Mr DAVID E.
Poor service and lack of attention to detail surrounding my booking
For details of went wrong please see below the email of complaintI have sent to the hotel Dear Municipal Hotel Liverpool, I am writing to make a formal complaint regarding our recent stay at the hotel on the night of our wedding. The stay was booked as a gift for us by our children, so naturally we were expecting the experience to be special and memorable for all the right reasons. Unfortunately, the service we received was extremely disappointing and, in my opinion, fell well below the standard you would expect from a hotel of this nature. The first issue occurred during the early hours of the morning following our wedding. At approximately 2:30am, I ordered food to be delivered to our room. When the food arrived, I was presented with a card machine and asked to make immediate payment. I find this particularly surprising. Given that we were residents of the hotel, why was the charge not simply added to our room account and settled when we checked out? Having to deal with a card payment at 2:30am on our wedding night was both inconvenient and completely unnecessary. The following morning, matters became even more frustrating. We ordered breakfast to our room, believing that breakfast was included in the rate paid by our children when they booked the stay for us. Once again, I was presented with a payment machine and asked to pay. I explained that, to the best of my knowledge, breakfast was included. However, the waiter insisted that it was not and that payment was required. I therefore paid the £75 charge. After checking with our children following our departure, they confirmed that breakfast was indeed included in the booking. I subsequently contacted the hotel to explain what had happened. I was then asked to send an email detailing the complaint. I declined, as I felt it was unreasonable to expect me to spend further time documenting an error that was clearly the result of the hotel’s own failure to correctly check the booking. After considerable discussion, the hotel eventually agreed that the £75 breakfast charge had been made incorrectly and agreed to refund it. However, I was then told that it could take approximately five days for the money to be returned to my card. The whole experience was extremely frustrating, particularly given the occasion. This was our wedding night, a stay that our children had thoughtfully arranged and paid for as a special present to us. Instead of feeling valued and looked after, we were left dealing with unnecessary payment issues, incorrect information and ultimately having to challenge the hotel to rectify its own mistake. I appreciate that mistakes can happen, but the combination of these incidents, particularly the breakfast issue, demonstrates a disappointing lack of communication and attention to detail. The fact that I had to argue the matter before the hotel accepted that the breakfast charge was incorrect makes the situation even more unacceptable. I would therefore ask that this complaint is formally investigated and that you provide a response explaining how these failures occurred and what steps will be taken to ensure other guests, particularly those celebrating important occasions, do not experience similar treatment. I would also expect the hotel to consider an appropriate gesture of goodwill in recognition of the extremely disappointing experience we had on what should have been a very special night. I look forward to receiving your response.