A few months ago I booked the three of us in for two nights’ stay in a country motel, and today we drove up to check in. Then the trouble began. Motel name obscured in text below.
The motel is “Blah Blah Motel” and the website I booked at is https://blahblahmotel.com.au/, so that pretty much implies that it is the motel’s website, not some third party booking agency.
Under the “Standard Rooms” page on their website, it shows a photo with two queen sized beds in the room.
Anywhere you try and make a booking, there’s a drop down list asking only for the number of adults, unlike other motel sites there’s no other box for infants and/or children.
Finally, there’s a box for “additional comments” in your booking.
So I selected two adults, selected “Standard Room” and in the comments field added the text “Two adults and one 11yr old child”
Some weeks later we arrived at the motel and were told “You’ve only booked for two people, you’ve only paid for two people, there’s only one bed in the room” and was told that I should have known that. It was either my fault or the fault of “the booking company”, everything came back to me doing it online and that “The booking company” just sends a single room booking to the motel itself for two adults. After trying to point out what I’d booked and what their website said of their rooms, asked when booking and showed in photos the staff then started to tell me that because I was “aggressive” that they didn’t have to serve me at all!
What’s written on my receipt comes from “the booking company”, but apparently the comments don’t get sent with the booking! Not only that, but the “standard rooms” have one bed, only rooms one and sixteen have two beds… I’m meant to know this, same as I’m meant to know the single lump sum I paid was for two adults, not two adults and a child
Eventually they offered to wheel a trundle bed into the room, making it all sound a major effort and emphasising that there was an extra $30 a night charge and that “it might not fit”. Complete refusal to own their own website though, any mention of it was deflected with “a problem with the booking company”.
Sorry guys, but don’t show photos on your website stating one thing if the rooms don’t exist, don’t have a website in your name and then claim it isn’t yours, and if you need to know how many children someone’s including in their booking, let them tell you on the booking!
