Ramada London Stansted M11 — Hotel in Uttlesford

If I could give no stars I would. We arrived to stay the night before taking an early flight from stanstead and we live 4 hours away and thought it would be easier and less tiring. The woman on the desk asked what floor we would like to go on I said ground floor, she then said no sorry it's not available you can go on the top floor. I didn't see the point in her asking in the first place! Then we got to the room and it was tiny, shabby and dirty with dirty water marks all down the wall and crumbs all over the floor. I went to reception and asked politely if we could move rooms and explained why. The receptionist said they were fully booked but what she failed to do was hide her clipboard which had all the people on and what rooms. There were about 20 maybe more empty rooms on that clipboard. Never the less she moved us to the room next door. Exactly the same shabbiness as the first and dirty floors (they should invest in a hoover) but no dirty water marks on the wall so I didn't ask to move again. We attempted dinner in the restaurant, and were told to take a seat and the waitress would be with us shortly. It was the same woman who checked us in and didn't have the first clue about waitressing. The 4 other tables in there were obviously too much for her to cope with as she ignored us for 15 minutes then we overheard her telling another couple there would be no more orders taken for half an hour due to too many in the kitchen, we didn't even get offered a drink! We ate at harry ramsdens which was better than expected. Onto the worst part.....the bed! Oh my days.....the worst bed we have ever slept on! My husband will fall asleep anywhere and even he struggled on this piece of cardboard. We think a park bench would have been comfier. I managed about 2 hours sleep and would have been better of driving from home to the airport than staying here and paying £92. The only good thing I can say about this hotel is the airport parking was only 8 minutes away, but like I said it's not worth paying the money to stay in this hole. When we checked out the morning staff didn't even ask us how our stay was, they are obviously used to receiving bad feedback by looking at the previous reviews. I didn't even bother to say anything as they looked clearly uninterested about their...

A very cheeky/ mean Hotel that refuses to cancel even if contacted 20+ days in advance; they just parrot the fact that the booking made (via Agoda - a booking portal) was non-cancellable. While one would understand if it were a remote place where new customer(s) may not materialise and that they have a need to protect the money flow, it won't/can't be the case here. Being so close to Stansted Airport means an assured steady steam of visitors and people looking for rooms online.

In my case, there was a genuine reason to seek cancellation due to our son's school changing plan with regards to drop off timing/ method and it made no sense to arrive the previous night at Stansted, for early morning drop off. I attached the evidence too, from the school. Online submission to seek cancellation was declined nearly instantly - as if it was by a knee-jerk magnetic repulsion. I thought it's perhaps 'rules driven' bot response. I, therefore, called the reception; the person who answered said unfortunately she can't do anything as it's the same rule when contacted over phone too. Really ? There was not even a possibility that if it gets booked they'd consider a refund. Clearly, there must be a way for neither party to get hurt. Does a chain like Ramada can't empower a person staffing the reception to make a judgement on the case, if it's more than 3 weeks notice ? The receptionist didn't allow a change of date either - to make use of the stay for general tourism at a future date. No ifs. No buts. Money committed is a ransom they'd not let go of.

As days approached, I kept receiving reminders for the 'upcoming stay' and each time I looked at it - I felt sick; what a waste of money and resource, I thought.

On the day of supposed check-in the receptionist called up to check if I am indeed checking in or not? That's a new low. It essentially means, they do make a sticker note against bookings where they suspect a person may not turn up and call them to check so that they could 'free it up' to someone else and receive rent from them too whilst gobbling up the money already committed by the other. SHAME ON YOU, RAMADA. You...

We booked a room here the night before our flight (to save driving down for a 2.5hr drive on the day of our holiday).

We have used this hotel before, so I felt assured in re-booking a room here.

❌️However, this time, on the day we were due to drive down to the hotel, our vehicle was not safe to drive owing to a fault, and our dealership advised we should not drive our vehicle. We were then left having to run around to find transportation and would thus have no need to stay at the hotel.

❌️We called Ramada to explain what had happened so that we could cancel our booking and request a refund - the only time we have had to do so. But, Ramada refused to refund us and instead offered to change the date of our stay - when we would have no reason to stay at Stansted now or in the near future. ⁉️ A non-sensical suggestion ⁉️

We explained again what had happened.

❌️Instead of helping, Ramada's advice was to contact Agoda (whom we had booked through) and assured us that despite doing this, a refund would still not be possible via them.

✅️So, we spoke to Agoda instead. They were more than happy to refund us and understood exactly what had happened and were very empathic.

❌️Agoda are waiting for confirmation from the hotel to honour our cancellation and refund, yet Ramada are simply ignoring them. Can you please check your emails and correspondence and respond to Agoda to process our refund? ❗️

❌️I can't believe you're still inconveniencing us whilst we are abroad. We are having to run around trying to get this sorted.

We didn't get a refund. Absolute...