hotel booking websites

[Fuzzgin]

Hello. Just a short explanation of what happened as still away. Booked hotels in Volendam and Dordrecht with different booking websites. I'm on a pretty Christmas trip around Netherlands and Belgium with my parents.

 

Booked Marinapark volendam with booking.com i've used them a lot before. Two rooms, one single. One double. Got there and the hotel had only one booking. Wasn't a huge deal as it is out of season and they could fit us in but that was pure chance. E-mailed them through website. No response at all so far. Not even a confirmation receipt. I had the booking e-mail printed.

 

Next night, Innercity Hotel Dordrecht. It gets a bit complicated here. To get a double and a single I had to do two separate bookings. Single through hotels.nl. no problem there. The double was through hotels.com. Again I had a print of both. No double booking. They had one last double room, but that was nearly a disaster. My parents are in their 60s and nearly had no room. I think some kind of conference must have been on. Response from them has been along the lines of, well we sent the booking, the guests are checked in, what problem?

[unclebulgaria67]

I had a similar problem with Booking.com on a trip to NZ. One of the hotels did not have my reservation and no rooms available, but luckily they arranged alternative accommodation down the road which was actually much better. On return from the trip, I provided feedback on this and booking.com did not bother to respond.

 

I think the problem relates to booked rooms where no payment is made at the time of booking, where you go through one of these third party companies. They don't appear to process the information or hotel booking agencies that work for the hotels don't pass it on.

 

Following this experience, I now book directly with hotels or if these third party websites are cheaper, I make sure I get confirmation from the hotel that they have the reservation.

[Fuzzgin]

On my trip i've also booked direct and had no problem. I'm in a directly booked hotel for the remaining two nights. Never had a problem before and twice on one trip. I should note that it’s a pre Christmas trip. Not pretty. That's tablet keyboards for you.

[Fuzzgin]

Home now and Hotels.cm ae going for the Vicky Pollard defence (yeah but no but... we didn't do nuffin.) Their response was along the lines of, we called the hotel, the guests are booked in so what's the problem? The fact that it was the last room, they'd failed to prebook it and we nearly ended up sleeping in the car seems not to affect them. They claim the booking went through their end so... Got an e-mail today asking for feedback on their customer service. *snort*

 

E-mail from booking.com cme in at about the same time as an e-mail from a hotel in Glasgow I've booked in January for my mother and I. It seems they did not get our card details. It's a non cacnellable but not prepaid offer. Also through booking.com. Not impressed. Booking.com replied with a promise to resend my confirmation. I assumed to the hotel. Very useful for a stay 3 or 4 nights earlier. They resent my booking confirmation but whether they ever contacted the hotel, I don't know. Pointless all of it. I e-mailed back saying this and asking that they first concentrate on my Glasgow stay as they'd muckedthat up too and despite being a repeat customer I felt my patience was being somewhat tested. Response? A standard "how did we do on your customer service query?" E-mail.

 

I'll look into this over the week but I'm determined to at least get a sorry out of them. They can't leave people stranded in countries assuming everything's booked. Any ideas?

[Woodburn]

I had similar problem when I booked with booking.com. But that was long time back. They still do this to their customers? I mean that's rude.