A few weeks ago, I was in the stage of being very pleased at how efficient and honourable many hotels were being at cancelling hotel stays. A couple of hotels explained to me that they were struggling, so I’ve postponed rather than cancelled a few of my stays as I appreciated their honesty.
As over 1,500 people saw judging from the page views number, I also posted positively about Hampton by Hilton in Bristol, they cancelled on me and confirmed promptly themselves they’d refund in full. Hotels.com also confirmed this, and explained that the refund had been completed. Then, and the story is quite long and I’m not repeating it in full just yet, hotels.com explained that the hotel had seemingly changed its mind.
After weeks of confusion, hotels.com confirmed that the hotel is refusing a refund and is offering only a heavily restricted voucher instead. I’m not at all content at this sort of behaviour, it puts people off booking hotel rooms at a time when the hospitality industry needs all the support that it can get.
So, I’ve asked the two press offices for permission to post from some of their e-mails, which are a convoluted mess of chaos and confusion. I don’t much mind long delays, as this is a difficult time when hotels are suffering, but this sort of deliberate obfuscation isn’t perhaps ideal and reflects badly on the hotel industry.
