AVOID UNDER ALL CIRCUMSTANCES – HOTEL ROUTINELY OVERBOOKS, DOES NOT REFUND.
AVOID UNDER ALL CIRCUMSTANCES – HOTEL ROUTINELY OVERBOOKS, DOES NOT REFUND.
In May 2013 I made a reservation at Hotel24Seven via booking.com for two nights accommodation in October. The full value of the reservation was was charged to my card by a credit card terminal at the hotel in early June.
The day before my arrival in October I emailed the hotel to request my door code as I had not received it. I did not receive an answer that day. I arrived at Hotel24Seven the following day and called a telephone number listed outside the front door, on the wall.
The conversation with the person working for the hotel went as follows:
Hi I have a reservation but didn’t receive the access code
Oh we are fully booked you need to call booking.com.
But I haven’t even told you my name yet.
Sorry I can’t find your reservation there must be some mistake.
This has been the extent of the assistance I have been offered by Hotel24Seven despite them breaching contract as they were unable to provide a room to me, which I had paid for in full. I called booking.com after my conversation with the hotel who confirmed that they would treat this as an incidence of overbooking and they assisted me in finding another hotel which I had to pay for in full. booking.com assured me that they would reimburse me for the additional costs incurred and this process was completed promptly.
Regarding seeking a refund for the sum paid to Hotel24Seven for a service they failed to perform I followed reasonable steps of first contacting the hotel. Despite four repeated requests per email and telephone to Hotel24Seven in October and into early November along with a final Notice Before Action communication in mid-November no answer or any commitment to refund my money was ever received from the hotel.
I notified booking.com of this impasse who advised me that I should request a chargeback on the payment, which I was forced to do with my bank, and this process was finally completed in mid-January.
The hotel had my money since early June. They refused to provide the room which was paid for, refused to offer assistance after leaving me stuck, refused to engage in terms of resolving the issue and ultimately refused to issue a refund.
I can see from previous reviews that I am not the only person this has happened to.
“Cosyphil” based in Bath states this, user “Pat L” from Woking, “coltrane69”, “Tom B”, “PhillyBSomerset” from Somerset, “Aggelos P” from Bristol and “Sookie9” from Worcester have all stated that they were left in a similar situation by this hotel.
It appears that overbooking is a deliberate policy of Hotel24Seven and that they are routinely breaking contract and not refunding customers, either in a timely manner or at all.
On that basis, simply AVOID, AVOID, AVOID AT ALL COSTS, save yourself the six months of hassle I went through and use another hotel in the area.