leyton.org

Pre-amble: This is a post that’s likely to be revisited somewhat. It was originally titled “lastminute.com considered harmful?“, but it’s clear to me now that lastminute.com were not to blame, so I’ve amended it accordingly. The hotel in question was the “Harrington Court Hotel” in South Kensington, and lastminute.com were merely the agents we used.

Original Post

Oh joy. We’re on a trip to London, and Frances has just discovered that lastminute.com and the hotel we’d booked/paid/confirmed with for tonight have managed to screw up our bookings. Cue a last minute (aha; not) rush to find a hotel in a city that’s already booked up to the hilt.

Not impressed. A wasted afternoon for Frances, and a badly interrupted afternoon for me.

As usual, getting through to the behemoth is difficult, but the people you speak to try their best. Rage against the machine indeed.

Update 17:00 : Ok, sorted. Sounds like it may be more to do with the hotel than lastminute.com, but I’m reserving judgement at this point. I’ve had problems with them previously, and I’m left with a sour taste in my mouth. Some fiddling appears to have been done, and we’re actually in the hotel we booked. I’m in no mood to find out how they swung it, but Frances is in urgent need of a stiff drink after unnecessary stress. Stiff letters will result.

Update 5/Nov/07 : So as you can see from the comments, I was contacted by customer services at lastminute.com. The joys of a weblog. We’ve since been offered a 30% refund on the cost we paid, but that’s been initiated by lastminute.com. So far the hotel has not - as far as I know - expressed much in the way of an apology, much less compensation. I’m making it clear that the offer, whilst appreciated, is not in my view enough in way of compensation given the two hours it took to resolve the matter. Whether much more will be forthcoming is, I suspect, doubtful. However, sometimes I’m simply happy to be able to shout my annoyances out aloud on a website that has over 18,000 visitors a month. Yes, really. That many. Scary, isn’t it.

Update 15/Nov/07

E-mailed lastminute to thank them for their efforts, and also to enquire about the hotel: I presume there’s been no further response from the hotel. I really can’t say I’m surprised: They didn’t offer anything resembling a sincere apology on the day itself, so I don’t expect we’ll receive one after the event. We may simply have been unfortunate, but I strongly suspect that based on our experience - and lack of any apology from the hotel - it represents a wider malaise and disregard for customer satisfaction at the hotel. I hope you keep the hotel under close scrutiny in the future, and very much wish you had a review/rating facility so that other potential customers had a customer-experience view.

I had this response (emphasis mine): I regret to advise that I have had no response from the hotel despite numerous attempts to contact them via email. I would like to assure you however that your experience has been noted in relation to this hotel. I would like to advise also that yours is the first such complaint we have received in relation to this hotel however, it has been reported to the relevant department within our company.

So we were ‘unlucky’, but I’m satisfied from their lack of response and the “numerous attempts” of lastminute, that my conclusion is sound. However, lastminute’s response to our complaint has at least ensured I’ll consider using them again, and feel they (at least) have good customer service sense. Unlike the hotel.