I know i'm rather silly leaving it to the last minute, but was going to travel from home direct to show. Now seen we have an 08.30 start and i would like to be there 1 hour to sort myself out before the show, means a too early start, especially when we have to stay put in the show until released later in the day.

Now decided to get a room, all the ones in and around B'ham are really expensive so have found a Travelodge for about £30 available on the M40, just about to book that providing that they accept dogs. Checked AA routefinder and its about 1 hr drive away from NEC which is better than an estimated 4 hour drive.

Is this worth going for or does anyone else have any ideas on cheap hotels that accept dogs closer to the NEC?
I will be travelling up from the south coast.

I have now booked a Days Inn for £45 which is a little bit more, closer but they don't charge for dogs to stay. The Travelodge was charging £20 per domestic pet.

So now have an estimated 30 min drive on the day of the show - much better.

www.priceline.co.uk

try these

I can't believe they are now charging £20 per dog, it is a rip off!! When I stayed in one fro LKA last year it was still the £10 which was bad enough. I'm staying in one for Crufts so had better not tell hubby!

Travelodge are charging £20 a dog now???? I stayed there a few months ago and it was £10, is this just for the period of Crufts of forever do you think?

Who knows but I will be asking them what it is exactly they do to the room that costs £20!! It will be my last stay in one if it stays that price!

If it stays at £20 per dog I will stop using them, an extra £40 on top of the usual show costs is really going to far, showing dogs is not a cheap hobby anyway so extra and completely unnecasary price hikes are a step to far for me :-(

Too right!

Just had a check on Travelodge to see if its just Crufts, But Bicester is a little way away for Crufts to affect it.

Anyway chose a random date in May and the charges of £20 per dog or cat still applies.

Oh well no more travelodges for me then!

From the Travelodge website:

What is the pet policy?

Customers may bring pets at the absolute discretion of the hotel management. No more than two domesticated pets are permitted per room and must not be left unaccompanied at any time. It remains the owner's responsibility to ensure that any pets do not cause any disturbance to other customers. This service costs £20 per pet, per stay and is payable either in advance (by selecting the service as an extra on your website booking) or at check in at the hotel. Please note that Guide dogs, Hearing dogs and other animals to aid disability are exempt from the charge (customers should select the no pets option from the extras page). For details of our Pet Policy for our Irish hotels please visit www.travelodge.ie

That's it for me to then, what a flaming nuisance :-( I think they will lose a bit of trade over this new policy!.

£20 per dog!!  I won't be using Travelodge any more then :( 

I was thinking of looking for a late hotel deal after seeing that Aussie judging starts at 8.30 - I'll just have to get up that bit earlier.  At least we're on Sunday so the traffic getting there should be ok - but getting home will be hell :(

Just wrote a complaint to Travelodge, probably will fall on deaf ears but I feel better for it anyway lol.

Yvonne.

new broom sweeps clean ... only a matter of time have you  noticed everything is becoming anti dogs after that dreaded programme . I cant even buy my dog papers local anymore all the stores I usually go to are telling me they dont stock it anymore even though they have for years ,unless I order it of course.One of them is a massve Smiths..

A far as travellodge goes I think they will have to have a re-think when   realise how much income they recieve from dog shows if you think about it when  a show is on the hotels are full to bursting. As long as we all stick to our guns and dont pay it ...

> new broom sweeps clean ... only a matter of time have you  noticed everything is becoming anti dogs after that dreaded programme . I cant even buy my dog papers local anymore all the stores I usually go to are telling me they dont stock it anymore even though they have for years ,unless I order it of course.One of them is a massve Smiths..
>
> A far as travellodge goes I think they will have to have a re-think when&nbsp;&nbsp; realise how much income they recieve from dog shows if you think about it when&nbsp; a show is on the hotels are full to bursting. As long as we all stick to our guns and dont pay it ... <IMG class=qButton title="Quote selected text" height=10 alt="Quote selected text" src="/images/mi_quote.gif" width=20>

