So now we'll pay you not to stay with us

My first experience of booking out hotel guests came when I was a green trainee manager, and I watched as the reception manager of a large London hotel told the passengers from two 52-seater coaches that they were to be booked out to another hotel.

So vivid is the memory that it is highly likely that my utter disapproval of the system was born that very moment, more than 20 years ago.

Of course, I understand why some hotels choose to overbook and book out in this way. A night is, after all, a highly perishable commodity - you can't fill yesterday's empty bedroom today, nor yesterday's low-tariff bed space for a higher tariff tomorrow.

Provided that the final destination hotel is of equal or better quality, and that the price charged and location are the same, tour operators don't seem to mind that their parties will be booked out.

Unsuspecting

There are, however, other types of book-outs. A very important guest decides to extend his stay, or a personal assistant gets the dates wrong, all when the hotel is fully booked, necessitating the book-out of another unsuspecting soul. Or there is a simple overbooking.

Such a "mistake" occurred in my hotel last October, when a reservation was taken at a time when the hotel was fully booked - the perpetrator of this terrible crime was myself.

When I discovered my mistake, I made every attempt to contact the guest, to no avail. No other book-outs were available to us over the period in question - so what to do?

First, I used the problem as a training aid, which showed clearly how not to take a reservation, and arranged for a local four-star hotel, less than a mile distant, to accommodate our would-be guests.

We all know the drill: I arranged VIP treatment and negotiated the rate as best I could (this was difficult as our guests had booked our cheapest room and taken advantage of a special discount offer). So I paid the £40 difference in price for the first night's accommodation.

Apologies

On the guests' arrival, we offered drinks with our profound apologies, and said that for the second day of their stay we could accommodate them and make up for our unfortunate error by way of dinner or something similar. They decided not to return to us, so we checked that their journey to the other hotel and their stay there were satisfactory. We extended the reservation to include the second night, and again paid the extra £40.

Finally, I arranged a letter from myself to be on the gentleman's desk on his return to work. I again apologised profusely, and expressed our wish that he should stay with us in the future, when we could make up for our earlier shortcomings. I felt that, under the circumstances, no other compensation was necessary and I did not think this particular guest would be a problem - but more of that later.

At the time of checkout, the gentleman asked that the bill be sent to us. On receipt, we paid the account to avoid embarrassment for any party, and we wrote to the gentleman enclosing our account, explaining that he should now reimburse us for the lesser contracted tariff agreed.

I should point out that no monies had been taken in advance and we were now more than £200 out of pocket, plus the £80 that we had paid to the other hotel.

We had not received any communication of complaint and yet the gentleman wrote back to us and said that he was looking for damages.

We were shocked and amazed. Damages? What damages? The hotel that he was booked out to was 10 minutes down the road. He had not wanted dinner at either hotel, had chosen the cheapest room, and was clearly not looking for a hotel experience. Apart from a minor inconvenience, how could he have been damaged?

The impasse was finally broken by a county court judge. The result: I was awarded monies outstanding plus interest, but our opponent was awarded £100 damages ("like a Thomson's Holiday case," the judge said) and we were both ordered to pay our own costs.

Litigious

The lesson would appear to be: book out at your peril, and if you do, then expect to pay damages. And all this when it's hard to comprehend what damages have been sustained. However, one thing is certain: in this increasingly litigious world, it can only get worse.

Oh, and the reason I was confident that I wouldn't have a problem with this particular guest in the first place? He was a hotelier. There's nothing like being done by one of your own, but perhaps he was just passing it on!