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Venue cancelled provisional booking

kingofburt

First time posting in this forum!! We got engaged before Christmas and instantly went looking for venues. We visited quite a few in the west of Ireland and settled on one place. The wedding coordinator advised us to provisionally hold the date, which we did and emailed a few questions later that evening.

This morning we got a reply to our questions, but also telling us that the date was no longer available as the venue has booked for a drinks reception between us sending our last email and receiving the reply this morning.

Is this a normal occurrence? Seems very poor form, we didn't even get an apology, just a "I have a little bad news". Thankfully we have been able to confirm a different venue that we like but is this what I'm in for in the next year, unprofessional service and zero trust while paying a premium for it!:pac:

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NSAman

kingofburt wrote: »

while paying a premium for it!:pac:

Did you put a deposit down? If not you haven’t paid anything for it.

If you did, you have a contract.

Otherwise, someone got there before you.....

kingofburt

No deposit, just a provisional booking on the wedding coordinators advice. She was on holiday for a week between us holding the venue and her replying to us so never gave us the opportunity to put a deposit.

I just thought it was a lousy thing to do, why bother taking provisional bookings if you don't honor them?

NSAman

kingofburt wrote: »

No deposit, just a provisional booking on the wedding coordinators advice. She was on holiday for a week between us holding the venue and her replying to us so never gave us the opportunity to put a deposit.

I just thought it was a lousy thing to do, why bother taking provisional bookings if you don't honor them?

Money talks.... alas

sweetie

It does seem lousy, i think you're better off out of there if that's how they do business.

jimmycrackcorm

kingofburt wrote:

I just thought it was a lousy thing to do, why bother taking provisional bookings if you don't honor them?

What do you think provisional means?
If it was an actual booking then yes it might be lousy but otherwise it didn't mean its definite until confirmed.

Plumbthedepths

What I take from your post is that a provisional booking was made, no deposit paid to venue after a week. Other confirmed booking has the date. I don't think the venue is at fault here.

cruizer101

kingofburt wrote: »

No deposit, just a provisional booking on the wedding coordinators advice. She was on holiday for a week between us holding the venue and her replying to us so never gave us the opportunity to put a deposit.

Maybe it was booked before your provisional booking even went in. Maybe you asked her to hold, she emailed hotel but they got back to say was already booked but you didn't hear this until she got back from holiday.
Maybe it was provisionally booked but they said we have another booking with money need to hear back from you in day or two but coordinator was away on holidays.

When there is third party between yourself and the hotel its hard to know the exact timing of what happened when, who booked first etc.

kingofburt

Looks like I had the wrong understanding of provisional booking. A few other venues wouldn't let us book a date as it was provisionally held so I assumed that meant it was held for both parties to sort contracts and payments.

What's the point of a provisional booking then?

Toots

Was the wedding coordinator one who you hired yourself, or was it the hotel coordinator?

Plumbthedepths

kingofburt wrote:

What's the point of a provisional booking then?

Venue's are entitled to use their discretion, there is no set industry standard. A deposit secures a venue not a provisional booking.

c6ysaphjvqw41k

I would think its actually pretty poor if you were still within your provisional booking period. As in if they said you had a provisional booking for 2 weeks and you got back within that timeframe to confirm and paid your deposit or at least were in talks to organize paying your deposit, they should have kept it.

I regularly book large events for my company multiple times per year with huge room block bookings, rooms for dinner and meeting/event rooms. We occasionally come across hotels that are already provisionally booked for weddings or other corporate events and will usually say to us, its provisionally booked but let me talk to the other party and ask if they want to confirm now or not as another party is interested. Would have never had someone take our booking without talking to the provisional booking first.

Nothing you can do about it, but its poor and I wouldn't go near them.

kingofburt

Conner Proud Streetlight wrote: »

I would think its actually pretty poor if you were still within your provisional booking period. As in if they said you had a provisional booking for 2 weeks and you got back within that timeframe to confirm and paid your deposit or at least were in talks to organize paying your deposit, they should have kept it.

I regularly book large events for my company multiple times per year with huge room block bookings, rooms for dinner and meeting/event rooms. We occasionally come across hotels that are already provisionally booked for weddings or other corporate events and will usually say to us, its provisionally booked but let me talk to the other party and ask if they want to confirm now or not as another party is interested. Would have never had someone take our booking without talking to the provisional booking first.

Nothing you can do about it, but its poor and I wouldn't go near them.

That would have been my understanding too, I know there is no contract but if something is provisionally held then a call to confirm would be the norm. Especially as it was the hotel coordinator who advised us to make the provisional booking in the first place!!

According to other posters the hotel acted fine but I'm still confused as to why even bother with a provisional booking if it doesn't do anything. Anyway, more important things to worry about now!

sweetie

As a dj i'm often provisonally booked for a week or so whilst a couple make a final decision. It simply means that if I get another enquiry in I will revert to the original 'booking' and check if they still want to go ahead, need more time or have changed their mind. It's common courtesy and takes no more than an email or phonecall.

pooch90

Most venues would hold the date for 2 weeks. Bad form to not at least inform you that there was interest in the date and give you a chance to confirm. Lucky escape from the sounds of it

Toots

kingofburt wrote: »

That would have been my understanding too, I know there is no contract but if something is provisionally held then a call to confirm would be the norm. Especially as it was the hotel coordinator who advised us to make the provisional booking in the first place!!

According to other posters the hotel acted fine but I'm still confused as to why even bother with a provisional booking if it doesn't do anything. Anyway, more important things to worry about now!

If it was the hotel coordinator then it’s definitely poor form. It would have taken 2 minutes to email of phone you to see did you want to firm up the booking. In fact, when I was booking my own wedding we were initially unsure if we’d get the date we wanted for our venue because another couple had provisionally booked it. We were sure we wanted the date and venue and had the deposit ready to go, so the hotel rang the other couple to see what the story was before they would accept our booking.

ELM327

No payment means no reservation IMO. Nothing wrong with the hotels COA here.

witchgirl26

What could have happened is that the wedding coordinator took the provisional booking and only when checked with the events team in the hotel (which are sometimes separate) after holidays discovered that the venue had been booked for that date.

As for your question - the hotel you provisionally reserved wasn't one you were paying a premium for as you didn't pay for anything. Yes they should have been a bit better about how they told you but it might not have been out of badness that a mix up occurred and a provisional booking was taken for a day when the hotel was in use already. If you're paying money for a service, you do get to expect a little more as there's a contractual obligation there.

woodchuck

kingofburt wrote: »

No deposit, just a provisional booking on the wedding coordinators advice. She was on holiday for a week between us holding the venue and her replying to us so never gave us the opportunity to put a deposit.

I just thought it was a lousy thing to do, why bother taking provisional bookings if you don't honor them?

I think the important bit is in bold here. It's poor form alright, but another staff member probably just got the wires crossed while she was away.

kingofburt

witchgirl26 wrote: »

As for your question - the hotel you provisionally reserved wasn't one you were paying a premium for as you didn't pay for anything.

I didn't pay for anything because the hotel coordinator didn't give us a chance to pay! It was the hotel who advised us to hold the date after checking their diary and they certainly do add a premium to the prices for everything they offer over their standard rate.

Glad that it is not the norm for venues to act like this and it has been an eye opener. As others have said, we dodged a bullet!