-
Checked in for one night at a HI returned to room late and found toilet wouldn’t flush. Ended up using bin to hold water so could flush. Informed reception in the morning, they apologised and offered “some points” for inconvenience after speaking with GM. On checking out an hour or so later they had identified the problem in behind the scenes area – a part had snapped. Insisted toilet worked when room had been cleaned ready for the stay. Also insisted they were aware of “some issues” and doing their best to “identify and repair where needed”.
The GM followed up with a personal apology email the next day and 5000 points added to my account. If this was a one off I’d be thinking that was fair enough.
However, stayed at the same hotel 2 weeks earlier, in a different room/floor, and although the toilet worked it made an extremely loud noise on flushing which continued for quite a few minutes. Subsequently you could hear it in the corridor along from the room. First time this happened it was 1am, so didn’t flush again until 9am! Informed reception on check out, they apologised and said “we will add some points as you are Diamond”. 5000 points added. Heard the same noise on this recent stay from a room down the corridor (informed GM of this at check out).
Room on both occasions was ~£100pn for a one night stay if that makes a difference. Not sure being Diamond should be deciding factor either.
My view – points welcome but is an apology and points adequate after the second incident? Should I follow this up with IHG? Hotel clearly has plumbing problems. Views on this welcome – thank you.IMHO yes it is more than adequate
5000 points is worth maybe £20, maybe more if used well.
I think an effective 20% rebate on the room rate seems reasonable.As for the hotel having plumbing issues…if you don’t like that don’t stay again is my suggestion. I’m sure they know about it and I’m also quite sure that IHG head office probably won’t do anything about it.
I’m going to be honest, you lost my sympathy by even mentioning the first “incident” 🙄😄. If we all got compo every time mid range hotel plumbing made a funny noise, we’d all be sitting on a billion hotel points each and the entire industry would be bankrupt. I did chuckle at the mental image of you tracking your noisy turd through the hotel by sound though 🤣.
I struggle too to figure out where to draw the line with asking for compo.
Most hotel rooms are not perfect and if you get into that mind set of splitting the hair to find situations that, you think, may warrant a compo, it’d ruin your stays.I’m not saying it is your fault. But 5k is good enough not to make a bigger deal.
Considering you waited until the morning to report the problem it couldn’t be that big of a deal…
5k points is more than reasonable.
If you were truly frustrated or couldn’t live with it then you would have complained when it didn’t flush straight away, rather than sleep with a broken toilet.
To tell staff at checkout “I didn’t enjoy my stay” rather than during said stay is bad form imo. To do it twice just looks like you’re complaining for complainings sake.
Well I asked for views and I got them! Thanks to those that advised actions taken by hotel were reasonable/adequate. That was the sanity check I was seeking and head office IHG point noted.
FWIW felt twice in 2 weeks was a little OTT and the noise was not “funny” but extremely loud and would have woken many others at that hour.Did inform staff during stay on the latest occasion. Not in the habit of complaining generally either.
I’m still wondering why you stayed a second time.
Suspect plumbing or even the suspicion of, is always a bad thing in a hotel and pretty much always bodes badly for future stays. No matter how the hotel tries to pass it off.
Not sure where the other poster is staying – probably a higher level of hotels often – but I can assure him even in mid-range hotel chains such as HIX any defective plumbing, even just noise or slow running plugholes, is not acceptable and thankfully quite rare these days.
Baling out a toilet with a wastebin ? Unless sick and jetlagged and early small hours of the morning I’d have been on the phone demanding a room change. Even appearing at Reception until a key to a new room was provided.
Leave factual reviews and don’t stay again. Also tell us which hotel it is
If you find a problem and dont report it til the morning, that pretty much means youre not getting the room comped! Personally theres no way I wouldve been filling up buckets of water vs calling reception.
Its the end of May and the bonus IHG offer expires. Anyone know if anything on horizon?
Just to close the loop on this one. Stayed twice due to family issue and location was a fit. Second stay booked at short notice. At check in dropped bags in room and left immediately returning after midnight. Informed at check in that hotel was full (No I didn’t ask; they told me). No intention/desire to call reception past midnight anyway.
@JPJOULE, sorry not heard whether any bonus promotion coming. Could be wrong but seem to recall some past promotions 1) IHG announce quite late and 2) not unheard of to have a few weeks “break” between promotions.From now on the first thing you’ll do at any hotel you stay at is check that the toilet flushes properly.
Seriously though, I do a quick check that everything is working normally in the bathroom when I enter a room. Once I found out that the shower wasn’t working after having unpacked everything and then having to switch rooms as they said it couldn’t be fixed until the next day.
My view is a little different. I travel a lot and complain infrequently. I completely understand why someone may not complain immediately. I had the misfortune of staying at the Hilton Gatwick a few years ago. I arrived late and had to catch an early morning flight. The room was very tired and the bathroom smelt of sewage. I ensured the bathroom door was closed and grabbed my 5 hours sleep before dashing for my flight the next day without complaining. I had paid £175. The hotel would have known that the room/rooms required a refurb. I tweeted Hilton corporate, sent them photos of the room and politely asked for points equivalent to 50% of the room price and received them without a fuss. Superb service recovery. My room did cost more than the poster and that was a consideration of mine. The room generally was poor as well. However in my humble opinion a failure to provide a working bathroom is unacceptable.
Finally to be fair to the hotel I haven’t stayed there for a few years and so things may have improved, the Radisson Stansted however is a disgrace and should be removed from the brand.
I’m with @Pangolin since I got a room without hot water a few years back I’ll check everything is in order with the water and the toilet before settling in.
Unfortunately bathrooms with sewage smell problems can be more tricky as it can come and go. Had one room that was fine until about 3/4 hours later and after running taps/shower for a bit the smell “disappeared” only for it to return by morning.
At a Holiday Inn in Belgium, there was a disagreeable ‘reflux’ problem. The loo flushed, but the contents ‘came back’ overnight. I mentioned it at reception. No points requested or offered (long before I came across Head for Points!) Have not been back.
Sounds a bit like the situation at the HI in Glasgow Airport. We’ve stayed a few times last year and it would seem that they have a permanent sign on the check-in desk saying they are having problems with hot water and there was always an engineer type wandering about in the foyer. It was usually fixed by morning. Nothing worse than not being able to shower before a long journey.
This is the point.
In 99%+ of cases, the hotel knows exactly what’s wrong with the room and gives it to you anyway.
You’re a particular target for this on a 1-night stay : particularly if you’re arriving late.
In my early years I was caught by this a few times. Some countries or cities have very old hotel stock that hasn’t been renovated, ever. And some cities have widespread problems eg Paris (and other cities) had widespread city drain problems that literally came back into some (especially older) hotels.
Obviously if you stay in newer hotels, or at the very top end (though this is not always guaranteed at the top end) you stand a better chance of avoiding this.
Whatever the hotel says about it being a new problem or a problem not previously known to them, they knew. And they might have carried on letting that room for a very considerable time without fixing the problem whilst being fully aware of it.
These days I try to arrive at a hotel as early as possible in their checkin window. As this means this or any other problem still has room, or rooms 🙂 , in the day to get any problem resolved. Though of course arriving early is not always possible, if you have the choice, do it (can help sometimes with some issues with planes too).
I’ve also learned to ask for a room change straight away, bringing all my luggage back to reception, and waiting for said room change visibly and politely there. Rather than accept “we’ll send our handyman”. Had that in tbe US and no one appears for hours, or appears and doesn’t fix it.
I’ve not had to refuse to stay and go somewhere else, and not suffered any more awful nights since being aware (after enough times 🙂 ) and adopting these tactics.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Popular articles this week:
