[drhoneycake]

Originally Posted by GTO

Agreed with the others.

Booked a hotel for the Auto Expo 2 months in advance. On the weekend before the Auto Expo, we got an email from MakeMyTrip stating that the booking is confirmed.

Thought of cross-checking with the hotel - they said we don't have any room booked . After a lot of back & forth (and waste of time), MakeMyTrip arranged another hotel for us.

Learned my lesson the hard way. Best to book directly with the hotel as every hotel now has online bookings anyway, and they readily price match what price you're getting elsewhere.

On a related note, I've never had a problem with hotel bookings made via booking.com.

Will probably use MakeMyTrip for flight tickets, but never for hotels.

+1 to this. Had a similar experience with MakeMyTrip 2 years back when I travelled to Mumbai. Didn't want to stay at relatives place hence chose a hotel in Bandra. Got a mail saying booking is confirmed, thought of verifying with the hotel and they say no such booking with them. 😳

Switched over to booking.com and no hassles whatsoever. I've booked rooms in India and abroad (London, Dubai, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Cologne Istanbul, etc.). Never had any issues. Also booking.com has some of the best rates for hotels anywhere. Their site is beautifully designed too, unlike MMT's cluttered look. Agoda is equally good.

I would vouch for these two anyday.


Sent from my iPhone 6 using Team-BHP

[arun_josie]

Originally Posted by GTO

Learned my lesson the hard way. Best to book directly with the hotel as every hotel now has online bookings anyway, and they readily price match what price you're getting elsewhere.

Yes, I do the same. MMT, Clear trip, tripadvisor for search purpose only. Once i find the hotel, I book directly through the hotel web site.

Also, MMT charges flat 1000 for kids of age <12, but when booked directly we need to pay only if we take an extra bed. And it will be much less than 1000.

[jkrishnakj]

Ditto. Make my trip and clear trip and ezeego to check and book air tickets. But when it comes to hotels 'booking.com' is what I go to. Never had an issue with them thus far across India and outside.

[hrishig]

( Mods please move this to appropriate thread if required )

I completed a week-long trip with family. Sharing my impressions with MakeMyTrip which can be helpful to others

MakeMyTrip is/ was my favorite brand and I have done multiple hotel flight booking in past , received MMT black status because of my spends. But I decided to do out station car booking with them which turned disastrous.

1) On MMT app/ site you can book car for 6 persons. The image is of Innova and the site says Innova , xylo or similar. I did booking, paid fully money received confirmation which says that I will receive innova or similar vehicle


2) On the departure day to my surprise the car I received was TUV 300. Now TUV 300 is way down in terms of comfort (Read 3rd seat space, rear ac vents, suspension etc etc ).


3) Called the MMT call center and checked if I have received this car by accident/ mistake. They confirmed that this the correct car and they expect 6 adults + 3 large suite cases to fit in this car and that to for out station trips.


4) The explanation provided was as per RTO rules TUV 300 is a 7-seater car. I told them as per RTO Tata Magic is also 7-seater vehicle. Should your customers expect such cars when they do booking for Innova and similar ? The answer was “Yes”


5) I asked for replacement car which was rudely refused. Then I asked for refund which was also refused saying that car allotment from MMT is already done.


6) I was advised to sort this with vendor directly instead of MMT. I was kind of speechless at this point time.

Long story short, the * marks in the MMT site matters and hurts you the most when you don’t expect them to.

[turbospooler]

BHPians, this is a MakeMyTrip appreciation post.

After looking at this thread, I can surely say that MMT has come a long way and has become my preferred OTA (Online Travel Agent).

There are 2 instances which have reinforced my trust in them.

Incident 1: I had booked a hotel in Mumbai via MMT, but when I called them on my arrival date, the hotel said that they have stopped taking any online bookings.
I calmly called MMT and they listed out few alternative hotels.
When none of the options were appealing enough, they gave me an option to stay at the hotel of my choice (or even the same hotel, which denied online bookings but was open for walk-ins) and MMT will not only refund the entire amount, they would also give me additional monetary support upto a certain threshold. (To give context, say the room rent was INR 2000, they offered support by refunding the entire INR 2000 and giving max INR 1250 from their end for compensating the last minute hotel booking.)
So, I could stay in a hotel with rent of INR 3250 and wouldn't have to shell out anything from my pocket, except the INR 2000 which I had paid to MMT.
This gesture really touched my heart as MMT was not even getting the business as I went to the hotel directly, paid the bill and sent it to MMT for reimbursement.

Incident 2: I booked a wrong hotel with refundable fare.
This hotel fare was higher than the one which I intended to book.
When I was cancelling, MMT gave an option to transfer it to their wallet without any expiry of that wallet balance.
As I had exhausted my credit limit, I thought of transferring it to the wallet, booking the correct hotel and waiting for another travel plan to consume the excess balance.
I completed the correct hotel booking and saw an option in the MMT app to transfer my remaining excess funds back to credit card without hassle, except the time which they would take to transfer it.
I was very impressed by their IT systems which genuinely help the customers.

These are just 2 of the several incidents where MMT has been helpful.
Plus, their loyalty program is decent and ensures I stick to MMT.

I think ixigo is also another good OTA as they are partners of Flipkart Travel bookings.

Wanted to share my (pleasant) experience with MMT, so you can benefit from this if you happen to face similar situation.

[SR-71]

Originally Posted by GTO

Learned my lesson the hard way. Best to book directly with the hotel as every hotel now has online bookings anyway, and they readily price match what price you're getting elsewhere.

Price match is not true all the time. Hotels give their rooms to channel partners at lower rates and I believe there is some understanding that even if the rooms do not get booked there is a certain fee that the channel partners need to pay a small fee. Members from the hospitality industry maybe able to shed more light on this.

I normally do what you mention for last minute bookings. I walk in quoting the lowest price from Booking or Agoda or MMT and sometimes they price match. But there have instances where the price at a portal was at least 1500 to 2000 lesser per night and the front desk staff declined to match it. However in each of this occasion they mentioned if I were to book it via the portal, they will give the room right away. The only bummer was once at Lemon Tree Chennai where they made me wait for 40 minutes until they got confirmation from Cleartrip. I offered to have my card on their file until they got the confirmation, but the bozos at the front desk wouldn't have any of it. But I agree Booking.com and Agoda have the best choices and reliability (both are managed by the same parent company now, if I am not mistaken)

I believe these portals are really useful if you were to book for peak holiday season when they tend to block rooms or booking rooms at hotels which have no portal of their own and in small towns. Its this part that gets shady. Either the portal jacks up the price and make a killing and you fell like a clown when you reach the hotel and you realize you have paid like 1.5x their rack rate (or) the portal and the hotel are not in sync leaving the customer with a bad experience.

[adisan]

I was a regular with MakeMyTrip for a handful of years. There was a recurring issue in a property, with bikes being parked blocking my car. Each time I would request the front office staff, who would have the bike moved before I could take the car. After a few times, I spoke with the front office manager who responded rudely that it would continue to be like that. Though my booking was for an additional day I cut short my stay there.

When I raised the issue with MMT, they took only the hotel's inputs and conveyed to me that I did not cooperate with the hotel request regarding moving my car a bit so that another visitor could park their car. They did not even seek my version of the incident.

I deleted my account with MMT.