Sometimes complaining pays off

[Teamfixed]

I'm not normally one to do it but there's a limit.
So our recent little Welsh tour, Brecon-Hay-Brecon. Hells bells it was hot going over Gospel pass!
Anyway back to complaining! The B&B in Hay..... (a prominent pub in the centre of Hay)
Promised us secure bike storage before we went but told to leave them in the garden when we got there. Room not good, bathroom broken tiles, dead spiders under bed, impossible to see tv from bed, remote not working. Garden an abandoned building site. Dining room grubby. Broken furniture stacked up. Breakfast awfull rock hard poached eggs, told we had to make our own toast from a pile of bread fingered by other guests.
All this for £115 a night, so was expecting something quite decent.
So I complained via email in a very frank manner. Just received an email accepting my complaints and offering a FULL refund. Which I have now received.
Surprised to say the least!

 

[fossyant]

Tripadviser if that bad.

 

[Teamfixed]

Tripadviser if that bad.

Yes did that as well

 

[fossyant]

Yes did that as well

I use it quite a bit to weigh up places. We stayed in a lovely B&B in cardigan, and the main moan was checkout at 9am, but they didn't serve breakfast - it was just "Bed". Served us great as we were up and out, and popped to the cafe down the road. Just £113 for two nights. The owners had, by the time we went, changed checkout until 10am. By the looks of it, it was the owners who did all the room cleaning etc.

 

[Teamfixed]

By complete contrast, the Borderers in Brecon is great, really excellent breakfast, resposibly sourced ingredients, brilliant friendly and helpful owner and lock up bike storage.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Yes did that as well

If I do that I always put in their response, if there is one

SOmetimes a place has a bad day and it is not normal - but the above does seem to be structural!

 

[oldwheels]

Once when my wife was in a wheelchair and I was pilot we were blocked from using the lift on a ferry by selfish passengers who could easily use the stairs. A few accidental ankle thumps with the chair did eventually clear a passage plus another wheelchair pilot behind me shouting loudly.
I complained to Calmac and we got a very fulsom apology from the Managing Director plus a large and expensive bouquet of flowers for my wife as well as assurances that that situation would never be allowed to happen again. It never did so he did act.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

I'm not sure whether people don't complain enough or if they have low standards.

We've been to a few places over the years where reviewers have waxed lyrical over establishments that, to us, were sub-par.

 

[cyberknight]

I'm not sure whether people don't complain enough or if they have low standards.

We've been to a few places over the years where reviewers have waxed lyrical over establishments that, to us, were sub-par.

mrs ck will not complain about anything, its down to me although i have mellowed with age from ranty to calm and reasoned which seems to work better
Roofers had done the adjoining house and left the rear guttering unconnected / overlapped at different heights last week but you couldnt see it till they had gone as the scaffold was in the way so the 1st downpour and a literal stream came down right onto the gas meter so i went around to neighbour and nicely told them , next day it was fixed .

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

I'm not sure whether people don't complain enough or if they have low standards.

We've been to a few places over the years where reviewers have waxed lyrical over establishments that, to us, were sub-par.

I think it is important to tell someone if you had a bad meal, room or whatever.
If they don't known then they don't know to fix it!

We did have a really bad experience at an expensive hotel in Scotland - only one night but SO many things wrong
We complained and they fixed the immediate problems but others remained and we kept finding more substandard things all over the hotel

We gave it a bad review - which I don't normally do - and got a rather panicky response from the manager asking me to remove it but not addressing the issues. We put the review up so the corporate management would know what happened - judging by the response from the manager I suspect he was worried about that as well.