Jamie Taylor stayed overnight at the Premier Inn London Stratford in International Square on February 10.
Jamie had travelled from Oxfordshire on business but, after checking out and travelling back home, he said he started to feel itchy.
“I’d gone home and started to itch – found little sort of lumps all over my body.
“The first ones I found were on my head. The top of my head started getting really itchy and really hot.
Jamie rang the hotel “straight away” so that the room would be taken out of use in light of the bites, adding that the “hotel staff are always great”.
In an email from the hotel, Jamie was told: “We can confirm that following a full and thorough inspection of the allocated room, evidence of activity was confirmed.”
The 51-year-old got confirmation from his GP the bites were from bed bugs, which he says the hotel acknowledged.
Jamie said: “They investigated that room and found that there was an infestation.
“The bites aren’t just little nips, they swell up quite bad. The pain itself was more than enough.
“I couldn’t use my right hand as it was excessively swollen. I couldn’t use it to write, I couldn’t do very, very basic functions for a few days it was that sore and swollen. I had trouble sleeping because of it.”
Premier Inn is understood to have offered £500 compensation and have his stay refunded for the experience, which Jamie says is “nowhere near enough”.
He maintains that he is out of pocket by around £700 after having to throw away clothes he was wearing and travelling with, luggage, and his own home bedding.
Jamie added: “The pain and suffering I had was really, really bad. It was quite traumatic.
“The issue was I’d then gone home with the clothes on. The bed bugs infested all the clothes I’d had on and I’d taken home with me as well.”
After rejecting the offer Jamie was put in touch with Sedgwick, who would be managing claims on behalf of its client Premier Inn.
However he said he was left feeling “totally neglected, ignored – a bit embarrassed to be totally honest with you” after last hearing from them on March 7.
Jamie said: “I wouldn’t want anyone else to go through this.
A Premier Inn spokesperson said the chain has “rigorous processes in place both to prevent and react to issues on the rare occasion they arise”.
“As soon as our team were made aware of this complaint, the room was locked down and independent experts called to investigate and arrange for specialist treatment.
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“No further cases have been reported, and surrounding rooms have also been checked by experts and confirmed to be clear.
“Complaints of this nature are taken very seriously and both we and Sedgwick – the firm we appointed to manage the customer’s claim – have been in regular contact with the guest in the hopes of resolving the matter to their satisfaction.
“We are working to conclude the matter as fast as is possible and have advised the guest that, as would be expected, there are timeframes in place in regard to any insurance claim in order to make sure all elements are properly considered.”
