I booked a 4 night stay at a hotel in France. on my arrival at 11pm I found that the place was loacked up with no 24hour reception. Their automated checkin box outside the hotel would not give me access. i called the hotel security and was basically told to find another hotel. not easy to do on foot, in an unfamiliar town, carrying luggage at 11pm on a public holiday in France. I called hotels.com and was passed to a number of people in India. The next hour was spent listening to their on hold 'music' at a mobile rate of 34p a minute. The reason for the delay was they souldn't pass my call to their own relocations department. Eventually I got to speak with the reloacations person and had to end the call early as my battery was about to expire. While on the phone I walked about 2 miles back to a hotel I had seen on my way to my first, lugging my suitcase and heavy rucksack/laptop bag. Only after I had checked in here did their relocations guy call me to offer me an alternative hotel - on the other side of town. It was now 12:15am
Their customer services are appalling. They are all based in India but do the old trick of using English names. They offered to refund me for the night where I couldn't stay in the hotel. They offered me 30 gbp as way of compensation for the stress and inconvenience caused. I rejected this offfer and he called back with a new one. They would refund me 100gbp including the cost of the first night - so 69gbp and now 31gbp. I have told them the minimum I want is a refund of the first night (69) and refund of the night in the other hotel (45) a refund to cover the costs of my phone and payment for my inconvenience which I will take say 40 for.
The danger I see with this is that they are taking bookings without knowing anything about the hotel at the other end. What would have happened if the weather was bad, or I had my kids with me? Would it have been ok had I been a single woman to be left stranded in an unfamiliar town at midnight?
Personally I feel that their actions have been shocking and their attitude is not what I would have expected. They are part of Expedia - I think I'll be giving both a very wide berth.
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