HotelTravel.com |
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Consumer reviews about HotelTravel.com |
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Shadow123
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Apr 25, 2012
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they never even reserved the hotel
They have charged me $881 for a 9 night stay in Rabat. I cancelled the booking 48 hours before and they denied to refund because they require the cancellation to be 72 hours before. When I came to the hotel they said there was no reservation or cancellation at all!! They are a fraud!
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HotelTravel.com
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Apr 29, 2012
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Response from HotelTravel.com Customer Relations Manager
Dear Sir,
My name is Megan White, I work at HotelTravel.com as Customer Relations Manager. I saw your post yesterday morning and immediately took the initiative to personally investigate what had happened with your booking at the Helnan Chellah Hotel.
Your discontent is obvious and I understand it – I would feel the same if this had happened to me too. Therefore, first and foremost and on behalf of HotelTravel.com, I would like to genuinely apologise for the serious, aggravation you experienced with our service.
At the same time, please do believe me where I say that this is completely atypical. In fact, since 1999 when HotelTravel.com started to operate, we have kept on successfully servicing thousands of loyal and repeat customers every day. In all fairness, the situation you found yourself in should never have happened. But it did, and I am sorry about that.
Therefore, I did my very best yesterday to find out what happened and how I could address this problem for you. So, please bear with me while I go through my feedback and the solution I put in place for you.
There are three different points, which I would like to share with you:
A – Our Lack of Response to Your Emails:
I have to admit that this issue turned out to be a challenging one to address. All the evidence I gathered yesterday showed that it was a technical glitch in our email system, which prevented your messages from being delivered to us. This technical error is now being fixed by our IT department. In fact, I would like to thank you for your posting because without it, we would not have been aware of the problem, thus unable to bring a permanent fix to it and save other customers from facing the same issue. I am now in possession of all the emails you sent us, and I fully understand how anxious you were to get a reply from us. As HotelTravel.com’s Customer Relations manager, I feel bad you had to face such a seemingly wall of silence caused by a technical issue, which is our responsibility. Please do accept our apologies for this.
B - Hotel Had No Reservation:
I am not sure whether you are aware that hotels often receive their rooming lists (list of guests’ names) only 48 hrs, sometime the day before, guests’ arrivals. So, if you called earlier than 48 hrs, it is not surprising the property knew nothing about you coming, simply because it had not received your name yet. That’s also why no one at the hotel could help you too. When I looked at our (and that of our partner in London) reservation system’s paper trail yesterday, your booking record appeared absolutely normal and confirmed all the way to the hotel, including your original reservation on the 5th April and your subsequent amendment on the 8th of April. So, having seen this happened before, I fear that, unaware of such an industry practice, you called the hotel a little too early (before 48 hrs of your arrival date). I trust I was able to clarify this particular point.
C – Booking Cancellation:
On this matter, I traced back your reservation and the terms and conditions of the cancellation policy imposed by the hotel. For the benefit of all, I also need to clarify one point: hotel cancellation policies are never based on the guest’s ‘date of departure’ as stated in your post. They are always based on the guest’s ‘date of arrival’. That’s an industry standard, worldwide. So, in your case, your date of arrival at the hotel was 13th April 2012. On the confirmation document we sent you (I have a copy with me), it states “Cancellation Policy: If you cancel this reservation during 11th Apr. 2012 - 13th Apr. 2012 (GMT+07:00), it will result in a 100% cancellation fee of your full booking amount”. This means that the deadline for cancelling your reservation without any penalty was the 10th April 2010. But your cancellation request came on the 12th April 2012, which was passed the due deadline. Not surprisingly, our system read this as defaulting from the cancellation policy and automatically applied the penalty as stated on your confirmation document. So, on this point, I am afraid that HotelTravel.com was not at fault and enforced the cancellation policy dictated by the hotel for this specific booking. Bottom line is that the cancellation deadline was missed and therefore do not qualify for a refund.
However, since HotelTravel.com is definitely a genuine serious company, I took it upon myself to get back to the hotel on your behalf. I am pleased to inform you that:
1) After several discussions, the hotel has agreed to exceptionally waive the cancellation fee for you;
2) Consequently, I have also instructed our accounting department to initiate the refund of your booking for its full value.
(Please note that credit refunds normally take up to 10 working days before being available on the bank account you used to pay for the booking).
Furthermore, to make up for the inconvenience you experienced, and in a hope that you will give HotelTravel.com another try, I would also like to also offer you a US$25.00 credit on your HotelTravel.com account, which you can redeem on your next purchase with us. We will email you full details on how to use this voucher at the email address you used to make your booking.
At this juncture and in response to your statements questioning the legitimacy of HotelTravel.com, our company’s head of public relations, asked me to insert the following section in my reply to you:
HOTELTRAVEL.COM LEGITIMACY
1 – HotelTravel.com is a Genuine Business
Since 1999, HotelTravel.com has been operating as a legal business, as authorised by the several governments-issued trade and business licenses it owns. We are incorporated in 14 countries; we employ hundreds of staff from 32 nationalities who speak 20 different languages. We have successfully served millions of customers in 10 languages, 24/7, worldwide. Finally, we have thousands of contracts with hotels and suppliers, which allow us to offer our customers extremely competitive hotel rates, at some 120,000 hotels around the world, year round, nonstop. Would it be correct to assume that on April 5 2012, you made your reservation request with us because you found a very attractive rate on our site?
