Four-star Oxford hotel had no one to help with midnight emergency
I had an appalling experience at a four-star hotel in Oxford in November. I’d booked a room at the Ethos Hotel through Booking.com.
Around midnight we were woken by water dripping through a light fixture in the ceiling. There was no landline and no mobile phone signal. Reception, across the road in a different building, was locked. I dialled the hotel number from the street and was answered by a call centre in Cheshire.
The operative initially said nothing could be done, then tried to call the US-based hotel proprietor who didn’t answer. After much discussion he used Googlemaps to direct me on a five-minute walk to a flat in the next street where the duty manager lived.
It was unsettling knocking on a stranger’s door in the freezing cold in the middle of the night. No one answered. I had no choice but to return to the room and try to sleep while the water dripped.
The next morning I raised the issue with the receptionist who said it was beyond her remit and that I should email the proprietor in the US. I did and received an apology for the “inconvenience” and offering a free upgrade and one free night if I booked a two-night stay in the future. It did not address the key issue that there was no out-of-hours contact. What if there had been an emergency? I am astonished that a four-star hotel can get away with such behaviour.
AP, Norwich
Managing director Simon Walshaw’s response is prompt, defensive and inclined to apportion blame to you. He insists there is always an emergency contact located in the flat that you were sent to, but that, unknown to him, the member of staff on duty that night was knocked out by prescription pills for stress and failed to hear you at the door.
He denies it takes as long as five minutes to walk to the flat and accuses you of “taking an instant dislike” to the manager on duty the following morning, claiming that your “screaming and shouting” demands to know why no one had been available frightened her into defensiveness.
He claims that the leak was caused by loose sealant on the shower above your room and that it was fixed during breakfast. And he details his altruistic support of staff.
“The reason for the issue was the extenuating circumstances of our employee and her new medication,” he says unapologetically.
“However, in light of this incident, we are reviewing our internal procedures, and will implement a more reliable system so that this never happens again.” These “extenuating” circumstances were not mentioned in the initial apology emailed to you, nor were the allegations, which you deny, that you intimidated the receptionist.
It’s unclear how guests are supposed to know of the staff flat when it has no sign and is not mentioned on the website or check-in details and when the out-of-hours number connects to a Cheshire call centre.
An Ethos Hotel reviewer on Tripadvisor states that she had to find another hotel at 1am when she could not get her room pass to work and could not get help. Other reviews, months before your stay, mention shabby bathrooms and elderly sealant which explains the leak you experienced.
Booking.com takes a more sympathetic approach. “Having been made aware of this customer’s experience, we sympathise fully and have offered a full refund as a gesture of goodwill,” it says. “We have also removed this property pending an investigation.”
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