At Lucknam Park last May we did a merry little dance. I booked a third tier garden room for two nights through Relais & Chateaux in the expectation of an upgrade. This didn't happen, though the hotel was far from full. The duty manager showed us to the room which was appalling - it was tiny, cramped, quite shocking really for about £400 per night, and there wasn't a walk-in shower which we had specifically requested and which had been confirmed on booking.

We refused the room and said we'd prefer to leave the hotel altogether. The manager showed us a dark but spacious full ground floor suite and said we could have it for only £200 per night extra which was cheap because the room would normally sell for about £1000. We said as R&C members we thought we might just get an upgrade. No, we wouldn't. It was obvious that a half bottle of champagne was the only R&C benefit on offer. And then the manager told us 'there is a lot of interest in this room for tonight.' This was about 4pm and lots of people, it seemed, were phoning up about this room for this very night. Ho ho. I think we knocked him down to £100 extra per night and agreed to pay that. Later that evening, the shortcomings of this suite became apparent - broken this, broken that, a kettle without a nearby plug socket, a shower that was mis-directed, a litany of stuff. We called another duty manager and she waived the extra cost.

I'm normally fairly relaxed about service glitches but this was seriously bad management. We wasted about an hour when a moment of generosity would have given us a wholly different attitude to this hotel. We left with a sour taste in the mouth.

I've enjoyed my fair share of upgrades but I'm always amused/amazed when so many hotels would rather have an empty room and no income than someone occupying the room at a discount.