Hotel kicks out disabled woman who wanted to pay £1.20 charge in cash

Is hospitality dead? 

It would seem so given the way a disabled person with memory issues was allegedly treated by a hotel in Manchester, England, where a standard double room costs £52.00 per night. 

Margaret Jones, 63, arrived in the city on Thursday evening for an overnight stay at the Britannia Hotel on Portland Street. She had booked and paid in advance and arrived at the hotel around 9pm. 

At the hotel check-in, she said, she was informed by reception staff that she would be required to pay a recently introduced £1.20 ‘tourist tax’ before she would be allowed to access her room, the Manchester Evening News reported.

The hotel refused to accept cash for the payment when she handed over £1.50 in coins.

The woman said that due to her memory issues she primarily pays for things in cash as she often forgets her card PIN numbers, which can lead to severe panic attacks. 

She was told she must pay the City Visitor Charge levy by card. 

“I don’t like using my card, normally I carry cash all the time,” Margaret explained to the newspaper. 

“I’m reluctant to use my cards because I don’t remember my PIN numbers. I know where I stand with cash, my cards all look the same so I often forget which card I’m using.

“I gave them £1.50 in cash and they refused it. They told me they don’t take cash, and I explained about my mental impairment, but they didn’t seem to want to listen.”

Margaret, who uses a mobility walker, alleged she was then told by staff that she would need to leave the hotel if she couldn’t pay the levy by card. 

“I tried to use one of my cards and it wanted my PIN number,” she said.

“They told me that I couldn’t have my room and I couldn’t stay there. They actually turned me away from the building - I was pretty much left stranded in the freezing cold. I didn’t know what to do - I was shaking and crying.”

Margaret says she then stood outside the hotel for around 15 minutes, before contacting a friend, who offered to pay the levy via the internet or over the phone. She said this offer was also refused by staff.

“I’ve offered cash, payment by phone or the internet, and they wouldn’t accept any of it. They didn’t seem to care.”

Margaret said she eventually found a card that she could use for a tap payment without requiring a PIN and she was able to pay the fee and granted access to her booking for the night. But she said the experience has left her feeling anxious and embarrassed.

“It’s ludicrous,” she said. “I thought cash was legal tender. I told them I was at another Britannia hotel a few months ago and had no issues and they just said ‘well, different hotels have different rules’. Maybe I’m being too old-fashioned, but surely there’s a way of collecting the fee in cash or something? Not everybody has cards.

“I don’t mind paying the £1.20 city fee but when I've already paid for a room and to be told I can’t stay there and turned away in the cold, I think there’s something seriously wrong with that."

The newspaper approached both Britannia Hotels and Manchester Accommodation BID for comment. They were apparently too embarrassed to respond.

I think they might have underestimated the damage to both the hotel brand - remember the name Britannia Hotels - and to the cold, bleak city of Manchester. 

And this is not the only Manchester hotel at the centre of a "hospitality" furore. 

The Maldron hotel chain has been accused of trying to cash in on Oasis shows next year by cancelling bookings customers had made before the dates of the band's reunion tour had been announced.

Lily Stroud from Newcastle told the BBC she reserved rooms on two weekends at a Maldron Hotel in Manchester for July 2025 after speculation about the band's return.

But the hotel chain cancelled her bookings after the tour announcement due to a "technical error", with the same rooms now listed as unavailable.

A spokesman for Maldron Hotels said there was "an overbooking issue" at two of its locations and it was not an attempt to "resell rooms at inflated prices".

I'm sure everyone will believe them. 

Prices for some Manchester hotels for the weekends of the Oasis gigs are currently double those of the weeks before and afterwards.

Nando's forgets it is in the hospitality business

 

I love a Nando's peri-peri chicken meal. Extra hot. Preferably with a side of fries and some coleslaw. 

Unfortunately, the South African fast food company has forgotten that the food business is also the hospitality business. 

Nando's refuses to accept cash for any purchases in Australia.

It is firm about its policy: 

"No order will be processed without payment and no cash payments will be accepted," it says.

So Nando's just lost me and - I suspect - a whole lot of other customers. I have credit cards up the wazoo. A debit card, too. 

But sometimes I have cash and want to spend it. 

And I am not keen on being told that legal tender is not acceptable. And there are old folk, poor folk, who maybe want to spend some small change.

So Nando's, you're cancelled.

It's so simple. There are a lot of businesses selling chicken in many guises.

If Nando's doesn't want your cash then you can just walk straight back out and find another local business open to all forms of payment. One that caters for its customers. 
    

American Express fails the common sense test

 

American Express take a bow. 

AmEx joins my list of major corporations that have failed to deliver even basic customer service in 2022. 

You'd think with technology improving in leaps and bounds that these big companies would be improving their offerings. Yet customer service varies from pathetic to non-existent. 

Among the major companies that have completely failed this year are Air Canada (incompetent beyond belief), and Qantas/nib travel insurance (ridiculously slow and deliberately obstructuctive). 

Throw in the Westin Harbor Castle Hotel in Toronto with its lamentable under-staffing and the inability of AirAsia to resolve issues with its absurdly named SuperApp, and I had plenty of issues with big companies during the year. 

But American Express must take the annual award for corporate stupidity. 

My monthly statement arrived today (December 28). And it must be paid by December 30, or I face a financial penalty for late payment. As AmEx puts it: "To minimise further interest charges". Even though I am actually not in arrears. 

But I have two days to pay, which is not only absurd, but you would think is also illegal. 

What a pity their "membership benefits" do not include some common sense. 

All those highly paid operatives and high-tech computer systems and it was beyond these boffins to send out their statements before the Christmas period, or to extend the payment period. 

Or perhaps no one told them that Australia Post takes a few days off during the holiday. 

Or maybe, which I strongly suspect, they simply don't give a shit. What a bunch of arsehats.