Lastminute.com & Thistle Hotels

Here's a bit of a story for you.....

Having booked with Lastminute.com on a few occasions, we decided to take advantage of one of their 'Top Secret Hotel' offers. The deal is that you pay £x for a certain class of hotel in a certain location, without actually knowing the name of the hotel until you confirm. Now, anyone with a couple of brain cells to rub together can do a quick google search and work out the hotel they are refering to in a particular deal. I'd used this type of deal before, and again worked out the hotel and decided to part with my money.

I paid £59 for a '4* hotel close to Kensington High Street, room and breakfast for 2'. I knew the hotel didn't have great reviews (Thistle Kensington Park) before I paid, but I thought that for £59 it was still a bargain.

A few weeks passed and I kept looking at reviews on Trip Advisor. It was the things people were complaining about which made me consider their 4* status. I decided to contact the AA (it's the AA, RAC and the tourist board who issue the *'s) to ask them to confirm the hotel's 4* status. I was surprised to learn that the hotel has NO offical star rating.

I contacted lastminute.com to explain that they were in breach of contract not supplying me with a '4* hotel close to Kensington High St' but they we'rnt having any of it. In fact the girl I spoke to on the phone was the most horrific 'customer service' rep I've ever encountered. *huge compliant to Lastminute will be in the post shortly*

To cut a long story short and having been in email discussions with both the tourist board and the GM of Thistle Kensington Park & Palace, the GM assured us that we'd have a great stay with them, and as we were getting no where with Lastmninute, we left the booking as it was.

I'm pleased to say the the Thistle made a great effort. They upgraded our room and left us a bottle of wine, fruit platter and chocolates. That said, as much as I appreciate their generousity, they've got a LONG way to go before they can claim to be 4* (Thistle hotels grade themselves with thistles not stars, with the implication that 4 thistles = 4*).

The rooms are very tired looking, with chipped paint, damp around the window frame, loose bathroom fittings, no minibar, no 'proper' hairdryer.... the list goes on. The thing I had to laught at was the tray of wine & fruit etc only had one wine glass and no corkscrew. We phoned reception and were advised that they don't have any corkscrews, the only one is attached to the bar, so we'd have to go down stairs and ask for it to be opened! [:0]

On the whole, service was good (not great) but the lack of facilities, amenities and the general condition of the hotel really lets it down. I think it would be lucky to secure an offical 3* status.

I'll be providing the hotel with some comprehensive feedback.... because I'm nice like that

BTW I found it quite interesting doing a search on the AA site for hotel chains and seeing which of their hotels had an offical star rating. Most were spot on, but interestingly, Thistle hotels come out very, very poorly indeed.

http://www.theaa.com/getaway/hotels/hotels_home.jsp

Milliemoo

p.s I know I only paid £59 for the room.... but it's the principle [:I]

That's how priceline used to operate. I used it only once, to buy accommodation in Chicago. Think we ended up at the Westin, which was fine. The problem was that, when we checked out, they tried to charge us to rack rate,, not the priceline rate! When I questioned it, they were really snotty, and made the comment that the rate I'd got was way, way below rack rate. Oh, so was I supposed to feel guilty then?! When I produced my confirmation (which had the rate on it), they reluctantly agreed, but reckoned they couldn't provide me with a different receipt! I wouldn't let it drop, and insisted they issue me with something to confirm the rate. Am so glad I did, as when i got home, they'd charged me the full rate. It took a couple of calls to get it sorted out, but I kept thinking how much harder it would have been, had I not insisted on a written agreement at the time.

I know it's not lastminute, but it just triggered off the memory....

Had another near-nasty with LastMinute.com and Thistle Hotels over Christmas 2005. Mrs csparker's surprise pressie for me was theatre tickets and a night at the Thistle Marble Arch. The plan was for Mrs csparker to check in and I would be along after work.

Upon arrival, the hotel had no record of our booking. Luckily they were happy to put us up and sort it out after the fact.

FWIW, the hotel was fine, and in a reasonable location for the West End - only two stops from Oxford Circus on the Central Line.

Sorry to hear of your experience [:(] Although it wasn't booked through lastminute.com, I used the Thistle Bloomsbury once. As a result of that stay, it put me off the Thistle chain for good and I now won't use them again unless it's unavoidable [}:)]

Cheers

Michael

I think there are a lot of decent Thistle hotels out there, it's just there's and awfull lot of dodgy ones as well.

They obviously made an effort in my case, which is more than what Lastminute did..... OMG I was soooooo furious with them. Can't wait to put together my complaint [}:)]

Milliemoo

[RichardMannion]

I've never used Priceline or the like, one thing to be aware of is that points will not normally be awarded nor will any applicable frequent guest benefits - they are called 'transparent/opaque' bookings, where the hotel is not known (in principle at least) at the time of booking.

