Hotel refusing to give me a receipt

[gooner1967]

Hi
I use a hotel in london (part of a chain) and when I book via ebookers.com the hotel will not issue me with a receipt, as they claim it is confidential. The bill is paid by me, using my credit card, but they still won't give me a receipt. I have to go onto the ebooker site and print off a 'cost and payment summary' which does have a portion marked 'taxes and fees' but has no VAT number unlike the Hotel bills I get when I book direct at the hotel. I am VAT registered and would obviously like to claim back what is owed to me.

I always thought that they had to give me a receipt if paid the bill, any ideas?:|

 

[KidsBeeHappy]

Who do you pay? The billing follows the money.

 

Who do you pay? The billing follows the money.

Agreed....you get a reciept from whoever you paid.

 

[bwglaw]

There is no legal obligation to provide a receipt however it is 'custom and practice' to do so.

 

[Cornish Steve]

Sounds very shady to me. A bill is confidential? Give me a break! Frankly, I just wouldn't stay there. A sudden lack of customers might change their policy.

What about the credit card receipt? Or do they insist on "cash in hand" as well?

 

[KM-Tiger]

There is no legal obligation to provide a receipt however it is 'custom and practice' to do so.

But surely where VAT is involved, there is a legal obligation to provide a VAT invoice?

 

[bwglaw]

But surely where VAT is involved, there is a legal obligation to provide a VAT invoice?

Vat Invoice and a receipt are two different things. Only the merchant that has charged VAT is obliged to provide a VAT invoice showing a VAT analysis.

The issue here is, who has charged the VAT?

 

[UKSBD]

Sounds very shady to me. A bill is confidential? Give me a break! Frankly, I just wouldn't stay there. A sudden lack of customers might change their policy.

What about the credit card receipt? Or do they insist on "cash in hand" as well?

How would you like it if you supplied a product/service and your customer
went to your supplier asking for an invioce?

The OP paid for the room via a 3rd party, I doubt the hotel or the 3rd
party want the customer to know how much the hotel charged for the room.

 

[Richie N]

The hotel will have special rates with ebookers, ebookers charge a commission on top and therefore you will pay their rate provided.
The hotel would not want the ebookers rate disclosed to its guests, as there will be all sorts of issues.

 

[Cornish Steve]

How would you like it if you supplied a product/service and your customer
went to your supplier asking for an invioce?

The OP paid for the room via a 3rd party, I doubt the hotel or the 3rd
party want the customer to know how much the hotel charged for the room.

It's not the same. If I pay a price for a hotel room, I expect a receipt. In fact, I demand a receipt because no company I know of will reimburse an employee's expenses without receipts. The deal between the 3rd party and the hotel is irrelevant. (I agree, though, that if the 3rd party is paid and not the hotel directly, it would be unfair to punish the hotel because the 3rd party is not issuing a receipt.)

I use PriceLine from time to time when making business trips. That's the website at which you name your price and they put you into a hotel. You don't know in advance which hotel (just the category) and you must accept the deal once they find you a room. The hotel rates through PriceLine can be as low as one-third the published hotel room rate. What happens? I pay PriceLine, and they issue me a receipt. Simple. I don't understand what's preventing someone here from issuing a receipt.

 

[Wild Goose]

Invest in a wax candle, and write something rude on their windows. When it rains the world will be able to share your grievance.

 

[Tracy H]

Many (edit ALL AGENTS, Booking.com Laterooms.com are not agents in this sense) agents demand that the hotel do not give a receipt and giving one would mean that the agent would never use the hotel again.

You see you paid the agent

£100.00 inc VAT

The agent paid the hotel

£70.00 inc VAT

so a copy of the receipt would be for

B&B £59.57
VAT £10.43
Total £70.00

 

[Tracy H]

quick add on, did not see it was ebookers, ebookers uses the GDS and has no contract with the hotel, the hotels contract is with the GDS supplier the hotel partners with. When they (ebooker) made the booking the GDS will forward the hotel by fax a one time mastercard number for the value of your booking, the hotels GDS contract will say it can not disclose any GDS prices apart from "Guest Self Pay" which ebookers do not have "Guest Self Pay".

 

[Zeno]

Surely you got an E-invoice when you booked it though? If I remember correctly a screen usually comes up that says something along the lines of "you may need to print this for your records etc".

 

[bakeja]

Hostility to the hotel is unfounded. It is clearly a question for ebookers who took your money and I am 100% sure they will provide you with a suitable document, be it "receipt" or VAT invoice, to use for your VAT claim.

 

[Cornish Steve]

Hostility to the hotel is unfounded. It is clearly a question for ebookers who took your money and I am 100% sure they will provide you with a suitable document, be it "receipt" or VAT invoice, to use for your VAT claim.