2 – HotelTravel.com and Its Customer Care
If you take the time to search for other complaints about HotelTravel.com, we know that you will not find many. In fact, compared to the huge amount of complaints some of our competitors get, we believe it means that for the last 13 years, our company has actually been doing a great job. The reason why this is made possible is because HotelTravel.com is a medium size private company. We are not a faceless publically listed fully automated online travel agency. Our independence and size allows us to put a real focus on our customer care instead of being solely driven by stock exchange quarterly results.
Customer care is core to our corporate culture. It is embedded in our brand statement – Real People | Real Service | Real Choice – unequivocally promoting our customers to be centre stage of all our operations. It is the keystone around how all my colleagues and I anticipate customer needs, deliver quality service and offer a freedom of choice to its clients. It is rooted in our daily work.
3 – HotelTravel.com is an active member of several highly reputable worldwide travel industry associations. We pay membership fees, we have membership IDs, we are invited to speak at their conferences and seminars, and the management of our company includes some of the most respected executives in our industry. When you have a minute, please have a search about our company and you will see hundreds of charity event sponsorships, and speaking event presentations by our executives and their teams.
Some of the travel industry associations we belong to are (you can read many more on our site at: http://www.hoteltravel.com/network/aboutus.asp):
- IATA: International Air Transport Association (membership ID: #96-6 2679 5)
- PATA: Pacific Asia Travel Association (membership ID: #2123)
- JATA: Japan Association of Travel Agents (membership ID: #42776)
- HEDNA: Hotel Electronic Distribution Network Association (membership ID: #9630-0)
- ASTA: American Society of Travel Agents (membership ID: #900148470)
- TAT: Tourism Authority of Thailand (membership ID: #34/00278)
Again, we trust that you will be able to acknowledge that, if indeed HotelTravel.com was a rogue business, it would be literally impossible for it to maintain such a reputable international exposure.
4 – Finally, HotelTravel.com is a “VeriSign Secured” and “Trustwave” certified approved business, which allows us to use the most advanced online encryption technology available today. This means that HotelTravel.com offers and guarantees all its customers, the safest and most secure transactional environment current technology permits today, while ensuring the highest level of customers’ data protection when purchasing hotel products online with us. If you go on our home page (http://www.hoteltravel.com/) and scroll right down to the bottom of that page, you will see their respective logos, which you must have already seen on other merchants’ websites. If you then click on either of those two logos, a browser window should open and display our official certificates.
The fact that we own such certificates is significant. It is key to know that they can only be awarded to businesses that can prove their authenticity and legality. There is no other way. Therefore, the very fact that we are allowed to publically display them, is a guarantee that HotelTravel.com is a legitimate business.
To conclude, I sincerely hope that I managed to somehow change your perception about HotelTravel.com. Our silence to your emails was not acceptable and I have done what I could to mend this. At the same time, your feedback allowed us to fix a technical error, which if not for you, may have gone undetected for an indefinite period. Your feedback definitely holds great value for HotelTravel.com, as we are always looking for ways to improve our service and enhance the overall customer experience.
Finally if I may, I would like to invite you to take a little moment when making your next hotel reservation, and go over the terms and conditions of the cancellation policies, to ensure that for your own piece of mind, such a situation does not occur anymore.
I thank you for your patience. My reply might seem a little lengthy, but I felt you deserved a full and comprehensive explanation on what happened. You are welcome to write to me directly at the following email address:
megan.w AT hoteltravel DOT com
(Please replace the ‘AT’ and the ‘DOT’ by their respective obvious characters. This is avoid my email address being picked-up and spammed by crawlers)
Yours sincerely,
Megan White
Customer Relations ManagerHotelTravel.com
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kefasse
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Jan 12, 2013
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hoteltravel.com
I have used this site to book a Hotel,( ref ref # [3433964] ) bbelieving that they will provide the sirvice. The booking was not maded, i aiive at the hotel conficed that they have book with my family. They have charg me. For 3 night USD. 601.92. I was, far away with my family, wich mean that i had to pay again at the Hotel, for a service that aldready have paid. I have the request the mony back, it as been a headack, since tha i am geting into an investigation to find what happened. For me is ovios, there was no service at all, and istill not. From now on, i will be very ceptical about Hotel Travel, and i want the refund.
Kefasse
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AWE_34
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Jan 20, 2013
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IMPOSSIBLE TO CANCELL AND GET A REFUND TWO MONTHS IN ADVANCE
Booking reference: 2327766
By "mistake" I decided to give HotelTravel a chance and forgot about my usual booking websites (Hostelworld and Lastminute - which I used many times and have always been helpful). A couple of hours ago I booked a room in London for 1st April. However, I realized that I need to cancel my travel (for reasons that I want to keep private). I contacted immediately the Costumer Services by email and in the live chat you offer to i) cancel my booking and ii) arrange the refund to my bank account. The answer I got is that there is no way to arrange my refund unless I give new dates to check in. I definitely want to keep honest and tell that I am not certain about going in the next months (that is why I ask to cancel).