I think your right, everything seems more anti dog now sadly, I also really hope travelodge do rethink when they lose all that valuable income from us dog people, I wont be paying it thats for sure, I suppose at a stretch I could but on principle I just wont, a day at a champ show works out around £100 as it is with entry fees, diesel costs to and from and accommodation so I just refuse to make it even more expensive than it already is.

well for me i have to pay for accomodation, i come from the isle of man and we used travelodges all last year but there is no way i am paying more than the room to have the dogs in, i'd pay it if it was refundable on inspection but that'd be a joke anyway as some of the rooms i've stayed in have been dirty when i arrived!

I rarely use travellodges most shows are around the 2 -3 hr in travel time for us the only time I stay is when its in Scotland and when I do I use www.priceline.co.uk they have lots of hotels who take dogs for free and much nicer than lodges anyway , I dont much like the southern shows so its not too bad for me .
I feel for people who do live too far to get up early and travel the same day they have no choice but to stay over .

> well for me i have to pay for accomodation, i come from the isle of man and we used travelodges all last year but there is no way i am paying more than the room to have the dogs in, i'd pay it if it was refundable on inspection but that'd be a joke anyway as some of the rooms i've stayed in have been dirty when i arrived!

Gemma you wouldn't happen to know my mate Alison on the I.O.M who shows Paps would you? just thinking its a small island so wondering if a lot of the show people would know eachother :-)

> well for me i have to pay for accomodation

Me too really as I am coming over from N.I. I might just have to go off the beaten track now for accomodation as Holiday Inns don't accept dogs!
I have sent them an email so will have to wait and see what they say.

> Holiday Inns don't accept dogs

Holiday Inn Express accept dogs, not all do but some do, the stafford m6 one does and thats a good central one, i used it for LKA. :)

> Holiday Inn Express accept dogs, not all do but some do, the stafford m6 one does and thats a good central one, i used it for LKA. :-)

That's handy to know for the future thanks :)

I've used the Days Inn, which is a motorway services hotel as well. They accept dogs and not been told of any sur charge for having a dog, was told to put in the added comments when paying online.

The Holiday Inn Express at the NEC accepts dogs too, and is right on the site, just a few minutes drive to the halls or car park - but the price goes up horribly for Crufts, over £100 more per night than I paid for LKA!  The dogs are free, and it does include Breakfast.  You usually find that in the days jsut before Crufts thery have lots of cancellations so you can make a booking, but the price doesn't come down.

I've just found this information on another forum:

I've spoken to a chap in Customer Services at Head Office to complain and he said that the more people that make a complaint the more the likelihood that it will be reviewed.

Details to complain are as follows: -
By letter: -

'FOR THE ATTENTION OF TRACEY SAVILLE'
TRAVELODGE HOTELS LTD.
SLEEPY HOLLOW,
AYLESBURY ROAD,
THAME,
OXFORDSHIRE,
OX9 3AT

By phone: -
0844 6006999
If you phone, ask for the phone call ref. no and note it if you also write or email.

If you can, ask to speak to Tracey Saville, she apparently wasn't there when I phoned.

By email: -
customer.services@travelodge.co.uk
(Subject line - 'For the Attention of Tracey Saville - re pets')

Well I am going to ring today, I e.mailed my complaint yesterday but will phone as well, I hope lots of us will complain then they may rethink they're price hike.

We used a bed and breakfast a two min drive from the NEC but this year they have upped there B & B prices from £25pp to £80.
My daughter moved last September to the St Helens area so I now have accommodation at a family rate of a hug and company. LOL

eta And the dogs get for free

Sounds the best kind of accomodation to me :-)

I have emailed that address you put on so we will see what they say. this is what i wrote

We use your rooms a lot travelling up and down from Scotland to dog shows. I was shocked to see that you are now charging £20 per dog to stay in the rooms. £10 was bad enough. I am afraid that this now means we can no longer afford to stay in your rooms, as sometimes the room deal we get is £19, so two dogs at £20 a dog makes that a very expensive stay indeed and financially means we would be better off in the slighty dearer hotels that dont charge for dogs and include breakfast. Judging by the talk on many canine forums at the moment we are not alone in this.Such a pity as your rooms were always full on show days with exhibitors.
Nicky Logie

Hilton hotels also take dogs and to be honest including the price of breakfast for a family of 4 which we are I have been able to book a room for us and the dogs in Scotland for £80 and Belfast £90!  Much better acommodation too.

