‘Disgusted’ Women’s fury over hotel ‘upgrade’
TWO women were “upgraded” from their double en-suite rooms to a terraced house and then sent on a wild goose chase around Gloucestershire for two hours, they claim.
Christine Noddings and Shirleyanne Gray, both 65, had booked their rooms at Central Hotel, Cheltenham, almost a week in advance, to attend their friend’s funeral.
They had made the reservation on booking.com for a total of £98. However, when they arrived at 9pm on the night they were told they had to go elsewhere.
After travelling all the way from Essex on June 11, all Mrs Noddings and Ms Gray wanted to do was rest in their rooms for the night.
They had booked Central Hotel for its convenient location on Portland Street, seven minutes’ drive from the cemetery and crematorium in Bouncers Lane.
On arriving at the hotel, the pair were told that their “upgrade” was a threebedroom house just “ten minutes down the road” in the opposite direction to the cemetery.
Unhappy about this surprise change, the women lugged their cases back to their car. After receiving directions they
said were poor – which caused them to have to loop round a one-way street several times – they eventually found the address. But the property in Townsend Street fell short of their expectations. They were particularly unhappy it had only one bathroom.
“God knows what the rooms at the Central Hotel were like if we had been ‘upgraded,’” said Ms Gray.
The pair rang up to complain, demanding the original rooms or a refund, but say they were told complaints had to be made to ‘customer services’ the next day.
Ms Gray said: “I felt I was being put in ‘a put up with and shut up’ situation.”
After ten minutes of “arguing” and “much coercion and waiting”, they were finally offered another address – in Gloucester Road, 15 minutes’ drive from the cemetery.
But they found that it was not the apartment that had been described.
“It was a house with the lights on and people in,” said Mrs Noddings.
Ms Gray said: “At this point we felt that we had been conned – not a good feeling at 10 o’clock at night.”
Mrs Noddings said: “By this time, we were crying. It was very dark, very wet and we had been on the road a long time and just wanted to go to bed. We were tired, we were worried and we were fed up.”
They returned to Central Hotel to demand their original rooms, a refund and an explanation.
The hotel staff admitted to getting the address wrong. The women were told again they had received an ‘upgrade’ and that there was nothing that could be done.
They set off again, to another house in Gloucester Road, but the apartment was up three flights of stairs.
The next day, the exhausted women were 20 minutes late to the funeral.
In an email to them, a Central Hotel manager wrote: “I am sorry to hear you were unhappy with your upgrade. However, we had upgraded you as a goodwill gesture and the reason behind this is because usually when we upgrade our guests we have outstanding reviews because of this.
“Unfortunately in these circumstances, I would like to apologise that you were unsatisfied with your upgrade.
“I apologise for you being told the wrong address but our helpline is 24 hours and would of been answered if you had of rung us to clarify the building number. If you had of rung we would of been able to assist you over the phone and this would of saved the journey back to the Central Hotel.” Their request of a refund was refused. Mrs Noddings said: “I’m disgusted. I don’t understand when they said that they had upgraded us.”
At first Booking.com offered the women £22 in compensation for the “inconvenience and stress”.
It said it could not make a full refund because Central Hotel had declined to do so. However, it later reconsidered and told the women it would be giving them the full amount.
The firm said: “As the relocation experience with the property was not what we would want for our customers, we have apologised for the inconvenience and have offered a full refund as a gesture of goodwill.”
Central Hotel declined to comment.