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  • The Dangers of Booking Directly with Accor – the Saga of Mercure Heathrow

    The Dangers of Booking Directly with Accor – the Saga of Mercure Heathrow

    As an update, the Mercure hotel themselves have resolved the matter to my satisfaction, but I remain disappointed that Accor managed to ignore the issue for three months.

    And here’s another saga and a story that I didn’t much want to write as I was hoping Accor would come through. What’s below is a mix of rant, annoyance and a reminder I want my money back   🙂   I wish I had the words of Jay Rayner, who completely destroyed a failing Dorchester Hotel. His description of a dish as “it tastes mostly of tomato ketchup and profit” is glorious. I rely on quotes from the Inbetweeners, but I’ve limited myself to just one below.

    I alerted some other hotel companies about the situation over the last couple of weeks (Accor have spurned my loving advances, so I’ll have to find a replacement), who seem to be bemused at what on earth Accor are doing. Although they would say that….. Anyway, that allowed me to get some quotes that I’ll be using over the next few weeks as this debacle unfolds and I throw my affections elsewhere. I’ve also merrily told some Accor hotels about this situation (not many, primarily as I don’t know many) and it’s clear there are some tensions between Accor and their franchisees, which all adds to the excitement. But, let’s not get distracted as this is extra drama for future posts.

    Before I go any further, I’d mention that I’m very aware that there are problems in the hospitality industry, but this situation was meant to be resolved on 2 June 2021 and Accor have ignored every message to their customer support since. Given that we’re now 10 weeks after that date and there has been no request for more time from Accor, I’ve run out of options.

    I think it’s fair to say now that the lovely representative at Accor communications has been helpful (and they likely think I’m an idiot and they wouldn’t be the first…..), but that’s the only part of Accor that isn’t ignoring me. Which isn’t ideal since I’ve got a section on this blog about them and mentioned tens of times about why they’re a pretty good hotel chain (especially in Poland).

    But let’s set the scene and I will accept this isn’t one of the most urgent problems in the world. But it’s annoyed me and it’s my blog, so I feel it’s fair to air my general annoyance.

    On 15 March 2021, I booked three nights at the Mercure Heathrow for £98 from 1 to 4 June 2021. All really rather reasonable and Accor confirms by e-mail that payment has been taken successfully. This is going well…..

    I think nothing more of this as Accor bookings are usually problem-free and on 27 May 2021 I get the pre-stay email from Mercure Heathrow saying they’re looking forwards to me staying. All rather lovely.

    Then, I turn up on 1 June 2021 and the hotel is a bit shut, it’s become a quarantine hotel. I approach a team member who tells me that this is why it’s best to book with Accor directly rather than a third party agent. I explain I booked with Accor. There’s then confusion and the team member confirms the hotel has indeed got a live booking for me and says it’s best to get in touch with Accor so they can fix the problem. They apologise profusely and look very confused.

    So, whilst standing at the outer perimeter of what is now a quarantine area, I phone the Accor Platinum support team, who answer immediately. After some confusion about how this has happened, they confirmed that I have a live booking at a closed hotel and take responsibility. They apologise numerous times, saying that they will fix the issue. The very helpful operator goes to check which hotels they can put me in and she says it’s best for them to replicate the booking for three nights at a nearby Accor hotel, rather than me find one night myself. I comment that I’m happy with the cheapest (secretly I want to be put in the Savoy, but I was expecting an Ibis Budget), but the staff member says that the Novotel Heathrow is the nearest and that this is the best option.

    The Platinum team then phone the Novotel Heathrow who don’t answer, which we agree isn’t ideal. The Platinum team member then says she’s sure it’s fine to book the hotel, but I’ll need to pay for the room and get a refund from Accor. Now, at this point, Expedia and booking.com state they wouldn’t do this, they would take the hit for the new booking themselves. Ironically, if I had booked this Accor hotel with Expedia or booking.com, then I would have had the matter resolved immediately. By booking with Accor, I’m now lumbered with paying for two hotels and making a claim back. But it seems clear, I’ll pay the £255.55 to Heathrow Novotel and Accor will refund that to me, so that I only pay the £98 I was originally meant to.

    On another aside, the IHG comms team have now sent me a message about their refund policy. It’s a bit more nuanced and I’ll return to the details, but, in short, they wouldn’t have double charged like this either. To add some excitement, Travelodge and Premier Inn also told me that they wouldn’t have charged again, they would have found me another hotel within their estate. Accor’s policy is clearly already unusual and perhaps really not fair on their customers.

