Lay My Hat

In our self-catering cottage, we have a hot tub fired by an external wood stove with a water jacket. We had guests recently and they reported water leaking from the top of the jacket into the firebox making the tub unuseable.

I offered 15% refund but they want 25% and they are getting quite irate. My argument is that we are a self-catering business with the hot tub as an 'extra' (we don't charge for it). Their argument is they would not have booked a cottage without a hot tub and they were celebrating his wife's 50th. I still feel 15% is OK. Am I being stingy? I'm quite happy to deal with a negative review on Trip Advisor.

How prominently do you promote the hot tub on your website? Do you think it is THE added extra that makes people book? Does it get mentioned a lot in reviews? But I guess most important thing is : what do your terms and conditions say about non-working extras? 25% refund sounds much too much to me but I'm not really a fan of hot tubs.

(I used to be and then I got a nasty rash which the GP said was likely to have been caused by a badly maintained hot tub. Calamine was my friend.)

We mention it on the website in a couple of places. There's never been a reference to it in reviews. I do think 15% is fair.

I was told that providing extras such as a pool or hot tub was worth about an extra 10% on the usual rent you could obtain for a property of otherwise similar standards. So I think 15% is a fair enough refund.

elbowpipe wrote:My argument is that we are a self-catering business with the hot tub as an 'extra' (we don't charge for it). Their argument is they would not have booked a cottage without a hot tub and they were celebrating his wife's 50th. I still feel 15% is OK. Am I being stingy? I'm quite happy to deal with a negative review on Trip Advisor.

If you mention it on your advert/website then it's not free, it's included in the cost and will almost certainly have brought you bookings you may not have got.

But yes, 15% is fair.

I'll probably compromise on 20%

Might be worth having a specific section in your terms and conditions about the hot tub. I believe they need to be out of action once a month for a day or so for cleaning ( haven't got one, so could be wrong ). However all kinds of reasons could mean the hot tub is out of action temporarily.

That would help control but not necessarily entirely remove any demands for compensation. You could though, decide a particular daily rate of refund if the hot tub is "closed" and include that in T&Cs e.g. £10 a day or whatever spending on the number of guests you can accommodate.

Did they report the fault to you straight away or wait until they left?

Did you have, were you given the opportunity to resolve the issue during there stay?

I personal feeling is that if I was made aware of a problem straight away and during there stay and If i failed to rectify a problem within an acceptable timeframe I would offer a refund.

If I wasn't made aware of a problem straight away and therefore not given the opportunity to rectify the issue, or if they said nothing until after they left then I would not offer a refund.