The rates are totally bonkers at the moment- not even a week ago in the sale, a room for a large party in ATH at the end of March came to £250, but last night suddenly sprang up to ~£450! Also, it's significantly more expensive to book a stay through the Merlin Holiday Club site, which makes no sense...

I booked a couple weeks ago for the last weekend of April but was looking at the first of May as they were the same price. It was £100 for ATH standard room for 2 adults and £110 for a Moon Voyager room in ATH. Splash was around £100 also and the camping pods were like £120? which was weird. There was no Enchanted Village lodges listed only the tree house at like £700.

These were all for 1 night Friday to Saturday.

I booked ATH for opening weekend, turns out at the time it was actually cheaper than staying in Splash by £60, when normally it’s the other way around 

I assume they work like Airlines and most hotels, where it is a demand based pricing? i.e. if everyone is searching for specific dates the price goes up?

I would expect they are doing some form of demand based pricing. Not sure how sophisticated it is, could just be they have X rooms at a lower rate and the rest at a higher rate.

According to the T&Cs, the Alton Towers Holidays is run by Holiday Extras Limited (https://www.altontowersholidays.com/ter ... tions.html) - Think they run all of the Merlin Holiday Sites (I know they do Thorpe Shark) - so probably using demand based on people booking/searching rather than just Merlin putting the prices up. 

I am almost certain it is demand based, however some of the pricing for the coming year seems exceptionally odd.

I wish they'd stick to an Efteling-like system of set pricing for each accomodation with an early bird and late booker discount, it's far less stressful when you know exactly what you can expect to pay, especially given the quality of the standard hotel rooms is... Interesting.

For anyone now looking at the prospect of having to cancel rooms at Alton Towers, and given the option of accepting cash or a voucher, be advised of the current extremely high pricing at the Alton Towers Hotel.

Shown are for the first weekend in August, 2 adults, without and with passes (note neither give park entry).

An additional piece of information for those having to deal with Alton Towers or any of the Melin properties about holiday bookings.

Merlin have decided that despite them cancelling the booking contract, full refunds will only be available if you take a time limited voucher. Else any cancellation waivers taken out are forfeit.

Personally, I question the legality of this and would recommend those dealing with any of the Melin parks and facing this issue, to consider looking into chargebacks with their credit or debit card provider. Merlin have not fulfilled the contract, and the consumer does not have the same option to just arbitrarily move their booking making the fairness questionable.

In particular, for credit card purchases, consumers faced with this issue from a Merlin theme park may do well to consider a chargeback under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act.

Personally, I'm questioning ever staying in a Merlin hotel property again. Previously I would always stayed at the ATH premium rooms. But after Merlin's business practices this last week, unless there is a significant price reason for me to book Merlin, I'll be looking at the many friendly and honourable local accommodation providers.

This is such an easy time to build both bad and good will up with your customers and the general public.

Firms being unreasonable now will regret it in the future.