Gig goers fury at Falkirk hotel's last minute booking cancellation

When a carload of excited music fans pulled up in the car park of the OYO Metro Inns, in Beancross Farm, Polmont on Monday afternoon for their check-in they discovered to their horror that their booking had been cancelled – literally minutes before they were scheduled to check in.

Their rooms were reportedly filled up with guests, which they were told by staff were actually asylum seekers.

Speaking on Tuesday, an Ayrshire resident, who did not want to be named, said: “OYO Metro Inns in Falkirk has been taking bookings from at least September 2021 for June this year, yet has been closed since the beginning of May this year due to them only taking in asylum seekers.

"Loads of people turned up to check in yesterday – all going to The Killers gig – only to see the cancellation email minutes before check in. When the staff were questioned, they were massively rude, unsympathetic and the manager wouldn’t even give us his name.

"He told us to take it up with our booking agent. So we did and they said they hadn’t been informed of the closure. We were only told it was asylum seekers because we kept pressing as to why it was closed to the public."

An email from OYO sent to the woman on Monday stated: “Due to some unavoidable circumstances we are unable to accommodate you for your booking confirmation so we have cancelled your booking.”

The Ayrshire gig goer said: “This was sent 27 minutes before check in and we had only seen it 10 minutes before. We all booked through booking.com and it was £47 which is why the majority of the people had booked it.

"OYO had actually taken our money last Thursday and had been sending us ‘please review our hotel’ emails right up until we received the cancellation email. Just as we had arrived at the hotel.

"We were even sent ‘we can offer you an early check in and late check out’ email only last week."

The Ayrshire resident’s booking agent booking.com has reportedly now agreed to refund her for the Metro Inns booking.

However, she still ended up spending £120 for a local Airbnb in order to see Monday’s big gig.

A spokesperson for Metro Inns said: “We are aware of this complaint and this particular lady was particularly upset and was quite abrasive with the staff at the hotel. OYO who did in fairness contact a large number of guests booked in for this concert but obviously not them all and we have indeed raised this matter with them.

“OYO were informed we had taken a block booking for three months some nine weeks ago and that this booking was in place until the end of June. The fault lies solely with them.

“We are sorry for any guests affected by this and I can assure you we would never turn away business. We can only apologise for what has happened.”

A booking.com spokesperson said: “Our primary aim at booking.com is always to enable enjoyable travel experiences for all of our customers, which unfortunately did not happen on this occasion.

"We have reached out to the customer to refund the costs of their alternative accommodation, as well as making a gesture of goodwill by way of an apology.”