[Misc] Hotel non-refund

[keitho54]

That's the thing - if I'd gone to an intermediary I'd expect it to be trickier to resolve.

Accor is the owner of the hotel - they have numerous chains under their umbrella.

We use Accor quite a lot and am surprised at this. A couple of things we have discovered which might not help your plight directly, but suggests that the relationship with Accor and the hotel can be more distant. Some of the Novotels are directly owned by Accor; others seem to be franchised. Found this out when a franchised hotel was once less generous with its 'welcome drink'! Working the other way, sometimes the hotel itself (Ibis have done this) is more flexible, even with a 'no-refund, no-change' booking, if your plans change when the central reservations are unlikely to be.

Each Accor hotel has its own dedicated email address, which you can find on their web site. I'd be tempted to keep going with copies both to the hotel and Accor reservations until they come round. I have had a few issues with them over the years but nothing like this. Usually resolved with refunds, apologies and some additional points on the loyalty card. Bon courage!

 

[Official Old Man]

I'm very surprised about this having used Accur for most of my overseas hotels. We called our Ibis hotel on the Wednesday to say we were running late but would be there.
But I would start to use your super powers now stateing who you are and that you have a large following online.
Perhaps a poll of 'will you book an Accur Hotel ever again' to show that 1000's will now boycot their brand.
PS That Burton hotel the Guardian looked into was closed to take in boat people and is still closed now. I too had bookings there and was given a refund plus a nights stay somewhere else.

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

It depends entirely on the reason given by the hotel for selling your room to someone else, having first sold it to you. Unless I’ve missed it, this is the fundamental issue, and I see no reference to it here.

You had a contract with someone. It’s not clear to me if that was with Accor or the individual hotel. But someone has promised to provide you with a service on condition that certain obligations are met eg paying in full in advance, perhaps arriving by a certain time, confirming the booking, whatever, I don’t know. The question is this — did you fulfill your obligations? If you did, Accor and/or the hotel are in breach of contract, and acting unlawfully.

Their email back to you sounds like detail-free, neutral, corporate bullshit. I would pick up the phone and get to the bottom of this. Make sure you record the call.

UK contract law is very clear. The contract is between the person who pays and the person who receives payment for goods or service, person can also be business.

Is Accor a UK business? If not, it falls upon the contract law of the country as notified on the contract document.

As others have said, best recourse is back through your card, since in contract law it is actually they who have contracted (their money initially paid out). This will likely be faster and smoother but won't get you any extra compo for alternative room costs and hassle.

 

[Colonel Mustard]

To answer some of the questions (I was one of the people in @Bozza group.

The hotel was F1 and was in France.

We arrived at close to 11.30 and the guy on the front desk spoke little English.

I think he spent about 15 minutes ringing other hotels, at least he was on the phone all the time we were there.

Via a guest who spoke some English it would appear that their booking system has been down for a few days when we arrived and they were booking everyone in handwritten on paper, hence they had no information on our 3 bookings and had filled th hotel before we arrived.

This hotel (presuming this is the one) has some of the worst reviews I’ve ever read on TripAdvisor.
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel...Ferney_Voltaire_Ain_Auvergne_Rhone_Alpes.html

I’m still not clear on what’s actually happened here, which is quite a frustrating part of the story. So you turn up, the hotel says the booking system has gone wrong and has somehow lost the reservation. All very unfortunate but that can happen in the digital world, and the hotel chain and Accor MUST have a process of managing such an outage. Even if they can’t find you an alternative room on the night, at a very minimum they should later refund your money and offer some compensation, even if that’s only a free meal voucher or similar.

What I can’t understand here is why no one is admitting liability. Sounds to me as if Accor and/or the hotel are saying that they can’t refund the money because this is somehow not their fault but the fault of the customer. And yet they’ve taken his money. If Accor have taken the money and tried to pay for the hotel room, but this hotel never received it, then the money is still sitting there at Accor unused, and should be easily refunded. If the hotel did receive the money but then sold the room to someone else, they have had two lots of money for one commodity, and should also be happy to refund it.

Something has failed in the chain of processes between the three parties and as far as I can see, it’s a cock up between Accor and the hotel, and nothing to do with the customer. On the surface, Bozza had a contract with Accor and they have failed to fulfill their obligations to him and his party. Why on Earth they are claiming to have fulfilled these obligations, I’ve no idea. This hasn’t been disclosed here.

Regarding the famous small print, I’d be staggered if Accor would say, in effect, we will sell you a hotel room but cannot guarantee you’ll receive it when you turn up, and if you don’t receive the room, we have no obligation to find an alternative or to return your money. If that’s a lawful business proposition then we’re all in the wrong jobs.

 

[BNthree]

I'm having a run-in with Booking.com when I discovered that the flat I booked for Marseille wasn't available

Will certainly avoid using them in the future

Conversely I booked the same hotel as Bozza but through Booking.com and was fine.

 

[drew]

Don't want to rub salt into the wound but we had an airbnb booked in Marseille. When we got there, someone had taken an angle grinder to the lock box outside and the code didn't even work. Tried ringing the host several times and got no response. As time was running out, we got an Uber to the ticket collection point and luckily just saw the Hotel Breton off one of the side roads from Juliette and managed to bag two rooms there. Turned out the member of our party that booked the Airbnb didn't read the instructions fully and the lock box was actually on the other side of the road. The host did eventually ring back stating he was out of the country and wasn't able to answer earlier. Despite it being our fault, the fact he couldn't resolve it when we rang, he gave a full refund. Airbnb also rang later to check it had all been sorted.

