Holiday Inn Express East Midlands Airport

Booked this stop-over with trip.com on Christmas day. Just awful from the start! Although I had paid for the booking online, on arrival, I was told that it was just a reservation and that I needed to confirm payment with my credit card again, which I did. I was charged again. I requested a refund the following morning. I was then told that I needed to pay another £10 for parking for the night - nearly 25% extra on the total cost of the room. There was no mention of this parking extra on the Trip.com website when I booked. The first two rooms that I was allocated had sofa beds made up so you couldn't sit at the desk or get to the window to shut the curtains. This could not be fixed as there were no room service staff. The third room had 2 light bulbs that didn't work and cobwebs on the ceiling - I was tired, I took the room. I was only offered food from the limited night menu - it was 6pm - there were no kitchen staff. Having to sort out the problems that I experienced put the two staff members under extreme pressure - I was not the only guest. I support the fact that staff had been given time off for Christmas, this is commendable IHG, but you can't do this at the expense of your customer and your brand. I strongly doubt that I will use either Holiday Inn or Trip.com again