I want you to take into consideration that if I am asking you to cancel is for a reason independent to me and that I am doing it more than 2 months in advance. So far, I feel HotelTravel does not support customers. The finally answer I got from your Costumer Services was to consider "other websites with other offers and conditions for your future bookings"... and so will I.
I look forward to receiving a solution from you since the person I talked to (Just "Vincent" in the live chat) told me that there is no other instance I can talk to and there is nothing you can do for me.
I also hope you keep a record of me as an unsatisfied customer, willing to tell everyone around me to avoid your services.
Andrea
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blueskyngreentrees
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May 27, 2015
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Terrible customer service
I booked a hotel through their website but received an email saying that my credit card was declined and I needed to fill out a paper form and fax it in. I called my credit card company who said that there was no problem with my account and no record of any charged being declined. They said the problem must be with hoteltravel's system. Despite this I sent the fax form in, quite a hassle. Now it's been 24 hours and I haven't heard a word from them. I don't know if they are ever going to process the hotel reservation or if I should book the hotel through a different web site. I don't want to be charged twice! I tried to use their "24/7" online chat support but it said that all their agents were busy and that I needed to submit request and wait for their email response. So much for 24/7 support. Worst customer service ever! I hope that they have lost my booking and this doesn't go through after reading the nightmares people have written about on this web site. (Ref: Booking #4560200.)
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peandalo
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Aug 12, 2015
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KIDS STAY FREE OR "NOT"
All i wanted was a great holiday stay for my family. But we haven't even left yet and the problems have already started.
Booked a room at the Bali Dynasty for 3 people (2 x adults & 1 x 12 year old child)
Ring the Bali Dynasty 2 weeks before arrival to ensure booking is ok and for them to ensure there is sufficient bedding for us to use for our visit.
They come back and stated the room is only booked for 2 people. And If i wanted breakfast & a bed for my son to sleep on that i would have to pay $30 US per day. Not happy with this i contact Hoteltravel.com and state what i have just found out. They say that the room is booked for 2 adults and 1 child however the child is for free. At no time did i see child stays for free when i booked.
Below Bali Dynasty telling me he's not staying for free.
Dear Mr. Peter Rae,
Greetings from Bali Dynasty Resort.
Thank you for your message through our Facebook.
We hold your reservation from Hotel Travel.com, 23-26 Aug 2015 in a Deluxe room.
It stated only for 2 persons on your booking form.
May we reconfirm how old is your children?
If you wish to share existing bed with your children, there will be additional cost for children breakfast.
Additional extra bed will be charge at USD 30 nett/night including breakfast.
Thank you for your attention and we look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you and Kind regards,
Bagus
Reservation Manager
Bali Dynasty Resort
1. I booked the hotel room for 3 people.
2. At no time did i ask for my son to stay for free
3. When i contacted hoteltravel.com they were very blunt about the whole scenario and didn't even try to rectify the issue i have.
4. When i asked for a cancellation and refund all they were concerned about was charging me the $249.86. AUD cancellation fee.
5. Nowhere on the Hotel Voucher does it say my son is for free.
6. If my son is for free why are they trying to charge me extra $$ for my son to sleep in a bed and for him to eat breakfast
7. They keep telling me my son is for free (but its not free as the hotel wants to charge me for him to stay)
Hotel Travel.com doesn't care about your holiday experience.
They don't care about customer service.
At no time did they try to offer a solution to my problem
Im very disappointed with the outcome and the lack of service i received from them.
I would not recommend them given the experience i have had.
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ericnorris
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Jul 12, 2016
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Mad in Texas
I booked two rooms on 07/11/16. Had to book them separately. After nearly 3 hours, finally received a confirmation on the first booking. Twenty hours later, I'm still waiting for confirmation on the second booking. I called the West Gate Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, to confirm the first booking, for which I have a printed voucher, they have no record of my booking. Yet Hotel Travel has received payments for two separate bookings. What the hell is going on???
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n0e56
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Sep 21, 2016
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Scam! Avoid!
We had an awful experience with Hotel.Travel. We booked and paid 60 USD for 1 night at the Capital Airport Hotel in Beijing. When we arrived to the hotel they searched for the reservation and confirmed us that they didn´t receive any booking for us from Hotel.Travel. We tried to call Hotel.Travel several times with no success. Since it was already 1am we didn´t have a choice but to pay again for the night (it cost us 20 USD more than the original booking). We contacted Hotel.Travel and the answer we received surprised us: they claimed that we didn´t show that day at the hotel. Finally, and after resending them the duplicated paid we had to make for 80 USD, they offered us to cancel the original reservation without any fee. We are still trying to get them to refund us not the 60USD for the booking but the higher amount we paid at the Beijing hotel. We wouldnt have spent that amount if it wasn´t for Hotel.Travel; too expensive for only 10 hours at a room.
I´m definitely not going to make any reservation with Hotel.Travel anymore; it was my first and last time. I highly recommend you to do the same.
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