The Elm House Hotel

This hotel is permanently closed, yet hotels.com took my money...and for a refund, instead of giving me my money black, they gave me this weird key cash. I'm out

This hotel accepted our booking via Hotels.com and it was still confirmed and prepaid up until arriving at the hotel. We were visiting from Australia and visiting relatives in Hawick, we rented a car in Edinburgh and drove there. We arrived early afternoon and found a handwritten note on the front door requesting guests to call a mobile phone on arrival. Whilst in the car park an employee arrived and said that he had no knowledge of our booking, I showed him my confirmation and he blamed Hotels.com booking system. After prolonged discussions with some “manager” on the phone he said that he would have to prepare a room as they were busy. We set off for a coffee advising that we would return later. Whilst at the coffee shop I received an email from the hotel (via hotel.com) advising that they were cancelling my booking due to a FLOOD at the hotel. We returned to the hotel where the same employee advised us that Hotel.com had double booked the room and therefore they couldn’t accommodate us. When questioned about the earlier advice that no booking had been received, he shuffled around embarrassingly, we then asked about the FLOOD he said that there had been no flood and we showed him the email. He blamed his manager who was not at the premises, we insisted on speaking with her however she was very evasive and unhelpful and continued to blame Hotels.com. We eventually gave up and left, we had to find a bed with our relatives and to be honest we were happy not to be staying

This is one of the worst hotels I have ever stayed in. There was no front desk and no "front desk staff" to greet me on arrival. Someone eventually appeared but did not take my name and there was no check in (or check out) process. The room was in an annexe in the car park and was small and very old fashioned. There were flies in the room, debris in the kettle, a damp bathmat and a non-working bedside lamp. It was barely clean. There was no soundproofing and there was noise from other rooms late at night. I would not recommend a stay in this hotel.