Web of intrigue over lastminute 'bargain' hotel rooms
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One reader finds a 'top-secret' Gatwick hotel in a lastminute.com promotion cheaper on its own website
Mary Petrie from Fife in Scotland was organising a holiday in Croatia when she came across lastminute.com's deal promising "top secret hotels – up to 45% off". She needed a room at Gatwick before flying the next day, so the website's promise that "these rates are so low our hotel partners don't want to put their names to them" seemed ideal.
She put in her details, and lastminute.com came up with a four-star hotel close to the airport for £73.75.
Mary has stayed at Gatwick before, and from the description guessed it was the Sofitel. So she paid the money, then received the "reveal": it wasn't the on-airport Sofitel, but a Holiday Inn half a mile away.
She was miffed. Had she really been given 45% off? As soon as she received the confirmation, she went back on to lastminute.com's website and searched for the hotel by name, rather than under the "top secret" banner. She was astonished to be quoted £71.31 for the same room, on the same day. Rather than receiving "up to 45% off" she had paid 3.3% extra. She also checked on Holiday Inn's website, and found a price of £71.30.
She rang lastminute's call centre. Why had she not got a discount? The man answering the call, who Mary describes as "rude and dismissive", refused to even deal with her because the booking had been made from a debit card account held jointly with her husband – and the operator said he'd only speak to her husband.
Later that night her husband phoned, and lastminute promised it would look into the matter. Two days later it wrote back, saying: "I would like to inform you that 45% discount varies from 1% to 45%, as it is not a flat 45% discount on top-secret hotel deals. I appreciate your understanding with regards to this matter."
Mary wrote back: "I do understand that up to 45% indicates a scale which may represent even 1%. You, however, seem to fail to understand it cannot mean an additional charge of 3.3%. What part of this do you not understand?" After achieving no resolution via the call centre, Mary wrote to lastminute's head office asking for a refund, and contacted Guardian Money. Lastminute says it will refund her money, and pay compensation.
A spokeswoman says: "This was a one-off incorrect pricing issue with this particular hotel, and we are rectifying it on our site. We will also be fully refunding the customer as well as further compensating her for any inconvenience. We really try to offer as much of a discount as possible to our customers on top-secret hotels; however, from a technical point of view, all hotels load prices themselves, [so] it is therefore a hotel's responsibility for making sure the discount is correct.
"On the odd occasion an incorrect price is loaded, and as soon as we are aware of it, we will take it down."
To be fair to lastminute.com, when Guardian Money looked into its top-secret deal, we came across a recent posting on TripAdvisor.com by a customer from Leicester who obtained a room at the Holiday Inn Gatwick via the promotion.
He wrote: "Got this for night before an early flight through top secret hotels on lastminute, paid £36 for the room, which even with the £3 fare to and from the airport remains a fantastic bargain."
TripAdvisor rates the Holiday Inn fourth out of 14 hotels in Horley near Gatwick and it appears to have many satisfied customers.
Why you should hotfoot it to Hotwire
Don't despair of "secret" hotel booking websites, writes Miles Brignall. Try hotwire.com, something of a North American phenomenon selling rooms in leading chains at prices that often undercut youth hostels.
The majority of the best offers are in the US and Canada, but it is possible to find hotels in many major cities, including European capitals. It is particularly good at offering four- and five-star hotels at prices more usually associated with two-star joints. Airport hotels are particularly cheap on the site.
This summer my family tried a house swap to Canada and it was suggested we use the site to find discount rooms in Toronto for two nights. I booked into an "unknown" hotel on Toronto's waterfront. After the booking we discovered we were in the four-star Radisson. Much to the children's delight, our hotel was under the CN Tower, and gave us two double beds and a great pool – all for £48 a night.
Booked direct, we would have paid around double that.
Meanwhile, our Canadian counterparts, it transpired, had used Hotwire to book five nights at a hotel in central London for which they paid less than £50 a night.
You have to pay for the room at the time of booking, and all the prices are in US dollars. The value of the rooms largely depend on the pound-dollar rate. You also pay any credit card charges associated with buying in dollars. However, the rates quoted more than offset these.
