Edward M.

My wife and I spent one night in the Premier Inn in Alfred Street, Belfast. This turned out to be a very upsetting and embarrassing stay. First of all, when we checked in, we had to wait in a queue for 20 minutes to be seen, which seems a ridiculously long time to wait to get checked in.

Later in the evening, when we returned to the hotel, we had quite a shock when our room door opened and another couple came in to find myself and my wife not fully dressed. Apparently they had just checked in and been given key cards for our room. They were just as shocked and upset as we were. I called reception and told them what had happened, they apologised and said they would cancel all key cards for the room and they would slip new key cards under our door. After waiting an hour for the replacement key cards, during which time we were unable to leave the room as we would be unable to get back in, I called reception again. Apparently they had put key cards for our room under a room door... it just wasn't our door. Unbelievably, someone else now had keys to our room. You couldn't make it up.

I went to reception and the manager apologised again and issued me with replacement keys for the room. She refunded the nights stay, but I don't feel that this in any way made up for the embarrassment and distress cause to my wife and I by this unexpected intrusion on our privacy. The manager actually said that it has been a while since this has happened, so unbelievably this is not the first time they've done this.

When I was checking out the following morning the receptionist gave us a number for Premier Inn's "Customer Relations". When I called the number, and after waiting over 30 minutes to speak to someone, I explained everything that had happened. I expected more than an apology, but apparently it is company policy that they should only refund the price of the room, they would not offer anything more as a gesture of apology, all they gave was a meaningless apology and a promise to make sure it doesn't happen again... well I should hope it doesn't, but I very much doubt that it won't.

If we had been out of the room they would have been allowing people to enter our room and potentially steal from us, or we may have been doing what many couples do in the 'privacy' of a hotel room. I honestly have never experienced anything like this, and hopefully never will again. Also, the quality if the food was poor, but given everything else that happened it seems somewhat insignificant.