Premier Inn Glitch Help!

Before spending the money on a phone call, I'd try to find an email address. I know that isn't always easy (and sometimes perhaps not possible) with Premier Inns, but sometimes you can find one. I've had some luck Googling for the Facebook page of a specific Premier Inn and looking there for an email address.

Unfortunately, Premier Inns don't always answer their phones. A couple times I tried to call and just got a recording that basically said "We're busy now. Goodbye." There was no opportunity to leave a message.

If you tell us which one, maybe someone here has a contact. I had an issue with the Premier Hub Goodge Street in London and it’s very annoying to waste money on a call.

Hi Imee, I have had that show up when I tried to switch a date on a reservation on Booking.com. I had some reservations that I wanted to slide one day. It showed correctly, but then the confirmation would be off by a day. I ended up cancelling the reservations and just rebooking.

My suspicion was that it had something to do with the time zone I was in vs. what date I was asking or the calendar date/time.

This is very good to know. We were thinking of waiting 'til morning before adding the international call feature because we were hoping that we'd get a response from them through the "contact Us" form by tomorrow.

I'm hoping to hear from someone who was/is in the same situation as we are but had received a favorable response from Premier Inn.

Jean,

We tried using a VPN set to Ireland, and it's still not showing the same date in the price breakdown as our chosen dates. We don't want to cancel yet because

1. We chose the cheapest fee, so we're not sure if it's going to penalized/ not refund us if we cancel.
2. We booked tonight because the one branch we were looking at last night is now fully booked and now paid $30+ extra for the nearby branch. We got worried and didn’t want to wait tomorrow to book.
3. We do not want to cancel and rebook because of #1, and then end up paying for 2 bookings.

I had a similar problem on the PI website where it kept changing the date of my reservation by one day; I kept having to cancel out of the attempt. I speculate that it occurs during the time period when the U.S. is a calendar day behind the U.K. (e.g., when it is 8pm on Jan 10th in the US, but It is Jan 11 in the UK). I think that I was able to get it to work by changing the time zone on my Ipad to UK time.

Acraven,

Did you call the generic Premier Inn number or did you call the specific hotel's number?

Laura,

Thanks for this info. I haven't tried this one yet—booking during the time we're still in the same calendar day as the UK/Ireland. I'll check this out after clearing the cookies and might try the "Amend my Booking" feature later in the morning. Although I just checked it now—already Jan 11 here and still doing the same. So frustrating. It's making our planning harder.

I tried the VPN set to Ireland but still did the same thing.

From my experience replies to the Contact us form are slow - last time I think it was about ten days. So I wouldn't have great expectations of that.

isn31c,

Thanks for this info. 10 days is too long.

I called the phone number of a specific PI. I'd guess the corporate number might be more responsive. Maybe. Communication with potential clients is definitely not PI's strong suit. It seems to be one of the ways the company keeps costs down.

Many of us have had the problem you encountered, or a version of it. In my case, the bad dates showed up mid-way through the booking process, but the confirmation was OK. It is a known problem of long standing, so I am pretty optimistic PI will work with you to fix it.

I think PI has an app; sometimes an app works better than the website. I haven't tried the app.

acraven,

Thanks for the response. We ended up "amending" the booking. Re-choose the correct date, and then "confirm booking". Now, the app reflects the correct dates, but NO email confirmation for that "amended booking".

We have actually booked one for Dublin and one for Belfast, which the latter charged us immediately; The emailed invoice from Belfast, just this morning, reflected the wrong dates. I surmised that the invoice has the dates that are "accurately" reflected on the hotel's system, that's why we "amended". No invoice yet for Dublin because I remember now that it said "pay when you arrive" (non-verbatim).

I'm still hoping that they respond to my communication regarding the issue because the wrong date they gave us in Belfast is almost $30 more! Our correct date is much cheaper. I read in the Terms that the difference will be forfeited. It was their company's mistake, though, which was why we had to "amend" our booking.

I have booked on the Premier Inn Website a number of times in the past year. It always shows confusing dates. Always arrival and departures are off by 1 day.

Just a couple of days ago I booked 3 reservations for an upcoming family trip to London in March and another for later in the trip.
All 3 of the reservations show the wrong days when I look at them online in My Bookings and also before confirming in the price breakdown per day. What is right is the number of days and the price quoted online for the days and dates entered in the search.

All 3 show the correct days and dates in the confirmation email.

This is not a new thing as the exact same thing happened on multiple other reservations over the past few years.

At first this was unnerving, but I was assured by hotel personnel that the email confirmation dates rule.

I had to book one reservation through their phone reservation center because it exceeded the number of days allowed for online booking. In that reservation the email confirmation is correct, but the listing online is wrong.

You can call the reservation number Mon- Friday 9AM-5PM UK TIME It seems this number has people that answer the phone. When you call an individual hotel, it is hit or miss as to whether it will be answered.

The number is +44 03330038101. (the +44 is the country code; dial it without the space)
You may have to wait a few minutes with a recording that says you will get the best rates online but when I connected, I was assured I got the same rate for my reservation.

You can avoid purchasing an expensive international calling plan by doing what I do for international calls:
I use SKYPE: Download their App and purchase SKYPE Credit... call any phone. $5 increments
Cost to the UK is .023 per minute. The credit can be used over time. If you don't use it for a period, it may become inactive, but they will send you an email to reactivate it. I use it from home to call international and within Europe if I need to call while on the trip. I have T Mobile with free data, but they charge $.25 per minute. more than 10 X the is. rate.

Good Luck! I know this causes a lot of stress, but it is resolvable.

MA Traveler,

Thanks so much for your message! It was definitely stressful! After I "Amend(ed) (the) Booking", the PI app reflects the correct dates and the new Belfast invoice. After what you said, it makes us feel better now that our bookings are correct. I'm surprised though that they didn't send emails to confirm our amended booking. We do have the Belfast invoice, though, so we feel a bit better about it.

I might try the Skype because we still haven't booked our stay after our very short trip to Belfast. Yes, we want PI, still, because it’s really cheap but decent enough for our family.

I really appreciate everyone's help/insights. I'm glad we don't have to stress over this for a longer time!

We’ve had similar date issues when booking hotels in Europe (including Ireland). One thing that seemed to help was to change the time zone setting on your computer (like to Ireland time). That solved the issue in our case.