Re: Re: : Tue Jan 03, 2012 2:38 pm  

Mintball wrote:

gateaux wrote:

... Ignoring the awful breakfast - which you half expect for the price ...

I only have breakfast in a hotel if it's a work stay and the corporate travel agent have booked it. Otherwise, I go and find a cafe and get something there – far cheaper and usually far better too.

Spot on.
On business, I am often (always in fact) booked to stay in corporate hotels and am always booked Room-Only ... and I simply won't pay an extra £17.50 on the bill for breakfast, even if it's the company (or the client) that's paying.
Especially in London, there's always a much better breakfast, for a lot less money, somewhere nearby.

Same goes for dinner.

I save my clients a small fortune.

Re: Re: : Tue Jan 03, 2012 2:51 pm  

El Barbudo wrote:

Mintball wrote:

gateaux wrote:

... Ignoring the awful breakfast - which you half expect for the price ...

I only have breakfast in a hotel if it's a work stay and the corporate travel agent have booked it. Otherwise, I go and find a cafe and get something there – far cheaper and usually far better too.

Spot on.
I often (too often) stay in corporate hotels and we are always booked Room-Only ... and I simply won't pay an extra £17.50 on the bill for breakfast, even if it's the company (or the client) that's paying.
Especially in London, there's always a much better breakfast, for a lot less money, somewhere nearby.

Does anyone actually ever pay ridiculous hotel breakfast rates? I won't - if I'm not B&B, even when work are paying, I'll find a decent cafe somewhere.

Travelodge. Stayed with them twice last year after getting a couple of £10 rooms, once for my birthday and once near Xmas. Clearly aimed at the stag/hen market, facilities are about as basic as you can get, designed for functionality and low costs rather than comfort. The bed during my last stay was literally solid - no give at all. But then for £10 it's not bad when you're only there to get changed and sleep. Would never pay full rate and would happily pay more to stay elsewhere.

Re: Travelodge : Tue Jan 03, 2012 3:09 pm  

The T&Cs seem to provide:

15. If a room is unavailable on arrival (except due to an event beyond our reasonable control (see paragraph 26 below)), then, we will either:

provide a room, and any equivalent Extras which you have booked, in another hotel and pay the reasonable cost of transport to that hotel; OR

at your request, or, if in our reasonable opinion there is no suitable alternative hotel accommodation available, cancel your booking and refund you the money you have paid for the unavailable room(s) including related extras.

It doesn't say whose option it is, and so it is your choice. But it is "on arrival".

If they have told you the hotel won't be built then clearly there is nowhere for you to arrive at, and so certainly I would ask for my money back. I don't see what they can say if you do. Tell them you think the contract has been totally frustrated by the lack of a hotel, and so you want a refund.

Re: Re: : Tue Jan 03, 2012 3:22 pm  

Cronus wrote:

Does anyone actually ever pay ridiculous hotel breakfast rates? I won't - if I'm not B&B, even when work are paying, I'll find a decent cafe somewhere.

I wouldn't stay in a hotel that charged a stupid amount for breakfast.
Premier Inn and Innkeepers Lodge have decent breakfast offers that are more than good enough.

Re: Re: : Tue Jan 03, 2012 3:58 pm  

Big Graeme wrote:

Cronus wrote:

Does anyone actually ever pay ridiculous hotel breakfast rates? I won't - if I'm not B&B, even when work are paying, I'll find a decent cafe somewhere.

I wouldn't stay in a hotel that charged a stupid amount for breakfast.
Premier Inn and Innkeepers Lodge have decent breakfast offers that are more than good enough.

I stayed at an Innkeepers Lodge last year and declined their additional fee for a cooked breakfast but was overwhelmed by their standard "continental breakfast", and when I'm overwhelmed you can bet that I gave it a damn good go, in fact there were 12 of us in the middle of a 120 mile bike ride and we were ravenous but even after we'd finished the breakfast buffet still looked bloody good.

But for the hotel breakfast to beat all breakfasts you need to visit The Paragon in Birmingham, a former workhouse/workmans lodgings for Irish immigrants in the 1920s it serves for £7.50 a self service cooked brekkie that you will simply not manage to make your way around, believe me I have tried to eat everything on their menu and been defeated by the sheer quantity.

PS - its a proper hotel now, wouldn't like you thinking I'm staying in a workhouse or anything...

Re: Travelodge : Tue Jan 03, 2012 4:11 pm  

I had two and a half Wetherspoon's breakfasts once instead of one Travelodge (or similar) breakfasts. It was cheaper too. I would have had three, but the person I nicked the half off had to have their share first.

Re: Re: : Tue Jan 03, 2012 4:12 pm  

McLaren_Field wrote:

I stayed at an Innkeepers Lodge last year and declined their additional fee for a cooked breakfast but was overwhelmed by their standard "continental breakfast", and when I'm overwhelmed you can bet that I gave it a damn good go, in fact there were 12 of us in the middle of a 120 mile bike ride and we were ravenous but even after we'd finished the breakfast buffet still looked bloody good.

But for the hotel breakfast to beat all breakfasts you need to visit The Paragon in Birmingham, a former workhouse/workmans lodgings for Irish immigrants in the 1920s it serves for £7.50 a self service cooked brekkie that you will simply not manage to make your way around, believe me I have tried to eat everything on their menu and been defeated by the sheer quantity.

PS - its a proper hotel now, wouldn't like you thinking I'm staying in a workhouse or anything...

Not a fan of big breakfasts if I'm honest, just makes me sleepy and wanting to go back to bed.

A fantastic hotel breakfast I had was at the Royal Park Radisson Blu on the outskirts of Stockholm a few years ago. A lovely hotel and the food was plentiful and to a high standard, but what made it was sitting on the veranda in the sun, overlooking the gardens and lake, and accompanied by my colleague and several of our Swedish uniformed airport girls, who had come to meet us for breakfast.

Most pleasurable.

Re: Re: : Tue Jan 03, 2012 4:22 pm  

McLaren_Field wrote:

But for the hotel breakfast to beat all breakfasts you need to visit The Paragon in Birmingham, a former workhouse/workmans lodgings for Irish immigrants in the 1920s it serves for £7.50 a self service cooked brekkie that you will simply not manage to make your way around, believe me I have tried to eat everything on their menu and been defeated by the sheer quantity.

Yup I've stayed there loads of times it used to be the Bass Taverns hotel of choice, great to see it still going strong too. Both Bass and my current employer would never book a hotel that didn't have a good breakfast offering, and trust mke my current employer wouldn't be paying fancy money for it either.

Re: Re: : Tue Jan 03, 2012 5:02 pm  

Big Graeme wrote:

McLaren_Field wrote:

But for the hotel breakfast to beat all breakfasts you need to visit The Paragon in Birmingham, a former workhouse/workmans lodgings for Irish immigrants in the 1920s it serves for £7.50 a self service cooked brekkie that you will simply not manage to make your way around, believe me I have tried to eat everything on their menu and been defeated by the sheer quantity.

Yup I've stayed there loads of times it used to be the Bass Taverns hotel of choice, great to see it still going strong too. Both Bass and my current employer would never book a hotel that didn't have a good breakfast offering, and trust mke my current employer wouldn't be paying fancy money for it either.

£35 a night corporate rate inc breakfast

Re: Re: : Tue Jan 03, 2012 5:13 pm  

McLaren_Field wrote:

£35 a night corporate rate inc breakfast

I'm pretty sure we were paying more than that 12 years ago.
Does it still have the massive car park underneath?