Travelodge Summer Sale
Thu, 7 June, 2007 – 10:41 pm
Travelodge is a chain of mainly roadside hotels, call them motels, around the UK. Most can be found on or near a motorway, however others can be found in the large cities and on major, non motorway routes. In other words, they're perfectly situated. We tend to use them when we go to Cardiff as there are a couple there and they're sometimes cheaper than a typical bed and breakfast.
So they emailed me yesterday with details of their Summer Sale. A selection of rooms (100,000) for just £15 a night each. Each room sleeps 2 adults plus it can sleep 2 children. They're all ensuite, with a TV. No breakfast included. However at £15 a night you can't go wrong. So I took a bit of a look on their site on Wednesday and found a place up on the coast, a couple of hours away from us and decided we'd go away for a long weekend if we could get the days. Just 3 nights away.
This evening the sale started so at 7pm I logged onto the site, put my dates in, put the place I wanted to stay and found no offers available for those dates. So I returned to the search to try again. That's when I was hit with a 'Server currently unavailable', and not only was it that the server was busy but it specifically said
Your access has been delayed to allow customers on the site to achieve a faster booking experience.
So not only was I stopped in my tracks but I was stopped to allow someone else to book a room! I tried to get back on the site, finally got a proper page but had lost my entire search so I had to start again, and again I lost my settings, and again, and again, and again, and, yep you guessed it. Trying to find some dates available at one of the hotels within the area was so tiresome and frustrating. Every time I did a search or had a listing and wanted to move on a week I would lose it all to the Server Unavailable message. Is that really a way to treat you visitors? I can understand why they don't want to block those who have proceeded on to the booking stage as quite clearly they can't risk losing the customer and their details, but only because the rooms were so cheap and I am so desperate to get away for a few days did I persevere!
So a note to Travelodge. If you're going to create a great offer, either get a server that can deal with the traffic you intend to receive, or block any newcomers to the site. Don't block the people already on there! Or at least provide a facility so that we don't lose our details and searches in the process.
Okay rant over. We're off for 3 nights at the end of July 
If you're lucky you may still find a few places still available.
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