Andrew Behan was left furious after his planned visit to Liverpool was ruinedThis article contains affiliate links, we will receive a commission on any sales we generate from it. Learn more
Andrew Behan had his accomodation booking cancelled
A man planning to attend the Labour Party conference in Liverpool this month had his accommodation cancelled at the last minute despite booking it a year in advance. Andrew Behan, 59, from Manchester is a Labour party member and regularly attends the party’s conference, which is being held in Liverpool for the fourth year in a row at the end of September.
Having faced a scramble for accommodation for last year’s conference, Mr Behan prudently booked his accommodation for this year’s event 12 months ago. He booked the Terlon Apartments, based in Victoria Street in Liverpool city centre, paying £243 for an apartment across the dates of the conference.
However just a couple of weeks ago, he was messaged through Booking.com with a notice from Terlon Apartments saying that his booking could no longer go ahead.
The message, seen by the ECHO, states: “Thank you for considering our apartment for your stay on September 28. Unfortunately due to unforeseen issues with the apartment, we won’t be able to accommodate you on the requested date.
“Our team is working diligently to resolve the issue but it won’t be ready by the 28th. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding.”
The company then offered to look at alternative dates, which Mr Behan said would clearly not work as he was specifically booking accommodation for the dates of the Labour conference. The company said it could not find any alternative accommodation on those dates and offered a full refund.
Mr Behan has been left furious by this. He told the ECHO: “It is just not good enough. I have been to the Labour conference for the past three years and for it to be cancelled just a couple of weeks before has caused me big problems.”
He said when he looked at alternative accommodation on the same dates he was quoted prices of £1,400. An increase of around 475% on the price he had agreed to pay a year earlier.
Mr Behan said the situation has dramatically changed his plans. He added: “I was planning to attend the whole conference across four days, but now I haven’t got anywhere to stay I am only going to come for one or two days, coming and going on the train from Manchester.
“I will miss things that I wanted to go to and of course I would have spent a lot more money in the city if I was staying.”
The ECHO attempted to contact Terlon Apartments to ask about what happened with the booking.
We received a response from a company calling itself Foster Marlon Asset Management, which said it is acting as the managing agent for the owner of the apartment in question.
The spokesperson said: “We have been managing the apartment for the owner to date and we confirm that we did receive a reservation for the apartment via booking.com.
“However, the owner of the apartment has in the meantime served notice to terminate the management agreement with ourselves. Our management will come to an end before this booking and therefore we have had to cancel the booking.
“To reiterate, we do not own the apartment and we have simply been managing it for the current owner. The current owner has taken back the management of the apartment and so regrettably we have had to cancel the small number of bookings that had been made prior to, but for dates after, the end of our management of the apartment.”