Barbara

Londoners - What is the expected response time for email inquiries? In US service providers are expected to respond within 24-48 hours to customers. I sent an email to a high end serviced apartment about reservations and have not received a reply in over a week. Should I be concerned? This is Arlington House Apartments down the street from the Ritz and near Green Park Tube. Advice welcome?

k

I'm not a Londoner, but if you are concerned, pick up the phone and call them. That's the easiest solution. If you use of of those 10-10 services, it won't cost that much. <BR><BR>From my experience, it does take longer. Some places, especially if they are smaller, only check email once a week or every other week or so.

ron

I’ve booked accommodation in the UK via e-mail for the past three or four trips. My experience is that only about 50% have the courtesy to respond. I book with the ones that do respond and ignore the ones that don’t. I suppose if I really really wanted to stay at one of the non-responders, I would phone them, but I have yet to be that desperate.

MeToo

I also e-mailed a small hotel in London that we have booked reservations (I hope) thru an agency. It's been 4 days &amp; no answer. Since they are small, maybe they only check it once a week. I will give them a few more days then I plan to call. I always like to confirm the reservation, I do not like surprises once I get to my destination. I hope it is not an example of the type of service you will receive from that hotel. If they request e-mail inquiries then they should be courteous enough to reply. Good luck.

elaine

It's not always as simply black and white as being considerate, or inconsiderate.<BR><BR>And I don't know that in the US &quot;service providers are expected to respond within 24-48 hours to customers.&quot; That would be nice, and it's not an unreasonable expectation, but I don't think it's written down anywhere.<BR><BR>Sometimes in a small establishment, however upscale, only one person is authorized to respond to reservation requests, and that one person could be off or ill for a few days.<BR>Or the email server is down. Or their computer isn't working. Or they did send you a reply and you didn't get it but now they think YOU haven't responded.<BR>Or one or the other of you mistyped the email address. etc etc<BR><BR>How about calling as suggested above, or sending a fax?<BR>

ellie

We have booked a very nice apartment through Coach House Rentals (chslondon.com) for a few weeks from now and I've been pleasantly surprised at the quick responses to my emails - replies to my inquiries come within hours - overnight at the longest. I recently made dinner reservations via email at a swanky London restaurant and also received a reply within hours of my original email. I'd think twice about booking through an agency with slow response time. You might want to take a look at the Slow Travelers website with reviews of specific agencies - that's how I found Coach House.

Christina

I guess I missed that amendment to the constitution where every US company had to respond to someone in 24-48 hours. I'm sure that attitude is a good start for traveling abroad. I've had plenty of US firms not respond in 1-2 days, including ones renting vacation apartments abroad.<BR><BR>I've had some hotels never respond and that usually means they are full and don't want to bother to reply. I've had some other hotels respond in a week but that is very rare, but usually meant it was a place where late Fall/winter was off-season and they weren't checking emails that frequently. For London, that wouldn't hold. <BR><BR>Apartment rental companies aren't quite the same as hotels so I wouldn't expect necessarily the same responsiveness. After a week, I would FAX or call. If I got no response in a few days to a FAX, I'd forget that company.

xx

I'm with Ron. That's for any location-if the hotel doesn't bother to answer the email you sent, consider only the ones who do answer you.

StCirq

I fail to understand why Americans can't get it that there are places in the world, Europe included, where people aren't on the cutting edge of technology. Far fewer Europeans have computers than we do. Far fewer of them are used to checking e-mail every day, preferring to rely instead on their old methods of booking reservations or providing whatever service. The same was true when fax capability became a reality. I used to fax to Europe with some frequency and never hear back, or hear back within 10 days or two weeks. Now, faxes are common and I almost always receive an immediate reply to a fax. E-mail is the latest technology. Just because you use it every day doesn't mean that a European business does, or even considers it to be an essential business tool. Give it five years, and that will be the case. Also consider that probably one of the reasons you go to Europe is to experience that &quot;old world&quot; milieu - if you have to make a phone call to get it instead of sending an e-mail, hey, it just might be worth it. The mentality that &quot;I don't want to do business with any place that can't answer an e-mail&quot; shows a lack of understanding of European culture - and a certain arrogance. European businesses are obtaining e-mail capability and websites at a fast rate - that does not translate to USING them every minute of every day, as we do in America. As to the argument that was made in another thread of this sort that websites impart a lot of information that was never previously available, making it easier to select the &quot;right&quot; accommodations, placing a simple phone call and having an old-fashioned conversation with the people at the desk can provide a whole lot of insight that no website can ever do. Things are different in Europe - I think that's why we travel there.

Barbara

Didn't know I was going to offend so many people. Responses were kind of huffy. First, The apartment sent me a brochure which listed an email as a point of contact along with a phone. If you list an email, I would expect that you check it. Second, the apartment is very high end, so I would expect service to a priority. Third, my comment about 24-48 hours is a cultural comment about what is considered a norm here in the US. If a luxury accomodation in the US did not reply it would be suspicious. Maybe that is not true in London. Hence my question about the norms for London. Anybody have specific experience with Arlington House apartments? Advice is welcome<BR><BR>

jo

I'm also trying to plan a holiday, we leave in 6 weeks from Australia. I have sent at least 10 emails in the past 2 months and have had only 1 reply from Limetree house, so I think we will book with them. Not replying to an email is as rude as not answering your telephone.

xxx

Does the email address for the business you are emailing have its own domain name, or is it Yahoo, Virgin, Hotmail, etc.? This might narrow down whether the business actually owns a computer. I've frequently had to wait 3-5 days for some businesses in Europe to respond to my email messages. Computers are expensive in Europe, and my friends in the UK have told me that they pay for telephone usage by the minute (they don't have calling plans for monthly unlimited minutes for local calls and many don't have unlimited monthly plans for internet service), therefore, instead of owning a computer, they go to Internet cafes. If this is the case, then that might be why the business has not yet responded to you. Also, the brochure might be out of date, and the email address might not be used anymore. However, if the email address was not valid, you should have received a return mailer message.

getagrip

Jeez StCirq take a pill. Barbara's questions were reasonable and certainly not arrogant ...unlike your little rant about how the stupid Americans are ruining it for all you faux europeans.<BR><BR>I've spent a lot of time in London and found it to be more technologically plugged in than many places in the US. I would expect an upscale establishment to respond within a week. A quick phone call will solve the problem.

Barbara

Thanks for the responses. It sounds like email is not a consistently reliable source for contacting accomodations and may not indicate &quot;a problem&quot; with the apartment. FYI - I have received email from Arlington House, that is how I got the brochure, but they have been very slow to respond to the email format. I guess I will wait or call. No one seems to have direct knowledge of this apartment, Arlington House near Green Park tube? I was hoping for an eye-witness report.