Q Hotels chain advertise 0845 all over their website without so much as a mention of call charges (example https://www.qhotels.co.uk/contact-us/) - I queried this with their CS who just replied with a standard scripted answer that completely missed the point but seemed to take satisfaction from each hotel having 01x numbers.

Their confirmation emails with bookings, specifically ask you to call the same 0845 for any queries.

I've taken both issues up with the ASA & CAB, but I'm sadly not expecting much to really come of either. I suspect the hotel chain has a deliberate policy of ignoring the law.

Entirely as I suspected Ian, but thanks for confirming. I actually had a useful conversation with one of their marketing people today who took my points away, but only with the benefit of hindsight did I realise they are obviously coming from a policy position of "0845 is acceptable, the rest follows".

On the specifics of their post-sales being 0845, they are hiding behind the fact that 084x redirects to 0113 and also that the geographic contact numbers for individual hotels are available on their site if you look for them. I don't think this is sufficient, however they have said...

"On the other note of the call costs for ‘Post Sales Issues’, the Consumer Contract Regulations 2013 Issue 41 explains that we must only charge no more than the ‘basic rate’ for these calls which at 2p per minute falls within this rate, as per the Government website the call should be between 0p-7p. As mentioned on the telephone, this 0845 number is mapped to a 0113 number for the Leeds office".

My immmediate reaction is that this is either incorrect or someone is getting confused as to what "basic rate" means. But I want to further check my facts before responding further. It just galls me that it should be this difficult.

Thankyou, that was most helpful!! I wish I'd spotted the irony on Q-Hotels own site myself, but thanks to SCV for pointing it out.

I'm told my comments have been passed to their legal and management areas, so time will tell.. I won't hold my breath though, I get the feeling that at a corporate level, Q-Hotels want to keep 0845 as much as they can get away with.