 

[Driver8]

Having read the hotel reviews you would probably have been better off sleeping in a ditch!

I stayed in the F1 hotel in Liverpool once which I assume is the same chain. Never again!

 

[dazzer6666]

We use Accor quite a lot and am surprised at this. A couple of things we have discovered which might not help your plight directly, but suggests that the relationship with Accor and the hotel can be more distant. Some of the Novotels are directly owned by Accor; others seem to be franchised. Found this out when a franchised hotel was once less generous with its 'welcome drink'! Working the other way, sometimes the hotel itself (Ibis have done this) is more flexible, even with a 'no-refund, no-change' booking, if your plans change when the central reservations are unlikely to be.

Each Accor hotel has its own dedicated email address, which you can find on their web site. I'd be tempted to keep going with copies both to the hotel and Accor reservations until they come round. I have had a few issues with them over the years but nothing like this. Usually resolved with refunds, apologies and some additional points on the loyalty card. Bon courage!

Likewise - very surprised at the lack of a sensible response from Accor— even if the staff/hotel in question are crap, Accor are very protective of their brand image. I use their hotels very regularly and have done for years (Ibis, Novotel, Fairmont and Mercure at least) and can’t ever recall having a problem that wasn’t resolved pretty much immediately.

 

[Bozza]

Conversely I booked the same hotel as Bozza but through Booking.com and was fine.

I suspect your earlier time of arrival is what made it fine. Had you rocked up with us, I suspect I'd have later been sharing a small bunk bed with you!

 

[Bozza]

Having read the hotel reviews you would probably have been better off sleeping in a ditch!

I stayed in the F1 hotel in Liverpool once which I assume is the same chain. Never again!

I don't doubt it was shit.

However we were turning up late (c11:30pm - and this had been advised to them in the online check-in process) and leaving early (c7:00am) - we just wanted a cheap bed for the night. As we were booking late on, there weren't too many cheap options.

 

[Colonel Mustard]

I don't doubt it was shit.

However we were turning up late (c11:30pm - and this had been advised to them in the online check-in process) and leaving early (c7:00am) - we just wanted a cheap bed for the night. As we were booking late on, there weren't too many cheap options.

I still don’t understand on what grounds both Accor and the hotel have said, 'Sorry, not our fault, we can’t refund your money.'

 

[LamieRobertson]

I’d be trying both avenues to recover the dough and also trying Accor’s Facebook page …in the past I’ve found companies tend to react quicker and more positively as they don’t like the negative publicity

All the best

 

[jcdenton08]

letter before action to their UK HQ?

 

[CheeseRolls]

We stayed in the Ibis budget in Toulouse and the B&B Prado Parc in Marseille. Neither were anything more than basic and functional. Decent shower working WifI. I wasn't aware Accor owned F1 although I was aware of their awful reputation - sorry not sure this helps. From experience, France has plenty of really good independent 1* hotels away from the big towns and cities, just don't try and get lunch after 14:00 or turn up at 23:00 expecting to check in.

I am driving to Amsterdam, we have a late night arrival in Dunkirk, then an overnighter with parking in a satellite town, just outside Amsterdam. I had a really nice hotel lined up in Dunkirk, but their reception was due to shut before we arrived. I have cancelled this as I don't fancy risking a night sleeping in the car and have gone for something much more basic, where I think we have a much better chance of getting a room.

 

[um bongo molongo]

My SOP in similar situations is to email the CEO. With a relatively short and polite email but one that says something like ‘I thought you would like to be informed about the extremely poor customer service I experienced and have the opportunity to correct it’. I’ve spent enough time in big corporations myself to know that escalations from customers to CEOs are usually a complete pain in the **** and that’s exactly what you want. I’d say it gets results around 60-70% of the time, though it doesn’t work if it’s a company that’s completely given up any pretence to decent customer service (yes, British Airways, I’m talking about you).

The chairman and CEO of Accor is Sébastien Bazin. You should be able to find his email address on google.

 

[Bombardier]

I'm still trying to forget being shafted by Hertz In Italy.
Never use them!

Me too

 

[wellquickwoody]

Conversely I booked the same hotel as Bozza but through Booking.com and was fine.

Sometimes I miss Ernest, what an opportunity!

(Left my booking late, no vacancies, offered a little extra to bump someone etc etc)

 

[chaileyjem]

The only time i've been turned away having paid and booked a night (from a Holiday Inn in London) was when i checked in late (11.30pm) .
After about 30 mins of faffing about at the front desk - they paid for a taxi and found me another room - for free - at another Holiday Inn about 20 mins away. They also paid for a taxi to take me to my work the following morning. (as i'd argued that they'd placed me somewhere inconvenient)

 

[nwgull]

Twitter is very powerful and very public.... hash and tag them in a few gentle enquiries outlining your issue, then just increase the twitter pressure if they continue to be obstructive.... worked with me and easyJet...

Definitely. The NSC account has circa 50K followers - use them. I'd certainly retweet this absolute piss take.

 

[Bozza]

Definitely. The NSC account has circa 50K followers - use them. I'd certainly retweet this absolute piss take.

...and a blue tick if I turn it on.

(I sulbscribed when under the influence of wine and took the "hide the blue tick" option as I was embarrassed!)