Unbelievable booking issues with Sofitel Heathrow - advice please
 

I was traveling with a group of friends last week, with some flights from the Middle East to the USA with a change of plane at Heathrow. Owing to a flight cancellation, two of my friends needed a hotel for the night, and I agreed to help sort this out for them. I went to lastminute.com and booked two rooms for two adults at the Sofitel, which I paid in full, and for which my card was charged.

Lastminute.com has an interface that allows you to put in the name of the person making the booking, and, quite separately, the names of the guests for the rooms, all of which I filled in clearly. It turns out that the first named guest got their room OK. The second guest was told there was no room booked for them, and they had to get out their credit card and pay for a room there and then. I've been spending several days trying to get the Sofitel to address this. Emails go unanswered to the accounts team, and the quality of staff at the end of the phone is so poor (and so linguistically challenged in English) that they are incapable of understanding and addressing the problem. I would welcome any advice (how to contact the GM, perhaps?) about how to get this resolved before I go out of my mind...

Advice?
Don't use lastminute.com?

Well, Tom, I did. And it was not lastminute who ****ed this up, it was the Sofitel. Do you have any other advice?

I don't know who is at fault. Maybe Sofitel screwed up? Maybe lastminute.com never made the booking and it was their fault? If you're not getting anywhere with either, can you try a credit card chargeback on the initial transaction, as the service paid for was not provided.

This may help

https://rocketreach.co/ryan-nicholls-email_5852116

Ryan Nicholls
General Manager
Sofitel London Heathrow Hotel

Found this on Google .... may not be uptodate.

I second this advice. I would contact both Lastminute.com AND Sofitel in the same mail informing that either they put their act together or a Stop payment towards the credit card shall be done within five days for failing to provide service charged. Five days later you send this mail to your credit card.

This way BOTH Sofitel and Lastminute.com become interested in sorting the issue or they lose the whole charge.

This is not a reasonable advice. A mishandled transaction by a receptionist causes similar damage to bookings done directly with ALL

This is simple. Presuming that you have a US credit card, simply do a partial chargeback for the value of the room on the grounds that the property did not provide the service. Then, to the extent that you are helping out your friend, send him those funds.

Presuming that they were on either an EU carrier or that it was the onwards flight to the US that was cancelled, both passengers should be claiming for the room under EC 261/2004 and returning those funds to you in any event.

Unfortunately for me they have had form messing up reservations. You really need to follow up before each stay to double check, esp if the person who made the reservation isn't travelling him/herself.