A couple due to marry have been left devastated after a hotel cancelled their honeymoon reservation – because someone else wanted their room.
Heartbroken Rachel Padden and Matthew Steeples booked their favourite room in the luxurious Didsbury House Hotel months ago.
But their reservation has been scrapped because a wedding party made a last-minute request for exclusive use of the hotel for the same weekend.
Bosses at the chic Didsbury Park venue told the couple it made ‘business sense’ to cancel their honeymoon booking.
Rachel, a 29-year-old administrator, said: “We’re absolutely devastated. They were aware when we booked it that this was our honeymoon.
“They have an obligation to stand by it, not just to turn round and say: ‘Sorry, we can make more money elsewhere’, which is effectively what they have said to us. We’re disappointed beyond words.”
Celebrate
They have stayed at the hotel five times, going there to celebrate the anniversary of the day they met.
The couple, from Bingley, near Bradford, reserved the room in August so were stunned when they called the hotel to make an amendment to the booking, only to be told that it had been cancelled.
Rachel said: “This is the first part of the wedding we sorted out, before the venue or the dress, because it is so important to us.”
Matthew, a 25-year-old software consultant, added: “I’m disappointed, borderline angry. It’s not as though we left it to the last minute.”
In an email to the couple, reservations manager Libby Blears apologised, saying they had contacted the hotel before staff had a chance to call and explain the situation.
She added: “From a business sense we cannot turn away a wedding due to the booking of one room.”
She offered Rachel and Matthew a room in another of their hotels in Didsbury with half a bottle of champagne and a spa treatment.
A spokesman for the Didsbury House Hotel said: “We don’t make any comments on internal matters.”
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A spokesman for the Didsbury House Hotel said: “We don’t make any comments on internal matters.”
WELL WE DO - AND WE THINK YOUR ACTION STINKS!
Libby Blears - you should be sacked on the spot. Shame on you.
They were offered a room in another hotel and half a bottle of champagne! Who had the other half!
If they took the booking surely this constitutes a legal contract. Sue the swines!
Why half a bottle of champagne and not a full one?? This just shows greed really
If they don't honour the booking as made sue them for breach of contract.
HALF a bottle of champagne?!
I love it! OMG!
Is this really news??
Oooh Half a bottle of Champagne and a spa treatment... Definitely go for it, such a magnanimous offer.
Half a bottle of champagne!!!.. Unbelievable! Is it opened or unopened?
common sense not to stay at that hotel. if they are concerned about business, why get yourselves a bad reputation? surely they will now lose more business by this story than they will have gained for that one day.
Libby Blears, in the words of Lord Sugar.. You're fired!
Matthew - pretend to be upset and just think of the money you are saving !!
All the people of Manchester, listen up, tell all your friends/family/work colleagues/anyone you know NEVER book a room at the Didsbury House Hotel. Hit them where it hurts - their greedy little pockets!
This is a disgrace and the Didsbury House hovel are very much in the wrong here,I was thrown out of my room years ago at a hotel in the south of england when the open golf championship came to the area .The room had been booked for a period of two weeks two weeks in advance ,but because they could get twice as much for my buiseness rate from golfing junkies they threw me out at the start of the second week .But I sued them and was awarded costs and compensation which far out weighed any profit they would have made on my room.The company then blacklisted the hotel for use within its organisation and they subsequently lost a lot of buiseness and judging by the comments on this subject the Didsbury Park Hovel will lose a fair bit as well .
Mountain out of a molehill much? Yes it was wrong, but it's barely a life and death situation..
As long as you have written or e-mail confirmation of your booking it is a legal binding agreement. Go for the throat, the bad publicity and compo will outway what ever profit they hoped to make on the other booking
And nobody on here has ever messed a hotel about by cancelling a hotel room? Many say you can cancel upto 4pm on the day without charge and nine times out of ten they can't sell the room on.
So by the rules on here then the hotels won't be able to cancel on a guest nor a guest on a hotel. Works both ways.
My wife and I are booked into a hotel in London for two nights on the wekkend before Christmas but I have to cancel it due to a family do that has now been organised. The rooms for two nights are £600. Should the hotel sue me for £600?
There are people dying in the world!!!!!
Tell us the date Matthew, then the lads might be persuaded to picket the place for the appalling way you have been treated. Or just sue the buggers as it is breach of contract, that hotel room was essential to that contract and you had told the hotel that.
A half bottle of champagne? A measly five quids worth of cheap fizz....they are bloody insulting as well. Let the other wedding party go to the other hotel...they should have booked earlier if they wanted the lot.
No wonder the hotel doesn't comment...Didsbury House, you should be ashamed! I know where I will never go again...not even for half a bottle of cheap plonk!
reservations manager Libby Blears is a PR disaster.
At the end of the day, business is business and these are tough times people.
Hahaha half a bottle of champagne! Never heard anything so tight in my life..
I think the main question that needs answering here is why on earth have they chosen Didsbury as a honeymoon destination?
It's hardly the Seychelles..
I'm sorry for the couple and this isn't a comment on this situation, but in days gone by when I was courting the now Mrs Manchester in Scotland we would occasionally stay at this hotel when visiting friends and family. One new year's eve there were only a handful of guests staying and they upgraded us to a superior room (can't recall the name of it now) at no extra cost. The only downside was that Mrs Manchester got to have her own separate, luxurious bath and shower :(
With most customer service experiences we tend to remember most the disappointing, and understandably so in this case, but this hotel has always struck me as a business which will go the extra mile when it can.
So? Go and stay in another hotel. It's only a hotel room, not like the reception venue has cancelled. That's life I'm afraid, and there are more things in life to worry about!