I have also used the holiday Inn and not been charged any extra.  It pays to shop around.

I've got a couple of nights booked at one in July, are they likely to honour the £10 charge that was quoted at the time of booking or are they going to try to sting me when we arrive?

They will not honour the £10 charge as you did not pay this in advance.......

I've sent an email complaining about the change in price, and stating that I expect to be either charged the original price or receive a full refund (for an unrefundable room). I can only try!

I have also just sent an email stating how I feel they may now lose a great deal of business in light of their outrageous  price increase for dogs.

>They will not honour the £10 charge as you did not pay this in advance.......

It's worth a try.

We have just spent 3 nights in 3 different Travelodges

The first night there was NO charge (she looked at our short hairy friend but decided to ignore him!!).
On the 2nd night I refused to pay £20 - I refused nicely and reasonably, however, so he charged us the original £10.  I said that I had booked in September 08 and would have paid for the dog at that time if the option had been available to me, I booked in good faith and they were unreasonable to hike the price with no warning...
On the the 3rd night I gave the receptionist the receipt from our 2nd night hotel and he agreed to do the same.  He took a bit of persuading but he caved, eventually.  A guy that had checked in just 10 minutes before us had to pay £60 for his 3 dogs - I said you could buy a vacuum cleaner for that and it's not as if the rooms are that clean before we get in there :)

I'm going to write and complain about the new price.  I don't have any more pre-booked rooms but I think that if I had that I would write and get an agreement to honour the £10 before I checked in.  I suspect that we may have been able to get the reductions this week as they obviously haven't given their staff any training, help or support re their new policy and that a new price and an insistent dog customer was too much bother for the receptionists.  Once they've had a week or two of this I imagine their staff will be better equipped to enforce their new pricing policy!!

Hi

Did anyone get an email back from Travelodge.  I also emailed to try to get them to confirm that i would only have to pay £10 for my dog as i too had booked ages ago.  i have heard nothing and wondered if anyone else had had a response?

>Thank you for your correspondence regarding our pet policy. 

>In order that future customers are not affected by previous occupants bringing their pets with them, the housekeeping team will ensure specialist cleaning takes place before the room can be used again.

>Due to the intensive cleaning that takes place and the costs incurred of such services, the policy has been reviewed and therefore the charge has been increased to £20.00.

>Thank you for your query and please do not hesitate to contact us if we can be of any further assistance.

Intensive cleaning huh. They probably run a vacuum cleaner over it once.

i had same reply
oh well thats travel lodge out for me
it seems they do not want dogs anymore

I have  not heard from them as of yet.

We got the same reply-
specialist cleaning!! ROFL

We emailed them 5 times and still didnt get a reply so phoned them,They wouldnt answer us why it had gone up that much and we explained that sometimes our dogs wouldnt even come in to the rooms untill night time and when they did they went in there cages and wasnt allowed on to the chairs/bed but they was saying we still have to pay £20,Then we spoke to another member of staff and she also agreed that it was alot to charge!! Then we got that same email as everybody else has got we was going to take 2 dogs but i bet they wont clean the room twice.On Monday the manager of the TL we are stopping at for the Bournemouth show is going to phone us.

Yep got the same reply to, what a load of hogwash, I daresay a few dogs have fouled a room but the majority of showdogs have their own cage to sleep in so never mess up a room, I would hazard a guess that the "specialist cleaning" has been done far more times for the mess humans makes than dogs!.