Booking is pretty risk free in that you are shown a map prior to purchasing the accommodation which details the hotel's general location. If it has one, the hotel's TripAdvisor score is also shown.
Mary Petrie from Fife in Scotland was organising a holiday in Croatia when she came across lastminute.com's deal promising "top secret hotels – up to 45% off". She needed a room at Gatwick before flying the next day, so the website's promise that "these rates are so low our hotel partners don't want to put their names to them" seemed ideal.
She put in her details, and lastminute.com came up with a four-star hotel close to the airport for £73.75.
Mary has stayed at Gatwick before, and from the description guessed it was the Sofitel. So she paid the money, then received the "reveal": it wasn't the on-airport Sofitel, but a Holiday Inn half a mile away.
She was miffed. Had she really been given 45% off? As soon as she received the confirmation, she went back on to lastminute.com's website and searched for the hotel by name, rather than under the "top secret" banner. She was astonished to be quoted £71.31 for the same room, on the same day. Rather than receiving "up to 45% off" she had paid 3.3% extra. She also checked on Holiday Inn's website, and found a price of £71.30.
She rang lastminute's call centre. Why had she not got a discount? The man answering the call, who Mary describes as "rude and dismissive", refused to even deal with her because the booking had been made from a debit card account held jointly with her husband – and the operator said he'd only speak to her husband.
Later that night her husband phoned, and lastminute promised it would look into the matter. Two days later it wrote back, saying: "I would like to inform you that 45% discount varies from 1% to 45%, as it is not a flat 45% discount on top-secret hotel deals. I appreciate your understanding with regards to this matter."
Mary wrote back: "I do understand that up to 45% indicates a scale which may represent even 1%. You, however, seem to fail to understand it cannot mean an additional charge of 3.3%. What part of this do you not understand?" After achieving no resolution via the call centre, Mary wrote to lastminute's head office asking for a refund, and contacted Guardian Money. Lastminute says it will refund her money, and pay compensation.
A spokeswoman says: "This was a one-off incorrect pricing issue with this particular hotel, and we are rectifying it on our site. We will also be fully refunding the customer as well as further compensating her for any inconvenience. We really try to offer as much of a discount as possible to our customers on top-secret hotels; however, from a technical point of view, all hotels load prices themselves, [so] it is therefore a hotel's responsibility for making sure the discount is correct.
"On the odd occasion an incorrect price is loaded, and as soon as we are aware of it, we will take it down."
To be fair to lastminute.com, when Guardian Money looked into its top-secret deal, we came across a recent posting on TripAdvisor.com by a customer from Leicester who obtained a room at the Holiday Inn Gatwick via the promotion.
He wrote: "Got this for night before an early flight through top secret hotels on lastminute, paid £36 for the room, which even with the £3 fare to and from the airport remains a fantastic bargain."
TripAdvisor rates the Holiday Inn fourth out of 14 hotels in Horley near Gatwick and it appears to have many satisfied customers.
Why you should hotfoot it to Hotwire
Don't despair of "secret" hotel booking websites, writes Miles Brignall. Try hotwire.com, something of a North American phenomenon selling rooms in leading chains at prices that often undercut youth hostels.
The majority of the best offers are in the US and Canada, but it is possible to find hotels in many major cities, including European capitals. It is particularly good at offering four- and five-star hotels at prices more usually associated with two-star joints. Airport hotels are particularly cheap on the site.
This summer my family tried a house swap to Canada and it was suggested we use the site to find discount rooms in Toronto for two nights. I booked into an "unknown" hotel on Toronto's waterfront. After the booking we discovered we were in the four-star Radisson. Much to the children's delight, our hotel was under the CN Tower, and gave us two double beds and a great pool – all for £48 a night.
Booked direct, we would have paid around double that.
Meanwhile, our Canadian counterparts, it transpired, had used Hotwire to book five nights at a hotel in central London for which they paid less than £50 a night.
You have to pay for the room at the time of booking, and all the prices are in US dollars. The value of the rooms largely depend on the pound-dollar rate. You also pay any credit card charges associated with buying in dollars. However, the rates quoted more than offset these.
Booking is pretty risk free in that you are shown a map prior to purchasing the accommodation which details the hotel's general location. If it has one, the hotel's TripAdvisor score is also shown.
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