[TKMCE]

Looks straight forward. The entire property was booked out for the wedding. Either the hotel didnt inform Travelguru or Travelguru ddnt block out the dates from their system Either way, end result, you suffered. These things can happen.
But again as a mattter of good practice especially on ultra peak dates like the ones you travelled, it is better that you reconfirm your bookings directly with the hotel. Let me again repeat, for some of the smaller independent properties the electronic booking confirmations may not be always seamless as you think. Not speaking about any specific property or portal.

[vasanthn21]

Originally Posted by TKMCE

Looks straight forward. The entire property was booked out for the wedding. Either the hotel didnt inform Travelguru or Travelguru ddnt block out the dates from their system Either way, end result, you suffered. These things can happen.
But again as a mattter of good practice especially on ultra peak dates like the ones you travelled, it is better that you reconfirm your bookings directly with the hotel. Let me again repeat, for some of the smaller independent properties the electronic booking confirmations may not be always seamless as you think. Not speaking about any specific property or portal.

I am sorry to say, but I do not agree with this.

For wahtever reason, once travelguru confirms it when there is no availability - they have to take responsibility. At least, they should have tried to make some alternate arrangement or compensated in some other way to make up for this (makes business sense too, the customer won't be bad-mouthing them).

If the customer has to call the hotel to confirm, what is the point in going through a portal, the portal is supposed to take care of such hassles - else what is the value add?

Thanks for bringing this inceident to our notice windsurfer. I, for sure will not use travelguru ever.

[scopriobharath]

I am really sorry to hear your experience.

You may appeal to the court but the judiciary system is pretty slow and the compensation would be paltry. There are no proper guidelines or customer griendly rules unfortunately. If you have the time, money and power, you can take this route. If you are a common man, better to take refund and pledge not book again.

I faced a similar experience with GoIbibo for Air travel and no one values the mental agony an inconvenience faced. I took an oath not to book through goibibo again and I never do.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/route-...ml#post2920046

I once booked a Munnar resort and once the travel site confirmed the booking, I immediately called up the hotel and confirmed. Later, Two weeks prior to departure i confirmed the same and spoke to the manager one day before we left.

[gauravdgr8]

That is so very sad to hear.

Absolutely do not accept the plain refund. Go to the consumer court and demand cost of fuel, mental harrasment. You will surely see the case coming to a positive end that way. Else travelguru will only drag the case as they are virtual for you currently.

[phamilyman]

Originally Posted by windsurfer

Also, I need your advice to take this forward legally. What are my options? Is it worth pursuing further? Should I just take the refund and be happy?

This is absolutely standard practice.

It is perfectly regular that small hotels delink their boookings from portals around the new year for "revenue management". You should have checked with the hotel honestly - its a fact of life these days.

[motomaverick]

I had a ditto experience like you but with goibibo.com. This was for a hotel booking in Ooty in a off season. These folks calls me one day before stating the booking for 3 days is not confirmed, so we took the refund and I booked directly with the same hotel for 2 days while had to alter my travel for one day.

For the refund even I had issues, so I simply posted on Goibibo's twitter account from where my matter took on a serious look and I got the refund shortly. In any case I do not think there is any point pursuing this further as they can easily prove that they tried calling you before without answer or they tried offering you alternatives which you denied. After all what they use as records is a CRM tool where you can enter anything.

[TKMCE]

Originally Posted by vasanthn21

I am sorry to say, but I do not agree with this.

For wahtever reason, once travelguru confirms it when there is no availability - they have to take responsibility. At least, they should have tried to make some alternate arrangement or compensated in some other way to make up for this (makes business sense too, the customer won't be bad-mouthing them).

If the customer has to call the hotel to confirm, what is the point in going through a portal, the portal is supposed to take care of such hassles - else what is the value add?

Thanks for bringing this inceident to our notice windsurfer. I, for sure will not use travelguru ever.

Vasanthn21...You may not agree, some others whom you may call over cautious but whom I will call "practical" will agree (see the immediate posting after you by scopriobharath) and in my opinion the latter group are the smart ones. A call from Hyderabad to Connoor will not cost the earth but it would have given a lot of peace of mind to the OP.

