In August I took part in the Prudential RideLondon 100-mile cycle ride starting at the Olympic Park and finishing at Buckingham Palace.
Needing a hotel the night before, I went on to getaroom.com, which had a vacancy at the Travelodge at London City Airport, which I duly booked for £56.58.
However, when I arrived at the hotel with my confirmation email, the receptionist advised me that they had no record of my booking and they were fully booked. They said they would try to contact getaroom, and that they would honour the booking or find me another hotel.
Eventually they found me a room, which was perfectly fine. The next day, on the ride, I was chatting to another rider and he told me that this happens a lot with Travelodges, and that it was their policy to double book rooms as guests do not always turn up. Can this really be the case? MF, by email
You are not the first person to complain about this, and Travelodge has confirmed this week that it does overbook its rooms to, in its words, “make provision for the proportion of customers that do not show up”.
It says that it makes every effort to ensure that customers are not relocated, which happens to fewer than 0.2% of its bookings and that “we ensure that the process excludes disabled, family and single female traveller bookings”.
“Any extra transport or accommodation costs are covered by Travelodge,” a spokeswoman says. The moral of the tale, it seems, is to make sure you arrive early if you are staying in a Travelodge, or you carry a small risk of being relocated.
In your case, it says there was a technical error which meant you had been booked into the London City Road Travelodge instead of London City Airport. It has offered a full refund of your original booking and a £100 e-voucher that you can use for a future booking, to say sorry.
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