - as you can imagine I was very sympathetic… 

km1500

IF they did break a contract with you (and that depends on the booking T&C as to what cancellation options there were on both sides) then you can claim for any financial loss as a result of that breach.

This could include 'lost opportunity costs' ie you could have booked with another place when you booked with them but now prices have risen and you have lost out.

Edit: the 'wrong rate' displayed on their site does not wash - it would be different if the site had displayed 99p - this would clearly have been an error. But £143 is not an error.

WhiskersTheWonderCat

DullGreyGuy said:

You need to read the T&Cs that you agreed to.... A6.3 states that in the case of an obvious error they reserve the right to cancel the booking. 

So the question is... was the error obvious? Presumably you were booking after the announcement? Did you book because it looked really cheap?

£143 for a single night certainly wouldn't be classed as "really cheap", unless it's the Hilton. 

DullGreyGuy

WhiskersTheWonderCat said:

DullGreyGuy said:

You need to read the T&Cs that you agreed to.... A6.3 states that in the case of an obvious error they reserve the right to cancel the booking. 

So the question is... was the error obvious? Presumably you were booking after the announcement? Did you book because it looked really cheap?

£143 for a single night certainly wouldn't be classed as "really cheap", unless it's the Hilton. 

No idea of the price of hotels in Chester nor the timing of the booking -v- the announcement but assuming the booking was made after the announcement then I'd expect a big increase in pricing. Its not clear if you think £143 isnt really cheap in normal circumstances or during a large international event?

Really the OP needs to provide further information... I am sure I am not the only one that has capitalised on what I thought was an "obvious error" even if I told a random person that I'd spent £1,500 on a projector they may think thats really expensive. 

If the OP saw nothing under £350 anywhere else inc this hotel on other sites then seeing it at £147 on booking.com probably isnt going to be accurate

user1977

WhiskersTheWonderCat said:

DullGreyGuy said:

You need to read the T&Cs that you agreed to.... A6.3 states that in the case of an obvious error they reserve the right to cancel the booking. 

So the question is... was the error obvious? Presumably you were booking after the announcement? Did you book because it looked really cheap?

£143 for a single night certainly wouldn't be classed as "really cheap", unless it's the Hilton. 

It's probably cheap if that was still the advertised rate after the venue announcement.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

DullGreyGuy said:

WhiskersTheWonderCat said:

DullGreyGuy said:

You need to read the T&Cs that you agreed to.... A6.3 states that in the case of an obvious error they reserve the right to cancel the booking. 

So the question is... was the error obvious? Presumably you were booking after the announcement? Did you book because it looked really cheap?

£143 for a single night certainly wouldn't be classed as "really cheap", unless it's the Hilton. 

No idea of the price of hotels in Chester nor the timing of the booking -v- the announcement but assuming the booking was made after the announcement then I'd expect a big increase in pricing. Its not clear if you think £143 isnt really cheap in normal circumstances or during a large international event?

Really the OP needs to provide further information... I am sure I am not the only one that has capitalised on what I thought was an "obvious error" even if I told a random person that I'd spent £1,500 on a projector they may think thats really expensive. 

If the OP saw nothing under £350 anywhere else inc this hotel on other sites then seeing it at £147 on booking.com probably isnt going to be accurate

I think even this is weak ground to base a unilateral mistake upon, a hotel may decide to keep their room rates low to ensure they are full and double the price of food and drink instead, for the mistake to void a contract the non-mistaken party ought to have known the mistake was present and given the figures are pretty small I think it would be difficult to demonstrate. 

The bit to focus on is, as the OP had until the 12th of May to cancel the terms need to be checked to see if the hotel also has the right to cancel, if they do then the reason doesn't matter (unless the terms limit the reasons for them cancelling and aren't met).

km1500

Yes, that is the nub - what do the T&C say about the hotel's ability to cancel the contract.

DullGreyGuy

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:
I think even this is weak ground to base a unilateral mistake upon, a hotel may decide to keep their room rates low to ensure they are full and double the price of food and drink instead, for the mistake to void a contract the non-mistaken party ought to have known the mistake was present and given the figures are pretty small I think it would be difficult to demonstrate. 

The bit to focus on is, as the OP had until the 12th of May to cancel the terms need to be checked to see if the hotel also has the right to cancel, if they do then the reason doesn't matter (unless the terms limit the reasons for them cancelling and aren't met).

But as noted, if they had seen the same hotel elsewhere for over double the price not just that hotel -v- other hotels.

As already quoted, the Booking.com terms state there is a right of cancellation if there has been an "obvious" mistake... there may be additional rights under the agreement between the OP and the Hotel.