Barbara

Do not rely on email to contact accomodations etc.. in London. My choice of accomodation has not received the multiple emails that I have sent in the last 2 weeks even though they were not "returned" to me as undeliverable. Apparently they went into a black hole somewhere. Out of frustruation I finally called, only to find out that they had received none of my inquiries. This was an AOL.com email which I thought would be reliable. Moral of the story is, if you get no reply it does not necessarily mean bad service. Apparently FAX is more reliable as my hostlier asked me to fax my inquiries instead of email. Hope this saves others from some of the frustruation I experienced.

DanB

My guess, would be that they got them. Or the goof was over there, not here.

yokee

Sounds like a pretty lousy excuse for not responding. I e-mail all over the world daily and rarely does the e-mail not arrive.<BR><BR>Find another hotel!

xxx

email is pretty basic. if you had the right address and sent it, and you didn't get an error message, then they received it. pure and simple.

Jane

I've sent 6 or 7 emails over the past 4 weeks to a fairly upscale hotel group with an equally famous owner with zero response. I've emailed the hotel directly, and when that failed I emailed the regional manager, and now I'm going to email the owner. Bottom line: if you say &quot;Email us here&quot; on your website, you better respond. I don't care where you're from or who you are. Horrid service is unacceptable. And to offer a service (email) and not respond is total crap. Unacceptable lame excuses will only get you trash talked on the internet, and I hope you all out there do your best to inform the consumers. STAY AWAY FROM THESE IDIOT HOTELIERS!!!!!!!!!<BR><BR>P.S. I haven't mentioned any names yet... Barbara, do you have the name of the Hotel? I'm guessing it's the same as mine. It sounds VERY familiar...

Alana

While we may consider it courteous to reply even with a negative response, my rule of thumb is if a location cannot respond to me within a week about a request, then they are unable to fulfill it &amp; I cut my losses. Some places even give notice that they will not reply if they do not have the ability to fulfill your request. A matter of their personal preference and not something that I am used to, agree with, or defend - it just happens to exist.<BR><BR>If you already have a commitment &amp; need immediate response, it would be common sense to use multiple forms of communication to make sure your needs are met in a timely fashion.

Celine

OK Barbara, you have the wrong attitude right off the bat. If one form of communication does not work (maybe they have had computer problems or someone at the desk does not know how to operate a computer), immediately switch to another form of communication, such as the telephone or fax. <BR><BR>If you keep your rigid ideas of what &quot;should happen&quot; you will be miserable on your trip.

waitress

For Celine above, I think you meant your post responding to Jane's comments? Jane is the one who definitely needs to stay at home. Her attitude is just bad service waiting to happen!

Christina

I'd bet if the story were even true (that they didn't receive them), it is a function of their ISP and its mail server, not AOL. And being from the US doesn't make any difference, I don't think. If you didn't get the email back, they probably got it. I had a big problem with my work ISP in the US over the last month (earthlink, they are terrible) about email. They had some kind of server and routing problems. So, I could send emails to others and they would get them, but I could not receive emails, they would get hung up in cyberspace somewhere for up to 1-2 days on Earthlinks server, and not get delivered to me. The person who sent them didn't know as they weren't really bounced back.<BR><BR>Having sent lots of FAXes that never got transmitted correctly due to the recipient's phone link/FAX machine problems, they are NOT more reliable, it's just very clear when they aren't transmitted, usually. That particular hotel must have bad email problems, that's all. <BR><BR>From my experience, I now try email first, if available, as hotels seem to prefer it due to no cost. If no response, I may FAX by the end of a week if I really want to stay there, but many hotels will not respond to FAXes if they are full, I've found out.

Celine

Oh, yes, it was Jane I was referring to. I think her attitude is what ruins alot of people's trips, you have to go with the flow and accept differences and delays if you want to have a good time.

NYGirl

I email daily between the US and the UK and have never had a problem.<BR>

Sam

Maybe the e-mail address you used is inactive. Sometimes a small hotel hires someone to do a cheap website and doesn't check that particular e-mail address. Just a guess...

Ruth

It's easy to say they didn't receive your emails. I sent a specific request to a hotel in Belgium (from the UK) and received their automated reply, that they had received it and that a named person would be dealing with it. When we got there they swore that it had never been recieved, and it wasn't until I got home and forwarded the whole correspondence to them that we received anything like an apology. And that was a VERY upscale hotel in Brussels who seem to pride themselves on their IT skills. It did teach me not to take anything on trust but to print out copies of the emails to take with me.

frank

Your hotelier told you that fax was more reliable than email.<BR>You really believed that this was why you got no reply.<BR>Are you seriously trying to pass this &quot;advice&quot; on or are you being ironic?<BR>I can never tell.<BR>What is the name of this hotel with the &quot;unreliable&quot; email?<BR>I am sure there are many fodorites who could give them advice on what to do with their booking system.<BR>

Steve James

I have problems with AOL too.<BR><BR>I'm on Hotmail but I have 2 relatives in London on AOL. <BR>One can receive e-mails from me, the other can't! And NEITHER can e-mail me from AOL!<BR>Can anyone explain that?<BR><BR>I think AOL in the U.K. could have a glitch ...<BR><BR>Steve

kim

There could be a zillion reason why mail gets lost.<BR>People don't check their email.<BR><BR>ISPs sometimes block domains in email addresses because of the amount of spam coming from people with those domains.<BR><BR>Someone types an email address wrong.<BR><BR>The email address is no longer active.<BR><BR>The domain is unrecognizable by your mail server or vice versa and can't resolve.<BR>Maybe they have a message filters on their mail program such as outlook express or netscape messenger blocking senders or deleting msgs with certain words in them.<BR><BR><BR>My suggestion? Return receipt your email<BR>it's still not a guarantee that it's downloaded into their computer but at least you know if you don't get a yes on a return receipt it's time to move on<BR>or make a phone call.

Carla

I've got AOL and if there's a problem with the sent email, an automatic message is sent saying that the mail was undelivered.<BR><BR>I'm sure the hotel received your emails. The staff is not responding to them. I've emailed quite a few hotels successfully and when they don't email me a reply I eliminate them from my choices. <BR><BR>If the hotel values prospective guests then they will have the courtesy to take the time and answer all emails. <BR>