I actually handle these, and its not fun for anyone. There are USUALLY 2 main reasons why this happens: Hotel purposely overbooks in the same way flights do, so they take bookings that have already been allocated to wholesalers. The other is the hotel sends a message to the wholesaler telling them to stop selling over a certain period, but this gets missed. The hotel could also neglect to pass this info on, as well.

I totally agree, these need to come to an end. This is going to be a huge bias on my part, but I think the hotels needs to start being more accountable for their bookings. Dont book at 110% capacity, that one is an easy fix! It’s really an issue of communication.

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I agree with your comments – especialy when you consider that the traveller has to pay the full amount for the holiday twelve weeks before departure. Surely once you have paid that early , short of something unforseen, you are going to take the holiday. If there are 250 seats on the plane and 250 people have paid, theny why double book, this works the same for hotels.

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The only problem is most hotels cant see what rooms have been paid for/booked until a closer date. Its to save them the headache of booking, cancelling and changing names multiple times but also means they only have a few days to resell the unbooked rooms.

That shouldn’t really be a the consumers fault, though.

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@ John like on planes they are counting on people not turning up, hotels and some flights get a number of no-shows (people who are booked on and do not turn up), other times it down to simple human error (paperbased systems). See Grahams comments above for more details.

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Having been in the hotel industry for many years now I have had to walk/relocate a number of guests. There are hotels, management companies, and General Managers out there who believe that overbooking by a certain percentage is necessary to achieve a perfect sell for their hotel.

There is something very heartbreaking to a hotelier when he/she turns down someone standing in front of them for a guaranteed reservation that never shows up (no-shows). There in lies the issue…guaranteed. The guest is guaranteed a room (either at their original hotel or a hotel they’re walked to), but the hotel is not necessarily guaranteed payment.

By that I mean, most people fight no-show charges posted to their credit card, and the overwhelming majority of credit card companies side with the cardholder. So, on nights when there appears to be a “city-wide” event, some hotels do oversell themselves and bet that at least some of their guaranteed guests won’t show up. It’s a gamble either way, you may have to walk a guest or guests or you may lose a chargeback battle down the road.

I agree that the overbooking practice should stop. But I understand the pressure on a hotel to sell out on nights that they have no reason not to. My solution has been to call and confirm all reservations 3-4 days in advance of a sell-out night. 99% of the time you catch those who are going to cancel, but just forgot, or those whose plans have changed.

We have both called and e-mailed guests to confirm their reservations when necessary. In addition, we call all in-house guests to make sure that they have a confirmed departure date. Sometimes guests will extend their stay and not notify anyone, better to find out their intentions 3-4 days out as opposed to check-out time on the day of a city-wide event.

I can proudly say that since we’ve employed this solution we have not walked anyone. We have also had nights where 1 or 2 rooms sat empty. To me, the revenue lost from 1 or 2 rooms sitting empty is not as bad as potentially losing or upsetting guests.

I don’t want to leave the impression that all hotels who do have to walk guests do so because they have overbooked themselves on purpose. Yes, some do, but there are also other explanations. Sometimes there is just a perfect storm, maybe a group extends their reservations due to their event getting rained out.

Maybe a maintenance issue has cropped up and rooms need to be put out of order. Graham (comment above) is very correct in saying that these issues are not the consumer’s fault. So, as a consumer, it’s best to be informed. When making the reservation ask the hotel what their walk policy is.

Look online to see if reviews of the hotel mention overbooking issues…you know if it happens to you the first thing you’ll do is go online and ream the hotel:) Ask the hotel if they have an express check-in option. I have had people fax me a credit card authorization form that specifically says to check them into the hotel and have keys waiting for them at the front desk.

Sorry for the length of this comment, but I know this is a passionate issue for hotel guests and hotels.

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Great comment from Leann

We are not in an ideal World, overbooking can happen in special circonstances

In the end, good hotelier know how to handle overbooking and give smart solution to the consummer, ex other higher hotel room with another hotel located near the hotel, dedicated advantage services, etc…

@Darren, suggest you read the contract guideline between Tour Operator and hotelier.
This issues and best pratices are adressed since years in this guide line.

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Well this is an ongoing issue and I am afraid it is here to stay for now.

This is partially due to the fact that most bedbanks or tour operator allocated inventory don’t talk to hotel property management systems (PMS) or central reservations systems (CRS). So unless you link properly your full inventory with all your distribution channels, there will always be a risk of overbookings because emails don’t arrive in your inbox or the fax machine didn’t work when needed.

To be honest I am one of those travellers who pray to be overbooked everytime I go on holidays for the simple reason that you usually end up to a better hotel that originally you booked for. So for me it’s happy holidays for me and my wife. That applies for flights as well. I was offered once a seat in business class for a London – Zurich.

Little tip from, never wear a short or your fave beach uniform when flying, as you will never get a chance to be upgraded.

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If I had booked a paricular grade of room for a special holday an excuse of double booking would not wash. I would simply demand to either get a similar grade room in another hotel in that area or my money back and a flight home. End of.

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We booked a hotel in Chicago and it was double booked. The hotel would not help us find an alternative. We would never use that hotel chain again and have told all of our family and friends about our experience so it is highly likely that they will too.

Never forget the power of word of mouth.

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When we arrived at out hotel in Sharm-el Sheik a couple of years back we were asked to wait in Reception then someone came to see us.They greeted us with the words theres a ‘small’ problem.

Well that turned out to be there wasnt a room for us [not what i would call small]. The hotel was overbooked and we would have to stay in a sister hotel [which wasnt as nice] for a few nights. Bit of shrugging etc….not really apologetic, but as it was 10pm what options did we have??

I did insist on speaking to the manager and making my feelings known. He did get us a room the following night and upgraded us for the rest of the fortnight.

The thing is this was happening for the whole 2 weeks we were there and people who were not as vociferous as me, coming back from this sister hotel to try and get a room and being fobbed off, night after night.

When I go back there we lots of comments on Trip Advisor about it so it wasnt a one off. What I think had happened is that they had an extension to the hotel going on and it hadnt got finished on time, but they had still been taking bookings.

We should have been contacted before we left home and offered alternatives then, not when we arrived late at night.

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You might be interested to read the reactions from hoteliers about the Hotel overbooking issue on this LinkedIN group http://bit.ly/egRD6

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If we are talking about holiday packages as opposed to business type stays then I agree double booking has to be stamped out. When a traveller has pay the full amount of his/her holiday ywelve weeks before they travel then how can the hotel/tour operator say they have double booked when you turn up at the reception. We have had clients that booked their holidays a year in advance (a party of twenty for a wedding) paid accordingly and the a week before travelling being told they had to be put up in different hotels – that is not acceptable

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