Deposit request for room reservation

Your payment will rest with Secret Escapes untill the day of
your reservation arrives - and even later for the Hotel you
book. As an aside , Booking.com pay the hotel up to 6 weeks
after the initial booking ie if you book and pay on the 1st of the month, the hotelier is payed the second week of the FOLLOWING month.
As you can cancel up to 8 days before , your Hotel can still miss out on other bookings if you choose to cancel. Hence they ask for a direct £30 deposit so they get some cushioning on the deal. A bit unusual and new but can't blame them.

Penalty, not penalisation. Why invent a new complicated word where a pefectly good one exists?

A deposit is not a penalisation. It is partly paying for what you know you are about to use. You are not paying extra. Your final bill will be minus what has been paid already as a deposit.

Kim19 You are a stranger to the hotel owner/manager. In that you are in exactly the same relationship to him/her as the people who failed to turn up to use rooms that had been set aside for them, losing the business the money that a different customer would have paid. He/she doesn't know yet that you will be different.

You may well be the most perfect guest in the whole world and a delight to do business with, but until you have booked, turned up and paid, he/she doesn't know that.

Once bitten twice shy. With the experience of increasing numbers of people who "buy" accomodation which is then not paid for and cannot be sold to anyone else an owner quite reasonably decides that part of the cost from every customer must be paid in advance - which will be taken off the bill once you have arrived, but charged if you don't arrive.
The alternative is to raise all prices so that the no-show-no-pays are covered by everyone else.

You own level of honesty and consideration is not being questioned by being asked for a deposit.

KIm19 You know that but how can the hotelier or restauranteur? If they knew which potential customer was going to let them down, then they would not accept their booking.

All they can do to protect their business is ask for a deposit and hold it if the person is a no-show or cancels at short notice. If you are never a no-show, you have nothing to worry about you will never be having to lose money by not turning up.

It has been standard practice in the travel trade, for years. Try booking a plane or ferry flight. The chances are you will need to pay the whole fare when you book, with mimimal repayment opportunities if you want to even move your booking once booked and paid for.

Monica, I don't do 'no shows' and don't expect to be penalised for others' shoddy behaviour.

I did not say it was booked on Booking.com, it has been presumed by everyone to be so. In fact it was through Secret Escapes and upgraded at the time, which is why I queried the £30 deposit for the particularly chosen room number. No reason supplied by hotel and it will pursued at check-in. Thank you again.

langlei I am completely confused. As I understand it:

You paid the full cost of the room at the time of booking through booking.com.

You were then contacted yesterday, by the hotel, and asked for a further £30 as a ‘deposit’.

You did not pay the extra, but will still go ahead with your stay.

Is this correct?

This is difficult to understand. You say in your OP that you did not bother. Was that paying the extra ?

You didn’t say that though. Presumably you asked the hotel for the reason.

Thank you for all your responses but I would point out this reservation was paid IN FULL at the time some while ago with the proviso of no refund if cancelled later than 8 days of the visit. This is why I cannot understand the request for an extra £30.

LRavenscroft

It is not unusual nowadays. There are so many no shows that businesses need to cover themselves. The hotels where I live take a card number as security to hold the room and you can cancel up to 48 hours in advance and no charge, 24 hours, 50% and no show full price.

Think of the deposit as a cover to doing business.

My husband won't jot a job date in his calendar for less deposit than costs he'll be ordering for engineering a job. Typically many 1000£.

It is not unusual nowadays. There are so many no shows that businesses need to cover themselves. The hotels where I live take a card number as security to hold the room and you can cancel up to 48 hours in advance and no charge, 24 hours, 50% and no show full price.

Kim19 Most hoteliers include all the requirements governing deposits in their terms and conditions and you are free to go elsewhere if, having read them, you decide they do not appeal to you.

I do not think there is anything 'goodwill' about them, and why should there be? Non-shows and last minute cancellations are a key factors in many businesses business plan. Including doctor's and dentist's practices, hairdressers, as well as hospitality from restaurants to hotels, spas and everything else.

If we want all these services to remain they need to be financial viable so with heavy costs for running premises and employing staff, it is reasonable for then to expect those booking their services to pay a deposit and forfeit it if they do not appear.

I don't mind paying a goodwill deposit as long as it will be refunded in full of I have occasion to cancel within a reasonable (and specified) time span.

We have friends up the road who have a small Hotel- groups book all the rooms, with half board- rooms are cleaned, prepared with crisp linen, food bought in and some prepared in advance- late bookings refused, and then no-one turns up. Heart breaking and so costly for a small business, especially after Covid losses.

If you are going to turn up then I do not see a problem with paying a deposit.

There are many people that cancel the day before or simply don't turn up for a booking, the same should apply to restaurants.

eazybee

I had lunch at a popular and expensive hotel some time ago where they were expecting a group of seventeen people for a birthday lunch. No-one turned up; the contact numbers and address all proved to be false, as was the credit card number.
Why would people do that? It was obviously pre-planned.

and thatis why they now ask for good deposit!

It sounds like a vexatious ex-employee to me who knew how poor their booking system was!

If they had used the credit card to take a deposit they would have found out straight away that they were ‘being had’. It seems to me to be good business sense to take a deposit, all the more so for such a large booking.

That sounds like competitors trying to spike their guns.

I had lunch at a popular and expensive hotel some time ago where they were expecting a group of seventeen people for a birthday lunch. No-one turned up; the contact numbers and address all proved to be false, as was the credit card number.
Why would people do that? It was obviously pre-planned.

Posted too early. Meant to say that no money taken in advance as a ‘deposit’.

I booked with Premier Inn and Booking.com last week and neither had a deposit option.

Pay now for a cheaper non-cancellation rate, or provide card details in case of a- no show or late cancellation . No money taken in advance.

Jaxjacky

We regularly use booking.com. Not experienced this yet, but last booking was November, currently booked for this November.
If it helps to keep a business afloat, I’ve no problem with it.

I think my concern when I received this email was wondering if it was genuine or a scam, simply because I'd never had anything like it before from Booking.com before, I've used them quite a lot, and it was somewhat contradictory to the terms of the original booking.