Introducing London’s Hotel from Hell: The Imperial, Bloomsbury. No service – just nightmares

Crazed gremlins take over venerable hotel in frenzied bid to sabotage London’s tourist trade

If you read this regularly you know that every year I run my EADIM event in London. I find the best speakers I can, and that attracts people from as far away as Australia. 

As you may also know, Howie Jacobson Phd., author of Adwords for Dummies was one of my star attractions  this year.

But you couldn’t possibly know that he brought his wife and two children with him. Nor that the hotel we booked him into made his stay as close to hell as you can imagine.

So here is the grisly pantomime that passes for hospitality at The Imperial, Bloomsbury.

It all started with the booking. When my PA Kelly made it, she was passed from Business bookings to Private bookings on a whim of the receptionist, then to Group bookings.

They said there weren’t enough people to qualify as a group, and sent her back to Business and then Private. It took nearly an hour to book four rooms. For some bizarre reason It was impossible to put everyone on one booking

“Should have been a sign really,” says Kelly. 

Now, Kelly worked in the hotel industry before she joined me. She knows – as do we all – that normally you pay up front. So she gave credit card details for the bookings, but was told no payment would be taken before check out.

Just to be on the safe side she made sure the person who took the booking noted her phone number, as guests were not to pay for the rooms themselves.

A week later she tried to add an extra room to our bookings. It took nearly half an hour.

She called next day to change the names for some rooms. This took almost an hour. Once again she was passed from desk to desk. At one point she spoke for 15 minutes to a man who clearly had no access to the computer system to make the changes but was utterly flummoxed by this simple request.

After this hour or so of fun and games, Kelly was getting wise. So when she was assured the changes had been made she had everything read back to her twice to be sure.

She began to relax – only to get a phone call half an hour later saying “We’re not entirely sure what you are asking us to do.” She reconfirmed three times this time, and the woman at the other end repeated all the changes back, sounding very confident this immeasurable task had been completed.

What could possibly go wrong now?

Well, on Wednesday evening Kelly got an e-mail from Howie.

When he and his family got to the hotel the staff refused him entry because he was to pay up front for not only his room, but those of two other guests.

Kelly only knew this when Howie got in touch via e-mail after paying with his own credit card. The hotel simply demanded the money from Howie until he gave in.

How could the Imperial Gremlins cap this? Keep reading.

The next evening Kelly got a really alarming phone call. Howie and his family had been locked out of their rooms for non-payment/failure to provide pre-authorised credit card for the room. Yes; you read that right. He had paid – but they said he hadn’t

Not only had they locked the entire family out,  but no one from the hotel had told Kelly about this.

But it gets worse.

Howie asked to use a phone (visiting from US, no mobile) they told him it “wasn’t their problem” and he should find a pay phone. Which they refused to give him change for. He called Kelly.

She immediately rang the hotel to find out what possible, crazed reason they could have for this. They told her the rooms hadn’t been paid for; and no credit card information had been provided. Kelly asked how Howie had been allowed in on the first evening and was told “he provided a credit card.”…

Kelly then said: “Did you hear what you just said?”

Apparently not.

She then asked why payment for the rooms hadn’t been taken from the card she gave with the booking and was told they couldn’t take card payments over the phone – never mentioned till then. They said they would e-mail her a Credit Card Authorisation Form. Which they did.

When it hit her e-mail inbox she was alarmed to see that to fill out the form you needed not only a printer but a fax machine or scanner to return it. How lucky she was at home with access to one of these, and had it sent back to them in moments.

Was that all? Of course not.

Kelly called and went through the form with the girl on the desk to make sure the amount was right. She didn’t want to make any errors with Howie’s family locked out at 8pm. 

 The girl started listing room prices. And of course got them wrong – in the hotel’s favour.

Now Kelly was suddenly trapped in some kind of mathematical nightmare. It took another 5 minutes before the Gremlin conceded Kelly was, in fact, right.

Kelly had specifically requested in her e-mail that someone from the hotel let her know the form had been received and Howie and his family allowed into their room. After half an hour she rang them and was told “Oh yeah that’s all sorted”.

When Kelly complained to the receptionist her attitude was three hundred miles south of “I don’t give a shit”.

She told Kelly the Head Receptionist had taken her original booking so Kelly must have misunderstood in thinking payment would be taken on check out. Also Kelly should never have made a personal booking. It should have been a business booking. (Remember: that’s what she tried to do to start with).

Meanwhile, three other bookings Kelly made for this loony bin were all allowed to come and go as they pleased, with only the credit card information Kelly gave when making the original booking. None were asked to pay a penny before they checked out.

 On the final evening of Howie’s stay he requested they print his boarding passes for his family, flying back on the Sunday morning. A task that took the talented staff at the Imperial 45 minutes.

These people made Fawlty Towers look like The Ritz. I guess the only training they give their staff is 30 minutes on how to say “F**k off” in seven languages.