"Avoid at all costs" York Hotel London Tip by Maryimelda

I can't describe my stay as I did not stay there as it turned out. They cancelled my booking because my credit card had been stopped when I was robbed in Rome a week or so earlier. They found this out when they tried to pre-authorsie the credit card payment the day before. Mind you I had stayed at a number of hotels between the robbery and my arrival in London and my bookings all proceeded as normal even though they knew the card had been stopped. It happens all the time. The Hotel York did not bother to contact me which they could easily have done as they had my email address and my mobile phone number. They saw a great opportunity to profiteer as it was Wimbledon week and they knew that they could get a lot more for the rooms than they would be getting from us as we had booked many months earlier. The desk clerk/manager showed no compassion and tried to blame venere.com for the cancellation. When I contacted venere.com they assured me that the hotel had contacted them and told them that I had cancelled personally. This was an unmitigated lie! We ended up having to share a room that was no bigger than a dog box in Paddington for four times the price! The worst part was that travel insurance does not cover this sort of expense and with the exchange rate between the Aust. dollar and the GBP being what it is, the experience cost me dearly.

Unique Qualities: The desk clerk was rude and totally uncompassionate to our plight. He quite literally left us out in the rain (it was pelting at the time) with nowhere to go and didn't care a fig! I cannot find words strong enough to describe how we were treated. I have today, checked the venere.com site and am delighted to see that the reviews in the past twelve months since I was there have been for the most part really bad. I am not the only person to find this place disgusting for a number of reasons. So I guess the good part is that I didn't have to stay in what is obviously a dump of the highest order. Not that the one we ended up staying in (the Hotel Royal Eagle in Paddington) was much better, but at least the staff were courteous and helpful.

Address: 27-28 Philbeach Gardens, , London, Greater London
Comparison: N/A
Directions: Earl's Court
Price: N/A
Theme: Hotel