Review of Lord Elgin Hotel 4*

Booked 2 rooms yesterday; had to cancel less than 24 hours later. (A relative is in Ottawa General with terminal cancer and she's been put in isolation so our trip from Toronto would have been wasted. ) Expected to pay some sort of cancellation fee, but was surprised to learn that (a) we had to pay in full for both rooms; (b) we would be offered no compensation/alternatives/credits; (c) the person on the other end of the phone was not only unhelpful ("maybe you could provide some medical paperwork, but I don't know, if they haven't actually died") but then either transferred or put me on hold, mid-conversation, and I was lost in some kind of weird static land. Called back about 2 minutes later and was able to speak to someone a little more friendly — but as we were speaking, I got email confirmation that the rooms had been canceled! The unhelpful first rep was on a mission to create a dissatisfied customer, apparently. Is it even legal to do that — to cancel a reservation and STILL take all your money? I mean, we have family in Ottawa — maybe one of them would have enjoyed the two rooms we're paying for but not staying in. Maybe they could have been donated to a battered women's shelter that needed extra space for a night. Anyway, I can see that there have been several negative reviews in the past couple of weeks, undermining a whole lot of previous great reviews. Maybe some management crisis is going on? Next time we'll just go back to Premiere Suites, which is where we usually stay. (sigh)