Thanks,
Richard

[fozzyo]

OMG! What a nightmare!!

Since we are sharing hotel nightmares. The Jolly Carlton in Amsterdam - not at all jolly. We booked three rooms through Expedia, two doubles and one twin. We checked in, one of the guests for the twin was arriving later on a different flight. We let them know at reception their name so they could issue a doorkey. All hell then breaks loose, they only have one name on the booking so there will be a two person occupancy supplement!! We ranted a lot at the miserable receptionist. Three rooms, made in one booking - all the same rate. But they weren't having it. Getting a bit angry we decided to go to our rooms and sort it out afterwards. We got to our rooms - the doubles were twins with the beds pushed together, not even attached together so they didn't slip apart. We also called Expedia to query the booking, they confirmed all rooms based on two people sharing - we also had a printout that had the conditions on. Took that down and showed the Miserable Receptionist, she said didn't matter - only one name was given. Got the manager out who very relunctantly gave in and said "we'll have to call Expedia to check out contract with them about this." Some more ranting about the twin not double rooms and we got moved to proper double rooms. Grrrrrr.

The Radisson SAS the first time we stayed there - they knew about service!! Particularly when Dean twisted his ankle and we had to go to A&E and borrow crutches from the hotel.

I guess the moral of the story is always take confirmations, always get written confirmations of any agreements / rates.

Quicky word about Priceline, we have used them a few times and have always had good results. We take the view that if we aren't too worried about a specific chain / points we'll use them to save money. There is a good site that is essential for use with Priceline - Bidding For Travel.

Mat xxx

[RichardMannion]

Thanks Mat - that was the 'companion' site I was trying to remember the name of.

And yes, the Radisson SAS in AMS is fab (the city centre and the airport ones!) - and 1000 FC miles PER night!

Thanks,
Richard

I'm going from memory on this one so I will use the word 'Allegedly'.

Wasn't the Thistle group one of the hotel chains that allegedly raised their room rates on the day of the London bombings as so many people were stuck?

I just checked out their website (as I sent them a stinking email when I heard of the behavior on the BBC) and I'm fairly sure it is the same company.

I may be wrong though.

[honey lamb]

Last year we stayed in the Thistle St Alban's when Aer John went to the Grove for the first Swingers' Final. It was fine - more like a country home than an hotel.

With regard to Priceline I have had some excellent successes, especially when used in conjunction with the Bidding for Travel website. I've only had one disappointing hotel and have had the 4* Hawaiian Prince for $85, the 4* Sheraton in Seattle for $70, the Grand Hyatt in San Francisco for $75 and the Hyatt Regency at SFO for $35. Oh and the Tower Thistle for £32. Even though you do not know which hotel is going to accept your offer, with judicious use of BFT, I have managed to get the hotels I have wanted with one or two exceptions. If I have wanted a particular hotel and it wasn't showing up in the successful bids I have booked it directly myself and passed on Priceline

Gosh Richard - points - this was back, well before we even considered such things! I believe Priceline in the UK is now no more than yet another site such as Expedia - no more bidding. From some of the posts here, I take it they still opeate on their original basis in the US? I had no complaint with the room, I think we got it for aroun $70 a night (plus tax and tip, natch!) - no,it was the attitude of the staff. None of their damned business how I got the rate I did - I could easily have been a mystery shopper and if I had, they'd have failed abysmally!

Once stayed at a Thistle - it was at Gatwick and the night before a flight. Not a good experience. We were in a wing with no a/c (and it was one of those rare hot and sticky times in the UK!) - there WAS an a/c unit in the room, but it was old and very noisy. Mr cat spent most of the night fiddling with the damned thing, trying to get it to work smoothly. Hardly a restful night to begin a holiday with, and certainly wouldn't be in a hurry to repeat it.

Another one - the Radission on Lexington in NYC - we'd booked an exec room, but when we checked in, we were assigned a tiny and somewhat tatty room - we were less than impressed and glad we hadn't brought along the cat.... we don't accept these things anymore (years of bitter experience, I guess) and went to complain about the room, They showed us another, slightly better, but we were not happy with it either. As it was by then about 7pm, they hotel was full, so they suggested we see the manager the following morning, when guests are checking out and they are re-allocating room. We did so and were shown to a wonderful, wonderful room - which we happily accepted! It was large, light and airy, such a contrast to the brrom cupboard we'd first been shown.

I really don't find complaining that easy to do - but have found it to work, though I always try to stay totally calm and speak the the organ grinder. After all,what else can you do?

[Scrooge]

We used Priceline last Sept for a London hotel for the night,came up with the Riverbank Park Plaza which in all honesty was way better than the 00 pounds that we paid for it.