It was midnight on a winter’s night in Wellington, New Zealand. I had flown from Australia which is not a long trip but it sill involves several hours of travel.

I arrived at my hotel. There was one guest in front of me. The guy said to him: “you are lucky I have one room left“.

I was so glad I had my printed confirmed booking.

I stepped up to the counter and introduced myself to the pleasant reception guy. He tapped on his computer, frowned, tapped again, frowned again and then disappeared momentarily. He came back with a very worried expression on his face and a sheet of paper. He did some more tapping and then said: “your hotelclub booking didnt come through“
I said: “I have a confirmed booking”
“not at our end” he said :and I have just given our last room away”
I said “yes I heard you. That was my room”
“whats worse”, he continued, “there is a convention, an arts festival and a rugby game in the same week as Parliament is sitting.There are no rooms in Wellington”


I then rang Hotelclub.com. So did he. The long and short of it was that Hotelclub blamed the hotel and the hotel blamed Hotelclub.com. They both rang hotels around Wellington looking for a room. The hotel got me one in the end in a sister property in a grotty single bed room. Ugh The hotel didn’t charge me for that night and upgraded me on the next.

I passed this as an isolated incident until it happened again last week in a different city at a different hotel. This time Hotel.club found me another room 50km (31 miles away). When I asked how I could get there, he suggested (seriously) walking. Again, the hotel blamed hotelclub and vice versa. Again, the hotel rescued me booking me at another hotel and absorbing what was a higher cost

I have  used Hotel Club 43 times since 2005. The two booking failures represent 5% of my bookings. Seeing I also use Wotif (NIL problems), Priceline (nil problems) and Expedia (nil problems),  I am less likely to use hotelclub and will now directly confirm with any hotel that I do book through hotelclub.com.

Anyone else used hotelclub.com or ratestogo.com to book accommodation? They are officially part of Orbitz who I thought were better organised than this.

I just want to plug in my computer and charge it! Why is that so difficult? So many hotel rooms have no outlets. Others have a couple but the radio and lamps fill them. I have had to move furniture,  work in the bathroom, squat on the bedroom floor all to get electricity!

Anyone else have this issue?

In an hilarious episode of Fawlty towers called “The Wedding Party“, Basil Fawlty decides to put an end to amorous dealings in his hotel.  It’s side splitting stuff-on TV- in real life another matter.

At a guesthouse I recently stayed at, the owners were a husband and wife couple. Check in with the wife, went smoothly, my room was in order and I was given good advice on where I could have dinner. Then I met the owner. He decided within minutes of meeting me, that I was after his wife.

He muttered to me: “I am watching you” motioning his hands to his eyes and to me. At this stage, I had no idea what he meant.

Having realised that I had left the Internet password in my room, I asked the wife who had provided it on check in if I could have it again.

The husband at this point demanded that I only speak to him and not his wife. In fact, he ordered me not to talk to his wife again-saying that I needed to be careful. I never spoke to the wife again.

This led to an evening of harassment. Every time “Basil” passed me, he would say “I am watching you” as he walked past me. At one time he called out across the lobby/lounge area: “Australian, I am watching you“

As I was working on my laptop, (there was no Internet in the rooms),  he came over to me, leaned over me and said: “you look nice. Good clothes“
I thanked him (what else do you do)
He said : “Planning on a date tonight? Or were you planning a date and I stopped it?”

I gave him a withering look and said that I had not even thought of planning a date with anyone. I didn’t speak to him again and went to bed half an hour later.

The next morning I saw neither of the couple as one of their staff was covering the morning.

When John Cleese and Connie Booth  were writing Fawlty towers, they spoke to people about real situations, hoteliers and guests had experienced. My incident would lend itself to an appearance.

As I said, it’s funnier on TV than in real life though.

Anyone else experienced unpleasant or harassment behaviour from a hotel owner?