Lodge cancellation

freshstart2023

Hi there, looking for some advice please. We booked a lodge for my friends birthday, it is part of a hotel group, the reason we booked this lodge is because it has spa facilities. We booked in for spa treatments and we booked into the spa suite with pool, sauna, jacuzzi, steam room etc. They have called me today to advise that the spa suite will be closed on the dates we are there for maintenance but we can still attend for our treatments. I asked to cancel and receive a refund as we chose this lodge because of the facilities. They said as a gesture if goodwill they would move us to another date when the spa had reopened but it’s for a birthday so this won’t work. They said we can’t have a refund as their terms and conditions state it’s non refundable if cancelled within 28 days of arrival date (this is true) ..I have explained that we would never have booked it, if there weren’t spa facilities and they have now offered us a bottle of Prosecco? I would really appreciate any advice, thankyou 

Aylesbury_Duck

Do you like Prosecco?

What do the terms and conditions say about this situation?  I'd have thought that the availability of the spa suite is a pretty fundamental part of the package, so you're in a strong position.  They also seem to want to retain your custom, which bodes well.

Does the date really matter that much?  Can't it be a belated birthday trip?  Surely that's easier than faffing about trying to negotiate a refund, even if you're entitled to one?

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

From a consumer rights point of view terms which require full payment in the event of cancellation are likely to be considered unfair and thus would be void, especially so if they don’t afford the other party a similar level of compensation should they breach the contract.

OP does this hotel group have a head office you can escalate a complaint to?

freshstart2023

Hi, thanks for your help. I appreciate we could try and move the date but it is my friends birthday and we have all arranged childcare etc…we were really looking forward to the spa facilities. We go in 2 weeks…I’m not sure when they made the decision to close the spa that weekend. 

I’ve read through the T&C’s and they don’t mention this situation…

i will look into whether they have a head office…

thankyou! 

ThumbRemote

This is not a cancellation. This is a breach of contract by the provider. 

Alderbank

ThumbRemote said:

This is not a cancellation. This is a breach of contract by the provider. 

How can you possibly say that? Have you seen the T&Cs of the contract?

We are talking about a spa suite with pool, sauna, jacuzzi, steam room etc. There is a lot of technology, a lot to go wrong, a lot to need maintenance and a lot of potential to harm customers.

It would be reasonable to have a contract term saying something like
'We make our best endeavours to keep all facilities available to our guests at all times but for health and safety reasons this might not always be possible. This could be at short notice. When this happens we will be happy to move your booking to another date.'

We just don't know.

born_again

ThumbRemote said:

This is not a cancellation. This is a breach of contract by the provider. 

Unless as many Spa's do they have the disclaimer that the Spa can be closed for maintenance.

user1977

Aylesbury_Duck said:

I'd have thought that the availability of the spa suite is a pretty fundamental part of the package

Was it a "package" though? I agree that would help the case, but the OP suggests that the accommodation and the spa were separate bookings.

freshstart2023

Again, thanks for your replies. So with the lodge booking we were supposed to get access to the thermal suite, it says it’s complimentary use 7pm-9pm and 7am-9am, if we wanted to use it out with these times there was a £10 surcharge pp per hour.  As we had booked in for treatments we also booked the thermal suite at the time of our treatments which resulted in the separate booking. They called me to advise after making the spa booking that the thermal suite would in fact be closed so I cancelled the spa treatments. We now obviously Also can’t use the thermal suite during the complimentary times as it’s closed. Hope that makes sense. 

freshstart2023

This is what the T&C’s say 

CardinalWolsey

freshstart2023 said:

They said as a gesture if goodwill they would move us to another date when the spa had reopened

we can’t have a refund as their terms and conditions state it’s non refundable if cancelled within 28 days of arrival date 

Move the date more than 28 days into the future, and then cancel, as per their T&Cs.