We booked this flat for my family to come and stay in for my graduation. We had the place booked well in advance and were quite excited given the occasion.
7 days prior to arriving, I was messaged by Hopewells to inform us they had to cancel our booking due to ‘emergency repairs’ which were never further explained. They did however offer 2 alternative flats, one far into Bedminster and the offer up in Clifton. The other option was to cancel for a full refund. This would have been a good option had there been any other flats available to book through Airbnb, but at such short notice this was impossible. That’s why we booked in advance.
We had booked this flat as it was by College Green, which is where I was graduating. My mother struggles to walk far so it was perfect. I explained to Hopewells that it was unfortunate they had to cancel but I appreciated the alternatives; I explained my mothers issues with walking and asked if they would provide some form of compensation along with the replacement booking. I was met with cold responses and arrogance, they believed 7 days was plenty of notice.
Had I cancelled our reservation 7 days prior to arriving, Hopewells would have kept all my money. However they were more than happy to throw us into a completely different booking, not close to where we needed to be. When I asked in regards to a possible 25-50% compensation, they said they would pay for one taxi ride to my graduation, as long as I showed them a receipt, this would have been about £10.
So £10 was the level of compensation they would offer for cancelling our original booking. On top of this, when we got to the flat we had been moved to, we noticed it was dirty and grubby. Then we found 2+ week old, rotting chicken in the oven that had been cooked and left by a previous guest. Hopewells did say the cleaners would come and sort it out the next day, someone had been but nothing had been cleaned or removed.
All in all, Hopewells were very unhelpful and then had the audacity to suggest we would be charged £15 for every hour we stayed after a 10am checkout. I asked given our experience, could we at least checkout for 11am however this was declined.
I highly recommend that the landlords of this property look for different management and I also suggest to anyone looking to book with them to avoid.