Please do note that in both my earlier posts I did mention clearly that checking with the hotels directly is recommended for "peak travel dates" where every property is likely to be chock full , In places where alternatives are hard to find during such times due to options being limited, like Coorg or Munnar, it is indeed smart to cross check (my opinion which I stand by).

Travelguru may be duty bound to provide alternate accomodation, but if everything is booked out on New Years eve, what are they supposed to do when it was clear that there was a mess up and nothing suitable is available....".construct a hotel at one days notice."???

Mistakes can and do happen to the best of organisations, They are most likely to have an impact when it happens on ultra peak travel times. In such cases service recovery is the only option left . To be fair, Travel Guru did call as soon as they realised the problem (and again keep in mind we do not know whether it is the mistake from them or the hotel). Agreed, the problem may have been realised only the day before, but point is they did try to alert the OP. You search the internet or even T-BHP, there are quite a few companies in such a situation who just keep quiet! Either way it may not have made any difference but the fact that they did try as admitted by the OP will be a point which the court will consider if this goes legal. And before going legal, "windsurfer", do take a moment to check out the "terms and conditions" in their website which you clicked to agree before you got the booking confirmation. You might find some very interesting reading there.


I do apologise being a little blunt, but I did work as a travel agent once upon a time. One of the things which was impressed upon me in those early days by my mentors was a simple thing... technology is fantastic, do embrace it by all means... but thinking practical is not going to hurt you in any way, on the contrary it may save you a lot of trouble later on.

I would strongly suggest "windsurfer" you take the refund and forget about it. Someone just won a case against Kingfisher Airlines for lost baggage ...The person won 14, 000 Rs as claim... However the incident happened in 2007, veredict came just now !!! If you have those sort of time and patience to spare, you can stil go legal, else just take the refund and move on...

[windsurfer]

Folks, The hotel manager I spoke to was very critical about TravelGuru. He said that this happens often with TravelGuru. He also manages bookings from other travel sites but never faced any problem with them.

I agree that i should have called the hotel. As it had never happened to me, I was not even aware that such a thing is possible.

Anyway, I am talking to few legal folks at my work place. Let's see how this shapes up. I just want TravelGuru to realize that they cannot do this to a customer and get away so easily. Just make them realize that they cannot screw up a holiday because of their bad planning.

The compensation is not the reason the behind this thread.

UPDATE : Just checked my Citibank account and the refund is done. It's my bad that I did not check the account today. To be fair to them, they did refund the amount in the promised time.

[Nitrous Power]

Originally Posted by TKMCE

Travelguru may be duty bound to provide alternate accomodation, but if everything is booked out on New Years eve, what are they supposed to do when it was clear that there was a mess up and nothing suitable is available....".construct a hotel at one days notice."???

Seriously? As per the information provided by OP, the said hotel did not do over booking. Matter of fact, as per the post, the said hotel was booked entirely for a wedding. Now the wedding booking does not happen overnight, usually. In that case, travelguru should not have taken the booking at all. Travelguru should have contacted the OP by calling repetitively or by emailing and should have provided alternatives (different location, different property).

Having said that, it's better to double check with the property directly all the time.

[fast_elegance]

I had a similar experience with makemytrip. This was for my trip to Munnar.

The hotel stated that they never received a booking from makemytrip and my name was not on their list. I showed them the confirmation voucher and told them that I was not willing to talk to makemytrip or anyone. I just insisted that they should provide me a room and the hotel manager arranged an alternate accommodation.

The 2nd hotel was much cleaner and was at a far better location which worked in my favour. So never complained!

[scopriobharath]

Originally Posted by Nitrous Power

Seriously? As per the information provided by OP, the said hotel did not do over booking. Matter of fact, as per the post, the said hotel was booked entirely for a wedding. Now the wedding booking does not happen overnight, usually. In that case, travelguru should not have taken the booking at all. Travelguru should have contacted the OP by calling repetitively or by emailing and should have provided alternatives (different location, different property).

Having said that, it's better to double check with the property directly all the time.

Totally agree - Sharing a similar incident. My GoAIR Flight was supposedly cancelled one month back which i came to know when i arrived at the airport. Their simple excuse was my phone number is not updated. This is totally unacceptable. My PAyment is updated, My First name and LAst name, Age all are updated then why not my number.