    I don’t normally take taxis anywhere, but the phone support suggest getting them and sending in the bills. I just walked, I didn’t want to run up anyone’s bills unnecessarily as I don’t normally take taxis anywhere. I was at that stage very pleased with Accor and I wrote about that at the time. I was told this was a substantial mistake for Accor and the Mercure Heathrow hotel and they treated this very seriously, so I would receive a phone call the following day, 2 June 2021.

    I receive an e-mail from Accor when getting off the phone telling me that the request is in hand and including a reference number, so all seems well. And that was that, it’s all that I’ve heard from Accor, who have now started to ignore me. Novotel Heathrow won’t help, although Mercure Heathrow sent some Rewards Points which covered my minimal extra expenses in terms of buses. Amex have also confirmed that Mercure Heathrow have returned the £98 that was taken for this booking. That means I’m still just under £160 down on this deal and I did suggest to Accor that I’d accept this in Reward Point vouchers for future bookings at Accor. They’ve ignored that request as well.

    In fairness, a communications officer for Accor has been helpful and tried to resolve the matter. I won’t name them, but it seems they’re passing on messages and the Accor senior staff are just ignoring them. I can’t stress the communications team any more, this isn’t their problem. This blog post is unlikely to get more than 2,000 views which makes it easier for Accor to ignore, which in fairness is what they’re doing without much concern.

    To quote Will from the Inbetweeners:

    “Why don’t we at least attempt to have a sophisticated conversation? I know it’s a tall order, and I’m not expecting sparkling, but let’s give it a go, eh?”

    The real difficulty here is that the legally responsible party are Mercure Heathrow, operated by Crimson Hotels. It was their hotel that was shut, the booking was with them and they gave permission for Accor to deal with the matter. That means I’ll have to take them to the small claims court, an entirely ridiculous matter given Accor could have quite easily fixed this. I hope yet that Accor decide that they will fix this little issue before I have to commence legal action against Crimson Hotels. If Accor had asked for a few more weeks to look at the matter, I would have been entirely happy, but they’re just merrily entirely ignoring me…..

    As it stands, and I really don’t think Accor could disagree with this in the circumstances, it is currently safer to book hotels using a third party aggregator site (hotels.com from Expedia or booking.com) as booking directly with Accor comes with the very real chance of being left financially worse off. I’m not a fan of Trustpilot, but Accor seem to be having problems in a similar vein from other customer, https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/all.accor.com.

    I shall update if Accor resolve the matter and I can put this down to a slight oversight….. Or indeed, I’ll update with my continued complaining at Accor, so either way, I suspect my limited blog readership will have to read about this on far more occasions than they’d want to. And I need to find a new hotel chain to pour my affections on.

  • IHG – 10,000 Points for Every 10 Stays

    IHG – 10,000 Points for Every 10 Stays

    This is a clever tactic I think from IHG, a new project they started a couple of months ago which gives 10,000 reward points (which is often enough to get a free hotel room in a Holiday Inn Express) for every ten nights stayed. On the 40th room night, they give a bonus of 30,000 reward points, all in addition to the usual earnings. I’m going to struggle to get to that total, although I’m on course to reach Platinum so I might not be far off. I have though received my first 10,000 bonus points from this campaign.

    I thought that Accor would do something similar to this, as otherwise there’s not much additional incentive to stay further nights once a rewards tier has been reached (and I can’t reach any more without hitting Diamond which is their only tier which can’t be achieved by nights stayed). I’ve had a few problems with Accor this summer and none from IHG, so my loyalty is starting to waver a little. Accor do though have some excellent hotels that I really rather like…..

  • Coventry – Ibis Coventry South

    Coventry – Ibis Coventry South

    This Accor hotel is about a thirty-minute walk from Coventry and isn’t very well reviewed on-line, so I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d make of it. It’s a motel type set-up, with the office and reception separate from the main accommodation block. There’s not much that can be done about that now, but it probably wasn’t a great design when conceived twenty years ago or so. I’ve stayed in numerous motels in the United States, but I can’t recall of one which hasn’t had the reception built into the main part of the building.

    The separate accommodation block. My first impressions was that there were people playing music outside who probably should have been told to stop by the hotel staff. I’m getting ever more immune to noise and quite liked the bizarre conversations that they were having, but I can see why the hotel gets negative reviews about this entire set-up. It doesn’t give a good first impression and there’s plenty of space for the hotel to ask guests to move to if they want to sit outside and listen to music.

