TWO MAJOR ISSUES I and my family have encountered at one of your establishments. I am hoping that…read moreas head of your business, you will have better sense than the employees working for you and that you will be able to do something to rectify the situations -
1. DISCRIMINATION - I am an Asian woman, born in the Philippines; but a naturalized American citizen for a few years now. I am traveling to England because my English husband who was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon has a filming job here, for his journalism job. With us are our 8-month old baby and 3 year old toddler. And because I cannot handle both kids on my own, whilst running my production/tv show business in America, we asked my Filipino parents to join us.
Last night, at Beefeater in Longwall, we tried to book a table for us (minus my English husband). We were three Asians + 2 children. And upon seeing us, the person at the reception simply (and rudely) told us that "We don't have a table for you here." I asked how we could eat, as we were also hotel guests; and his suggestion was to order at the bar, and collect the food and eat in our room.
We had no choice so we queued up at the bar, to order. BUT.... I looked back and saw that the white folks behind us, party of four, were promptly seated at the restaurant. When I confronted the guy, he simply said there was no room for us! Why was there no room for us; yet there was room for a group of white folks? I asked to complain to the manager, And Peter (he said his name was) said he was the manager. I asked for his last name. He said he "didn't have to tell me that."
Two other people in line for table with us saw the whole thing and told us that was unacceptable. And that as DISCRIMINATION. They are English, and gave me their business card, saying they were willing to act as witnesses of this case, should I need to escalate it.
2. FRAUD - We booked two nights at your facility; but decided we wanted to stay one more night, to give us a chance to explore the Cotswolds. Despite this experience, (and maybe naively so) my parents and I decided to extend our stay one more night, because it's an inconvenience to haul two little children + each of their stuff + my stuff + my parents' stuff, to a different hotel. So this morning, I tried to extend our stay and booked one more night.
I was advised by Maria at the front desk that online rates are cheaper. So I did book online. But as I sent all my information, the system crashed and I got a "failed to complete" message.
Naturally, since it said "failed to complete", I redid the whole process, causing me double the hassle. And that second try went through.
But alas, when I cleared with the reception, I was told BOTH BOOKINGS WENT THROUGH. I called my credit card company, and was told there were two authorizations of the same booking.
Your employees' solution was to give me the email for guest relations and told me "but we cannot guarantee a refund. That will be up to the discretion of the guest relations person who will receive your email."
Do you think this is fair? Do you think we deserved to be discriminated against, just because we're Asians? Do you agree that your Beefeater restaurant would have no table available for an Asian family?