Having said that, if a hotel really cares about its customers, it will help them to get a receipt. Simply wiping their hands of the problem is a cop-out, and I wouldn't stay there again if they cared so little.

 

[Tracy H]

Having said that, if a hotel really cares about its customers, it will help them to get a receipt. Simply wiping their hands of the problem is a cop-out, and I wouldn't stay there again if they cared so little.

Steve, I can not tell you just how faceless the GDS is only the IT staff will know who it is from. I'll post a screen shot for you can see, the hotel can only phone their GDS suppliers technical help desk and as it not a technical issue they would not be able to help.

It has always got me when people keep trying to give us price line reference numbers as the GDS does not forward these.

 

[Tracy H]

Here you go, I've been here many times over the years, imagine how it is for the hotel they would prefer to just press a button and print a copy instead of getting bad reviews and harassed over it from someone who getting more and more upset because they can claim the money back from employer.

 

[Cornish Steve]

Steve, I can not tell you just how faceless the GDS is only the IT staff will know who it is from. I'll post a screen shot for you can see, the hotel can only phone their GDS suppliers technical help desk and as it not a technical issue they would not be able to help.

It has always got me when people keep trying to give us price line reference numbers as the GDS does not forward these.

Tracy, I can see your predicament. I know little about the hotel industry and how this works, but I've travelled heavily on business around the world (we're thousands of hotel nights over several years) and know what I expect. That's the perspective I'm giving. It may not be fair, but that's my perception. When travelling, I expect certain basic things from every hotel. After the fundamentals such as security, comfort, and value, it's mostly little things - like smiling at check-in, smiling and greeting me by name when I enter the lobby, responding to any request for help (e.g., problem Internet connection) within five minutes, and so on. No matter what goes on behind the scenes, a fast check-out with the bill put under my door on the day of departure is pretty much a given. If I've booked through a third party, maybe they should be giving me a bill - I don't really care who does it - but I expect both companies to work together so there's no impact to me.

Given the way this third party works, I'm not sure what to suggest. Personally, I wouldn't partner with a company that doesn't always keep the customer very much in mind, but you may have little option. Obviously, they get you business, but something is amiss if customers aren't happy and don't get bills. Maybe hotels need to push back on the third party so processes are more customer-friendly and communication flows more freely.

 

[yorkshirejames]

Maybe on your next trip you'll contact the hotels directly and book? If they normally charge £100 and will let the agent have it for £70, then call up the hotel, say you'd like to stay there but you don't want to pay their full rate, and see what they'll do. Obviously much more room for flexibility if we're talking central london rather than the only hotel in the village of ratesville.

 

[Deleted member 70778]

My company were recently bitten by this (a hotel booking via eBookers, as it happens, but seems to apply to all consolidator-type deals where you contract directly with an intermediary for the supply of a room, as opposed to the intermediary acting only as agent).

It turns out that reselling of accommodation by a UK-based travel agent is covered by the TOMS rules for VAT ("Tour Operators Margin Scheme"), and sales to businesses are not exempt from this.

Under TOMS, a tour operator does not get to reclaim input VAT from the hotel. At the end of the year they work out what their margin was for the whole year, and remit a %age of it to the Revenue. What this means is they don't know what the output VAT was at the time they billed you, so cannot issue a VAT invoice. As discussed up-thread, you can't get a VAT invoice from the hotel either, because you didn't pay them (and the amount they charged the consolidator is usually commercially confidential).

See VAT Notice 709/5 (I would post a direct link but the site won't let me) for more - particularly s3.3 and s4.20. It would appear that there is no way to reclaim any VAT on such a sale. However they are supposed to state on the (non-VAT) invoice that the supply is covered by the TOMS rules; naughty if they haven't!

 

[skp20040]

I know this is an old thread but I came across it doing a search as this is an issue we have all the time. The simple answer is the company you paid is the organisation responsible to provide you with a receipt . Many agents give you a choice whether to pay online or at the hotel , if you pay the Hotel then they issue you Invoice/VAT Receipt, but if you have paid the OTA then the hotel tends to bill them after you have checked out. You have two issues with this, one is agents such as Expedia where you pay them then demand a hotel signs a contract, and then pays the hotel less their commission in the case of Expedia they charge hotels in the UK 23% they also demand you do not reveal rates to a client if the hotel does then the agent can demand to be compensated for that breach of contract. Even if the agent did not deduct the commission and the hotel could give you a copy it would be in the name of the agent with the client as a reference as the agent will have paid them. The second issue is simple, how can the hotel give you a receipt for money they have not been paid ? Issuing receipts for money you have not received is also illegal.