I even got an SMS to board check in to the airline 45 mins prior to departure. further more, the airport display TVs too show the flight departing on time

[MaxTorque]

That was really bad way to end the year - 2012. Experience like this really pulling customers back and these industries will struggle to make a strong foot hold in India.

In future after booking through the travel portal, we may have to call the hotel directly and confirm the booking. This way we can avoid last minute surprises. Another option is to explore the options available via sites like Travelguru and make the booking directly.

Back in 2008, I had used Travelguru for finding out an accommodation in Paris. It worked well and we could book an accommodation in very pocket friendly manner.

What is the next step from your side..? Are you contemplating legal options..?

[perseus]

I faced similar issue in late november with Yatra.com. I booked Hotel Vinayaga in Rameswaram. Upon reaching the hotel, hotel mentioned that they never confimed the booking, they even showed me their email reply to travelguru (yatra.com used travelguru internally) denying the availability on the mentioned dates. Howeve neither Yatra.com nor travelguru took the pain to inform me about this. Luckily yatra offered me an alternate accomodation at Hotel Queens palace.

[ajayr]

Originally Posted by windsurfer

I have been using online travel portals for about 7 years now and NEVER a confirmed booking was dishonored. However, this is my first booking with TravelGuru.com and i have learnt a good lesson.

That's a real bad experience, I hope this never happens to anyone. Perhaps it is always better to confirm the booking directly with the hotel 24-48 hours before the date of travel.

[vasanthn21]

Originally Posted by TKMCE

Vasanthn21...You may not agree, some others whom you may call over cautious but whom I will call "practical" will agree (see the immediate posting after you by scopriobharath) and in my opinion the latter group are the smart ones. A call from Hyderabad to Connoor will not cost the earth but it would have given a lot of peace of mind to the OP.

Please do note that in both my earlier posts I did mention clearly that checking with the hotels directly is recommended for "peak travel dates" where every property is likely to be chock full , In places where alternatives are hard to find during such times due to options being limited, like Coorg or Munnar, it is indeed smart to cross check (my opinion which I stand by).

Travelguru may be duty bound to provide alternate accomodation, but if everything is booked out on New Years eve, what are they supposed to do when it was clear that there was a mess up and nothing suitable is available....".construct a hotel at one days notice."???

Mistakes can and do happen to the best of organisations, They are most likely to have an impact when it happens on ultra peak travel times. In such cases service recovery is the only option left . To be fair, Travel Guru did call as soon as they realised the problem (and again keep in mind we do not know whether it is the mistake from them or the hotel). Agreed, the problem may have been realised only the day before, but point is they did try to alert the OP. You search the internet or even T-BHP, there are quite a few companies in such a situation who just keep quiet! Either way it may not have made any difference but the fact that they did try as admitted by the OP will be a point which the court will consider if this goes legal. And before going legal, "windsurfer", do take a moment to check out the "terms and conditions" in their website which you clicked to agree before you got the booking confirmation. You might find some very interesting reading there.


I do apologise being a little blunt, but I did work as a travel agent once upon a time. One of the things which was impressed upon me in those early days by my mentors was a simple thing... technology is fantastic, do embrace it by all means... but thinking practical is not going to hurt you in any way, on the contrary it may save you a lot of trouble later on.

I would strongly suggest "windsurfer" you take the refund and forget about it. Someone just won a case against Kingfisher Airlines for lost baggage ...The person won 14, 000 Rs as claim... However the incident happened in 2007, veredict came just now !!! If you have those sort of time and patience to spare, you can stil go legal, else just take the refund and move on...

TKMCE Bahi, chill yaar. I am not asking the travel portal to construct a hotel in one day, all I am saying is they should take responsibility and provide proper compensation. Please re-read my earlier post again.

All I am saying is that the portal should take responsibility - is that too much to ask? If the portal cannot do that, there are a lot of other portals that provide better/professional service, I feel it is smarter to move to some other such portal.

I have personally used another portal to book my stay in Singapore, and they provided a very professional service. I did not bother to call the hotel and check, because I trusted them. I magine my reaction if I had taken the flight there, landed there with my wife and luggage, hired a taxi to the hotel and then realized after reaching the hotel that the booking was not valid, how would I react?!

I am not saying technology is fool-proof, I am saying that it is the responsibility of the service provider to ensure minimal impact/inconvenience to customer if and when such incidents happen.