    The interior of the rooms surprised me, as although the exterior is very not Ibis like, the rooms have been refitted to meet the brand standard. Indeed, the rooms were clean, well presented and fully functional, which entirely satisfied my requirements. I suspect that the cost of bringing this set-up into the rooms was quite expensive, so there’s been a financial commitment here to the hotel’s future. The rooms were cool in temperature and I could open the window, but there was no air conditioning.

    The hotel’s restaurant is currently closed, although they are still doing a basic food menu. It’s one of the restaurants that in normal times does that annoying thing of having 50% off to people who use things such as the Gourmet Society and Tastecard. Lovely if you’re loyal to the Gourmet Society, but perhaps less so if you were just loyal to Accor and didn’t realise.

    I didn’t see any interesting beer options for my rewards drink, so limited myself just to a Coke. The bar area was sort of open, but it didn’t feel entirely inviting, so I just brought it back to my room.

    I’m not a driver, so the car park situation has little relevance to me, but there is some fining set-up in place for those who don’t pay the car park charge. This might have been removed now, but the hotel has a whole host of complaints going back years on how guests have received a fine through the post. Likely not ideal and I’m surprised they need to charge for car parking this far out of the city centre.

    Anyway, I slept very well and had no noise disturbances at all, which moderately surprised me. The corridor outside the room with limited glazing does drag the hotel’s reviews down, although I was nearly at the end of an external corridor so didn’t have many people needing to walk this far down. Given that the room cost under £40, which was nearly all paid for by Accor Rewards points, I thought this was actually perfectly decent value for money. For those who want something nearer to Coventry, Ibis also have another hotel in the city centre (but that was obviously more expensive, so I traipsed out here).

  • London – Redbridge (Borough of) – Ibis Styles London Seven Kings (Update 2)

    London – Redbridge (Borough of) – Ibis Styles London Seven Kings (Update 2)

    I complained quite a lot on this blog about what I considered to be the badly run Ibis Styles London Seven Kings (Post 1 | Post 2) which I thought was brand damaging to Accor Hotels. And, just ten days after opening, the hotel appears to have decided to scrap tens of bookings so that they can accept a larger block booking. The room inventory has been removed from aggregate sites for months with, if reviews are to be believed, no real attempt to deal with the number of disappointed Accor customers given just hours notice.

    Hopefully, this hotel management company won’t get the opportunity to damage Accor’s brand further and hopefully that Ibis Styles signage will soon be taken down.

  • Birmingham – Ibis Birmingham New Street Station

    Birmingham – Ibis Birmingham New Street Station

    My stay tonight is at the Ibis Birmingham New Street station hotel, part of the Accor chain. It’s centrally located and as its name suggests, is near to New Street railway station.

    There’s a modern feel to the bar area and reception, so first impressions were positive. The staff member at reception was friendly, engaging and helpful, with everything feeling like it was well run. I got my drinks voucher without needing to ask and the hotel said they weren’t going to collect the 98p that was owing (I paid for nearly all of this stay with Accor rewards points), although I suspect it might appear on my card statement as these things tend to be automated. Either way, all nicely done and I like the personable check-in process. The staff member also mentioned that she was looking forwards to seeing me again next week, I hadn’t realised their system showed future linked bookings. I had forgotten I had booked here next week for three nights, but she was quite right.

    The bar area is comfortable, not very busy at the moment and fits in with the attempts to modernise the Ibis brand. Nice.

    There were a few beer options, none of them decadent, but the Camden Pale Ale is perfectly acceptable to me as a welcome drink. It doesn’t take much effort to offer something like this, rather than just shove a few Bud and Corona in the fridge and claim that’s a beer offering. Another engaging member of staff at the bar, there’s a welcoming feel and atmosphere to this entire hotel. In an ideal world the bar could probably ramp up its drinks offerings to be a bit more creative, but there are no problems currently with the choice.

    The room is clearly a few years old and it’s slightly smaller than Ibis rooms usually are. However, it’s a central location and it has a desk, so I’m happy. There’s an air conditioning unit under the window which seems to be disconnected (although reviews suggest they are still going in some rooms), but the window opens and there’s a fan, so that’s fine with me. This attempt to sterilise rooms by sealing them up annoys me when hotels do it, it’s nice here to actually have a window open and to hear the world outside. There are no small number of reviews complaining about the noise from the street, but I quite like that and I’m not sure what a city centre hotel is realistically meant to do about city noise. I like that they’ve given me a top floor room as well, not too near the lift.

