"It IS Legal" Hotel Chain Accused Of Oasis Gigs Price Gouging

let's talk to Helen judney uh because I'll tell you what uh there's one particular Hotel uh up in Manchester uh who took a load of bookings for uh the weekend that aases were supposed to be playing July 11th July the 12th July the 19th and July the 20th molden hotels um but suddenly uh the bookings were cancelled and then the runs were put back on the market but at a much higher rate absolute ripoff absolutely disgraceful Helen a very good morning to you morning so I mean I suppose some people might say this is you know blatant commercialism we live in a capitalist Society surely hotels can do this if they want to but it seems a little bit uh rude does it not to take a booking at a certain price then cancel it and say you got to rebook it at the higher price absolutely I think here that we've seen before that you know prices go up because of you know we see festivals and things like that but I think here what what really is is is annoying people is the fact they've taken the bookings and they haven't honored that price they they're canceling it and that they're also sort of say that there's a technical glitch when that clearly isn't the case yeah no right and I mean it happens as a matter of course and there's nothing most people can do about it but this is a particularly egregious scenario isn't it I mean unfortunately it's a bit like during the Euros um you know one of my kids fancied the idea of going to see one of the games but once you looked at the prices of the airlines you know instead of a normal kind of 50 ticket uh to Munich it was like 400 quid you know instead of a hotel costing you know 150 quid it was costing 600 Quid you know it does happen doesn't it absolutely but in those cases if you'd bought your ticket before you knew anything then they didn't they didn't cancel those tickets and I think that's what particularly appalling here and social media is R for people saying well I'm never going to use that Hotel chain again right and I mean in this particular case with molden hotels I mean if if you are one of those people who bought a ticket sorry bought a reserved a room on the earlier price and then had it cancelled is there any anything you can do there isn't a lot a lot that you can do I mean you can contact the CEO you can get the email address from CEO email.com and hopefully lots of people will bombard bombard that office with with their thoughts about it but certainly we're seeing people going right that's it I've never heard of them and I'm never going to use them so I think it's very very short termism but there isn't a lot you can do because it is it is legal if they've refund you then you know you're not you're out you're not out of pocket but certainly it's worth uh making your feelings now right because I mean technically speaking once they've accepted your booking that's a contract isn't it yeah I mean you could say it's an unfair contract term um for them to to break it but I think it would be very very difficult to prove it's certainly worth looking at the terms and conditions to see what they say about cancellations right um also if you've bought it from a site to say you've bought it from the booking.com they're saying that it's against their terms and conditions to cancel and then put it see that's an interesting one while I while I've got you on to talk about something completely different I I was away recently went to Montenegro for a holiday uh bought uh rented a car um through I think was through booking.com got to the airport to rent the car and they said oh you'll need insurance and I was like well it says here that we've already paid for the insurance and they went no no no you need special Insurance because it's Montenegro and I said well is it a particularly dangerous country um and they said oh yeah very dangerous so you need you need to you know somebody steals your car or somebody breaks into it or something like that so they more or less made it impossible to take the car away from the airport without paying for this extra insurance and it was like 300 quid for you know 10 days it wasn't cheap it was quite ridiculous and I think it's a scam and I've challenged it on on a credit card payment but but apparently a lot of people have had this happen to them not just in Montenegro but in other s of you know parts of Europe what could you do about that if you booked it with a you know a third party if you like what can you do it is very difficult but you need to do your research before you go um you know there's a lot of information out there about how to protect yourself and make sure that you you're getting all the cover that you need perhaps buying extra cover in this country which is going to be cheaper if you think you need that extra if you need that extra you can uh go to the alternative dispute resolution providers if the company's a member of them and take take the matter there as well so there are a few things you can do but it's very important to do your research beforehand and remember that your contract is with whom you gave the money so if you gave the money to to booking.com rather than the Car Hire then your complaint is with booking.com yeah and well they didn't want to know they were just like well do nothing to do with us you know we covered you uh if you decide to take extra insurance out that's your problem you know that was that's what we got from them but listen great advice thank you Helen good to talk to you the complaining cow not in a bad way obviously in a good way