I have an upcoming stay at the IC Wellington, one night either side of my wedding. It’s 7 weeks until check-in and I’ve just had an email from reservations saying they’re cancelling my booking, as the hotel will be closed every weekend in June / July for renovation work!

It’s fairly unusual, isn’t it, to plan a major closure and renovation work with such short notice? It’s obviously not emergency work (or they’d close much sooner, and not just for weekends) and I doubt it could be for generic refurbishment (which they’d plan much further in advance).

Besides the fact it’s my wedding night (not looking forward to finding a suitable alternative with relatively short notice), the way it’s being handled has been really frustrating:

• They called me at 3am (I didn’t answer) and left a voicemail. Surely if you’re calling a foreign phone number you’d think a little about time zones.
• The email tries to be gracious saying they’ll cancel the reservation “free of charge”, as though they’re doing me a favour not charging a fee (note - the booking is a fully-cancellable / refundable rate, anyway).
• They've provided no alternative accommodation or recommendations at all.
• I can’t get hold of the hotel reservations team to find out what’s going on, because they work limited hours and I’m overseas.
• Global reservations call centre team is telling me the email is a mistake, that the booking isn’t being cancelled, and that they’re just giving me the option to cancel to avoid construction noise.
• Hotel front desk aer unable to confirm they’re closing for weekends and will only say, “I’ve heard something about it, but you’ll need to talk directly to reservations.”

Perhaps most weirdly of all, the nights I’m booked for a still available to reserve on the IHG website, Expedia, etc! No idea what’s going on, and nobody I talk to is able to offer any actual insight.