    I’m not tempted by the breakfast which is £10, requires pre-booking and seems to allow a limited amount of each items, so no more than two sausages and two rashers of bacon I think it mentioned. Customers also had to choose which hot drink they wanted, but Ibis usually offer endless amounts of any particular item. It’s much cheaper to just go around the corner to JD Wetherspoon or a local cafe, but I imagine that these Covid limitations will be swept away soon enough.

    Anyway, I’m very pleased with my £35 per night stay, especially as it’s funded by Accor points from previous stays. The rooms probably need a refurbishment in the next few years, but they are currently clean and entirely functional, so there’s perhaps no huge urgency. Reviews are mixed, but I think most of the problem is the room pushing the scores down, the staff and location rate highly.

  • Accor – We’d Like Your Feedback Email

    Accor – We’d Like Your Feedback Email

    Probably in the best interests of everyone, there’s been a technical glitch in my feedback email following my Accor stay this weekend and it has blanked out the hotel name and corrupted the link.

    Anyway, I’ve got a positive vibe that I’m going to now get a run of excellent Accor hotels…..

  • London – Redbridge (Borough of) – Ibis Styles London Seven Kings (Update)

    London – Redbridge (Borough of) – Ibis Styles London Seven Kings (Update)

    I commented, at length, about the disappointing experience I was having at the Ibis Styles London Seven Kings hotel. Anyway, I was going to leave it at that since it’s a new hotel and I wrote the post mid-way through my stay and hoped it might get better. But, whether through spite or not, they’ve now left my room door open today after cleaning it. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt about their intentions, but it’s really not ideal to leave customer rooms open all day.

    The hotel isn’t using phones in the room, instead they’re using a WhatsApp system to alert reception if customers have any questions or queries. I love these systems, it’s a great way for hotels to be able to engage with customers and have effectively real-time communications. They’re also alerting customers to this system at the reception desk. I thought this was great.

    I merrily report that my room has been left open all day to the reception desk using the WhatsApp system, just in case I later discover anything of theirs (or mine) has been stolen from the room. It transpires they haven’t bothered to look at their WhatsApp account since early evening of yesterday (26 hours ago). If someone had experienced an emergency in the room, no-one would know at Accor and there’s nothing the guest could do.

    Incidentally, I note a negative review the hotel has received today:

    “In the morning we went down for breakfast. Arrived in time, but the options what you can choose for the price, is zero. I asked for some bacon, but they not making on Sunday (???) No fruit to choose, no yoghurt, nothing… I’m really sad, but I can’t recommend this place.”

    Sounds a delightful breakfast……..

    Anyway, I move to another Accor hotel today, let’s hope it’s a more positive engagement   🙂

    [as an aside, the hotel did notice their WhatsApp message at 3am and mentioned the general manager would get in touch when they got in. They haven’t, but I think it’s best that my stay at this hotel is best forgotten for them and for me……]

  • London – Barking and Dagenham (Borough of) – Ibis Barking

    London – Barking and Dagenham (Borough of) – Ibis Barking

    Of no great relevance to anyone other than me, but I’ve realised that I’ve never written about the Ibis at Barking, despite having stayed there three times. Given I can be quite a completist, I feel the need to quickly note a few things about the hotel for my own record if nothing else….

    This hotel is about an eight minute walk from Barking railway station or around ten minutes from East Ham underground station, so not ideally located for those using public transport (especially if they’re carrying things), but it’s also not in the middle of nowhere. There’s also an Ibis Budget very nearby, although I’ve not yet been to that one. Perhaps because of the location of the hotel, which is more suited for cars, it’s generally one of the cheaper Accor hotels in London, which is its main appeal to me. There is a reasonable amount of car parking on site, which is of no relevance to me, but it seems reasonably priced.

    The hotel has been clean and welcoming on my three visits here, all entirely functional and comfortable. There’s a small bar and restaurant area at reception which isn’t the largest, but it seems sufficient for the number of customers who want to use it. They have a slightly annoying system that the floor numbers don’t match the room numbers, so that the second floor has room numbers beginning with 3, but fortunately I manage not to let that concern me overly. All of the rooms appear to be the same, so there’s not much to add other than the photo above, with the usual Accor prefabricated shower pod being used as usual.

