Hotel "Fines" Guests £100 For Bad Reviews

[engine]

Whilst I don't approve of the poor quality reviews that are sometimes given, if it's an objective review why should the hotel make a "fine" to guests.

This is bad PR for the hotel, imho.

A couple say they have been "fined" £100 by a Blackpool hotel for leaving critical comments on travel review website Trip Advisor.

Tony and Jan Jenkinson posted the negative comment after being unimpressed with the one night they spent at the Broadway Hotel.

The couple, from Whitehaven, later found £100 charged to their credit card. The hotel said its policy was to charge for "bad" reviews.

Trading Standards are investigating.Hotel "Fines" Guests £100 For Bad Reviews [bbc.co.uk]

It seems that the hotel owners will stop making the additional charge to guests' credit cards.

A hotel that "fined" a couple £100 for leaving critical comments on a travel review website will stop making the charge, trading standards officers say.bad review 'fine' scrapped [bbc.co.uk]

[graeme_p]

Retired van driver Mr Jenkinson, 63, said the details of the charge were in the booking documents, but his wife did not have her glasses on and signed it without reading the small print.

Some people need a keeper.

[engine]

lol

But even so, is it reasonable to hold guests, or the hotelier, to ransom over reviews?

[graeme_p]

Of course it is not reasonable, and I hope they get the charge reversed.

I would take the existence of that clause as a negative sign - a hotel that needs it, is probably not very good!

[Leosghost]

The hotel had never heard of the "Streisand effect"..
( now they have ) ..;)

[engine]

If only reviewers were able to make objective reviews.
I have read a good number of reviews on some well-known sites and always read into the reviewer. I look at the other reviews they may, or may not have made, and try to assess the objectiveness of their reviews. I've seen a number of reviews by some people that has an axe to grind. It's all negative, and nothing positive.

I agree, the Streisand effect can be more damaging.

[ken_b]

Seems to me that we've recently (last year or so) seen similar issues here in the USA.

On the other side of this kind of thing ....
I stayed in a motel in the USA a few years ago that gave a discount for a positive review. They even provided a computer right next to the front desk to make placing the review easy. How handy was that!

[johnhh]

They paid £36.00 for a double room, that price may have been a clue !

[2oddSox]

It seems they're going to get a refund.

Horse. Door. Bolted.

[topr8]

>>They paid £36.00 for a double room, that price may have been a clue !

i agree, i had read that too, they also only went there because it actually had a car park - (fyi, not all uk (budget) hotels have private parking available) ... so i've no idea what they were actually expecting, especially at that price which is very low.

[johnhh]

Follow up: our sunday paper sent a reporter to stay. Verdict: a step back in time, but not the worst place he had stayed in. The sub-plot: don't believe everything you read on that TA site !

_{We once stayed in a hotel in Venice, before we booked the TA site comments included, "terrible hotel, said our Amex was bad, we had to go to the Amex office to get cash. blah..blah..don't stay there" Um, no, the hotel has a sign saying Amex not accepted, the Amex office was about 150 yards away ! The hotel was fine.}