Booking.com room not as described (County Aparthotel, Newcastle)

Alderbank

Okell said:

The OP says that the hotel website advertises "standard double rooms" and "small double rooms" separately

Sure about that? The OP's words are 'They don't have anything described as a "Standard" double room'.

Booking.com earn their crust by arranging booking in hotels and other accommodation all over the world. To do that their software attempts to reconcile what you want with what they have. This involves not just different languages but also different cultures. Italians for example say letto matrimoniale and letto alla francese (marriage bed and French bed) These are similar to (but not quite the same as) what we call either double or small double bed.

I think this might be an honest translation issue, but if it is then that would be Booking's part of the contract rather than the hotel's fault.

Okell

Alderbank said:

Okell said:

The OP says that the hotel website advertises "standard double rooms" and "small double rooms" separately

Sure about that? The OP's words are 'They don't have anything described as a "Standard" double room'...

I'm reasonably sure that the OP said exactly that in the OP:  "... More importantly, the bed was extremely small (see attached photo). Looking at the hotel's website, they advertise "small double rooms" and "standard double rooms" separately. This was not evident anywhere on the booking.com website, which only had one option: "Standard room,1 double bed...".

Have they backtracked since then?

itm2

Just to re-iterate what booking.com told me:
""Unfortunately, your reservation (11640210698471693316) was facilitated by a partner company. Therefore, in case you have any further questions about this booking, we encourage you to get in touch with the hotel directly for better assistance. Since this reservation is offered by the hotel, we have no right to access or permission to interfere with this booking from our side."
So it sounds like there was a middle-man between booking.com and the hotel. This seems to be giving both the hotel and booking.com somebody else to blame. Doesn't help me much, though :0(

Alderbank

They might have done. My quote was their second post on page 1.

Okell

Alderbank said:

They might have done. My quote was their second post on page 1.

Ah.  You mean this:  "The "small double room" is listed on the hotel website @£69. They don't have anything described as a "Standard" double room, but the lowest cost double room not described as "small" is £99. So a £30 price differential..."

So in one post the hotel does advertise a standard double, in another post they don't...     [Sigh]    

itm2

Alderbank said:

They might have done. My quote was their second post on page 1.

Just to clarify, I did have a recollection from when I first looked at the hotel's website a couple of weeks ago that there was reference to a "Standard Double Room". This no longer seems to be the case, so I went to the internet archive to see whether their site may have been modified. Sure enough, I found this in the internet archive - which is probably the page that I was referring to in my OP:

This page is actually still active:
countyhotel.co.uk/rooms/bedrooms/

itm2

OK I've worked out the source of the confusion: if you select the "Rooms" menu from the hotel's webpage you see the selection in my previous post (which includes a "Standard Double Room"). However if you try booking a room, this is the selection that you are presented with, NONE of which is called a "Standard Double Room" (I have truncated the list, as there are 4 varieties of double room):

So  the hotel seems to be doing its best to confuse things for potential customers

This link can be accessed here:
https://countyhotel.ihotelier.com/book/accommodations?DateOut=01/25/2025&DateIn=01/24/2025&Adults=2&Children=0

eskbanker

The photo of the 'small double room' on the booking page is the same one described as the 'standard double room' on the main page and appears to relate to the size of the room rather than the size of the bed.

As I pointed out yesterday, the 'single room' photo looks identical to what you were given, so to me it remains an issue of highlighting that you were given a single room rather than debating the relative sizes of double ones!

itm2

They're certainly pretty similar! The "small double" room has a TV in the space where the single room has a dressing table, so they're not identical, but the bed definitely looks the same.
I suspect they'll just ignore my email, which I can't do much about, so I'll just have to put it down to experience. I think I'll think twice before using booking.com to book a hotel again, though

eskbanker

I wasn't comparing small double with single!

I was highlighting that small double on the booking page equates to standard double on the main page, but more importantly (and separately), that the photo of the single room looks like what you were given.