How much can I claim back for my hotel being overbooked?

G8KPS

I booked a hotel in Margate through Booking.com for one night to attend a concert.  On arrival at the hotel, our room was already occupied.  We had to wait ages for the Manager to contact Booking.com to be told the hotel was overbooked.  We were finally offered a hotel 50 miles away which we declined.  We missed our concert and drove back home the same evening.  Can we claim for the missed concert tickets as well as the hotel cost?  Would also like to claim for the wasted fuel and our time - is that feasible?

HampshireH

You can claim the concert tickets on any insurance you paid on the (depending on the terms and conditions).

Booking.com won't cover those costs and it is unlikely the hotel will but there is no harm in asking.

Were there no other rooms available at all within a 50mile radius could could have booked? Regardless they did offer an alternative which I expect is all they need to do (I'd be fuming too if I got offered accommodation 50 miles away as an alternative).

You shouldn't need to claim for the hotel. The refund should have been processed immediately for that hotel which was overbooked (booking.com takes up to 10 days I think to refund)  You can ask for compensation for your fuel (maybe they will pay towards this as it is a financial loss) and time (definitely not as there is no financial loss) but it's unlikely booking.com would pay out.

You may be best appealling to the hotel owner as presumably they didn't update their booking records and therefore showed availability on booking.com when they had none.

p00hsticks

G8KPS said:

  Can we claim for the missed concert tickets as well as the hotel cost?  Would also like to claim for the wasted fuel and our time - is that feasible?

All you can expect is the room booking to be refunded, and possibly a good will gesture, although I suspect there will be something in the T&Cs about overbooking (Many hotels apparently do it, working on the assumption gained from past experience that not everyone booked in will actually turn up on the night). 

Even if you took out insurance when buying the concert tickets, I'd be surprised if it covered you in these circumstances as it sounds as if you simply chose not to go - could you not have gone to the concert and then driven home afterwards ? 

Spendless

It's not clear why you missed your concert? If it was to do with using the original hotel's car park and travelling from there, I suppose you could have asked the manager if that was still possible to do and then returned there after the concert and then either drove home or to the 50 mile away hotel afterwards