    The free welcome drink I had last week, which is a perfectly acceptable Brewdog Punk IPA. The drinks selection is not earth shattering, but it’s better than most other Ibis hotels, so I can’t much complain about that. I’ve never had any difficulties with noise, either internally or externally, nor indeed any other problems of note. So, all rather lovely.

  • London – Still No Refund from Accor

    London – Still No Refund from Accor

    Well, this isn’t ideal.

    A few weeks ago, Accor managed to book me into a hotel that was shut. They booked another hotel for me (for which they wanted a second payment), and said they’d call back the day after to resolve the matter. Two different staff members said that I would be refunded for the new stay as it was Accor’s fault. At the time I thought this was handled well and they mentioned they considered it very serious (they seemed to consider it more serious than I did) and seemed keen to help.

    I’ve been refunded some points by the closed Mercure Heathrow hotel for incidental expenses (which I kept to near zero, which was again generous of me given the circumstances), but haven’t heard a thing since (and they didn’t tell me that they had done this either). What is particularly annoying is that if I had booked with a third party booking site such as booking.com or hotels.com, then I would never have had to pay for the second hotel. As it stands, I’ve still paid for two hotels for three nights and Accor have refunded neither.

    I’m in the difficult position that Amex have said that they can arrange a chargeback to force Accor to respond. However, these are exceptional times and Accor have a lot of staff furloughed, so I’ve been giving them longer, although they’ve ignored me for a month. I asked Novotel Heathrow for help, but they’ve decided they won’t be responding at all. I can’t blame them, the Accor press office hasn’t replied either, so this seems to be a new cultural thing within the hotel company.

    Hopefully my £255.55 might be returned soon. It’s definitely not ideal.

  • London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Whitechapel Ibis Budget

    London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Whitechapel Ibis Budget

    I rather like the Ibis Budget chain of hotels and I positively miss the one in Torun with its all you can eat hot dogs for breakfast (I’m easily pleased). They’re basic, but usually clean and functional. And, best of all, generally they’re pretty cheap. I haven’t seen this one listed before, so it has either recently reopened or I’m just not very observant, and the latter is always a distinct possibility. Anyway, I opted to stay here for two nights given that it was keenly priced and I liked how central it was for the City of London (which was an excuse to visit a few more pubs in that area).

    The interior of the hotel is bright and well maintained. I’ll contact the hotel [done, and they’ve kindly sent the below] and see if they can let me have some photos of the public areas (I also forgot to take a photo of the large teddy bear on one of the seats, but there are some on the team’s Instagram channel at https://www.instagram.com/ibisbudgetlondonwhitechapel/), as I didn’t get chance to take any of my own. And the hotel staff were unfailingly polite and helpful, offering a friendly welcome and an engaging farewell. The hotel didn’t feel very busy at all, but there were always staff visible in the public areas and it felt like a safe environment.

    Above two images supplied by hotel, the one on the left is the large breakfast area, the one on the right is the reception area. This is far more Ibis Styles than Ibis Budget in design, I remain impressed at the investment that has been made here.

    This isn’t the Ibis Budget room that I’m used to, there has been some sort of large scale refurbishment here. The bathroom is modern and all within one room (often Ibis Budget have a separate toilet, a shower that is sort of open plan and a sink that is in the bedroom). There’s a pull down bed at the rear and a small desk in the corner. Some money has been spent here in this refurbishment and I think it’s looking rather good and certainly entirely functional. The hotel doesn’t offer hot drink making facilities or irons in the rooms, but, I have a Pret subscription and don’t use irons as I’m scared they might burn me, so this wasn’t an obstacle.

    I didn’t experience any noise issues either internally or externally, to the point that I did wonder how many guests were actually in the hotel. The air conditioning made the room very cold, which pleased me greatly, and I’m impressed at how easy it was to control the temperature, better than most other budget hotels.

    Not the view from my room unfortunately, but a view from one of the hotel windows near to the lifts. It’s about a ten-minute walk to the Tower of London and about a twelve-minute walk to Greggs.

    Perhaps not “sinfully decadent”, but this is a really sensible list of snacks that is easy for the hotel to provide. The prices aren’t unreasonable and this seems a well thought through list of options.

    All told, this was a hotel which exceeded my expectations, an engaging team of staff, a clean environment, modern rooms, decent air conditioning and a short walk to the underground and the city of London. For anyone who can get a room here at a similar price to Travelodge or similar, I’d pick here, as the rooms are better kitted out and that air conditioning is very useful (and would have been at Stratford Travelodge). All very lovely.