I am going on a business trip to the UK and have booked a room at the Travelodge – a budget hotel chain. Today I needed to change my check-out date. As I have booked the Flexible option I was able to change my booking up until 12 noon on the arrival day. Perfect.

I went to My Travelodge – and realised I couldn’t remember my password so I opted for a password reset. I entered my email address and an email speedily arrived in my inbox with a link to reset my password. I was instructed to enter a new password (of at least 8 characters) and I would then be able to unlock my account. I entered a password and confirmed it an clicked Change password. To my surprise I received an error message urging me to enter my new password. But that’s what I just did?
Perhaps it wasn’t 8 characters. I tried agian with the same result. Well, perhaps the site doesn’t work well with Chrome. I tried opening the reset link in Internet Explorer and arrived at the same result.

Aha, must be something wrong with the form, it is not accepting characters.

So I call the callcenter. The man who answers ignors my explanation of my issue and simply asks if he should make the change to my booking. Yes, please. When he has made the change I mention that he should tell their tech support to have a look at the form and have it fixed. And this is when he says that Travelodge is aware of the problem but is not going to correct it because they are working on a new website.
Excuse me? But then you should at least put a notice on the site.
No, they have said that they will do nothing about it (see how he distanced himself from the company?) since they are building a new website.
And when will that be launched?
March.

I am chocked. March. They are aware that people can not reset their password and they are ignoring the problem because they are launching a new website in March. I sat staring at my phone in disbelief for a few minuts after ending the call.

Travelodge, what are you thinking? As a budget hotel chain the website has to be your most important sales channel and you’re alienating your customers. It’s a major functionality that is broke. And You Know About It.

Shame on you.

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