6 ms·

My elderly mother and her (also elderly) friend recently booked a place in Lyon, France using a well-known online travel agency (OTA). The taxi cab driver dumpe

My elderly mother and her (also elderly) friend recently booked a place in Lyon, France using a well-known online travel agency (OTA). The taxi cab driver dumped their stuff on the sidewalk and spun out of the area as quickly as he could get away. Apparently the "accommodations" were a collection of small apartments in a bad part of town. They punched in a code to open the door and get into the hallway, only to find that there was nothing there but a bunch of doors and a staircase leading to another floor with nothing but a bunch of doors. This went up for a few stories. There apparently was no way to turn the lights on. They had no indication as to which door they were supposed to go through or how to get through it. There was nobody in sight at the facility. After trudging up a few flights of stairs and back down again, they elected to ask some students passing by where they could find a hotel. Fortunately they were able to find a place that had a vacancy. Then they had to fight the OTA for a refund. Fortunately they are retired and had nothing better to do all day long than call them until they finally gave a refund. I've had a couple of really obnoxious problems with OTAs involving event tickets. In one case I bought the wrong type of Disneyland tickets. I had to purchase different tickets once I got to the park. Then trying to get a refund from the OTA was a living nightmare. After about a week of daily calls I finally reverse-engineered enough of their process of moving money between them and the park and what not to convince them to refund me for the wrong (and unused) tickets. Another time an OTA with a customer service stand at a hotel in Hawaii had worked with me for 20 minutes to book tickets for an event, and then at the very end they said, "The booking fee is $250. But we'll waive that if you attend a 1-hour sales pitch!" My strategy these days is to use an online travel agency to learn about hotels with vacancies and events in the area and then to go directly to the hotel or event web sites to purchase. If there's no way to book except through the OTA, I'm not going to have anything to do with said hotel or event.

nexus7556 4y ago
I will never use an OTA again too. I booked a massage at the Banyan Tree on Koh Samui via Expedia back in 2021. My email confirmation of the booking said I needed to contact a company Newway Travel via phone to confirm the reservation time. I attempted to call Newway Travel five times throughout via phone but nobody ever answered. I called the Banyan Tree Spa and they had no record of the booking. I waited until later in the day to see if there were just processing delays. Later in the evening I received an email from Newway Travel stating that “for chinese speaking , right ? Becasue this package 90 mins available for that market.” I asked them to call me to clarify their policy and they replied via email and reiterated "*Inform you that 90 mins package available for chainese market only and 60 mins package for worldwide market. Pls inform us guest what nationality ?” I told them I object to such race based discrimination and Newway replied: “As the hotel needs us to report the customer’s nationality and it’s about the different rates for each market as well.” I had to spend about 10 hours on the phone with Expedia trying to get a refund since we were refused service even after sharing the email correspondence I had with them. Horrible experience, horrible customer service.
- raverbashing 4y ago
  Oh so the Chinese market had the "special package" I guess?! Regardless, I'd try to chargeback this from the credit card
sumedh 4y ago
> My elderly mother and her (also elderly) friend recently booked a place in Lyon, France using a well-known online travel agency (OTA). Did they check the reviews?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- soco 4y ago
  At least on Booking.com there are tricks the hosts can pull so you cannot leave a bad review: they cancel your stay as "no show" and booking.com will not do anything about it. The only way is to check reviews in other places as well - google and whatnot.
rytis 4y ago
Is it not possible to dispute and chargeback via credit card provider? My strategy of giving three attempts to get a refund as per their procedures, then warning about dispute, then eventually issuing a chargeback worked quite fine so far across multiple vendors. It rarely goes as far as the actual chargeback, typically the warning is sufficient.
- tluyben2 4y ago
  If you paid via Cc sure, but, in the EU at least, bank or debit card are pretty common, and while it is possible to charge back with those, it is pretty hard depending on the policies and size of the bank. I have a bank acc in Spain who chargeback without questions when I pop over an email, while my dutch or uk accounts require stacks of paperwork and often say ‘nope’.
  - yencabulator 4y ago
    For what it's worth, some places in EU at least used to have "debit cards with credit-equivalent consumer protection". My MasterCard back in the day explicitly advertised that. Just don't rely on every debit card doing that.
  - rytis 4y ago
    I'm in UK (so until not that long ago, EU :) ). Don't need credit cards for the "credit" part, but I'm exclusively using them for online (or any) shopping, purely for the safety reasons mentioned. As far as I can see, there's no downsides as long as you're paying it all off every month.
    - tomduncalf 4y ago
      Exactly, plus I believe paying off a credit card improves your credit score. Some debit cards at least do offer protection (mine is Santander) but it’s not by law so I don’t know if it is as effective as chargebacks, which I’ve had cause to use a couple of times and thought worked great. I also only pay on credit online now and pay off in full, and tell others to do the same.
gravlaks 4y ago
When flying, I will avoid using an online travel agency (OTA) as well if I can . I booking with Gotogate.com, but the flight was canceled. Then when trying to get a refund Gotogate systematically try to stall time as much as possible. You have to call support, and are answered by people with very thick Indian accent which is impossible to understand. Luckily I had paid with Paypal, so I could request a refund through there. Unfortunately, when booking flights that needs connections, you have to use an OTA. If one flight is cancelled, the others should be too, which an OTA fixes.
- tluyben2 4y ago
  There are good ones and bad ones; gotogate so far is awful; I avoid them like the plague. Direct with the airline is better anyway.
  - muro 4y ago
    Worst experience ever with gotogate. Never ever ever.
    - muro 4y ago
      credit card chargeback worked, Gotogate wanted to charge $30 to refund a flight cancelled by the airline
- beojan 4y ago
  You should book directly with an airline who will book all the connections so long as they're all with partner airlines (i.e usually in the same alliance). Often you can even book with an airline in that alliance that you won't even be flying to possibly get cheaper tickets. Some OTAs will book connections on airlines that aren't partnered as separate tickets so if you're incoming flight is delayed and you miss a connection, tough luck.
  - brewdad 4y ago
    This. I booked an international flight with Delta for next month. On Saturday I awoke to find that KLM changed my European connection to 28 hours later than originally booked and this would screw up all of our hotels and rental car. I talked to Delta and after about 30 minutes of the agent doing everything she could including escalating was told that they couldn't make any changes for 10 calendar days as KLM was blocking them out. Today, I found a Delta itinerary that actually fits our plans better than the original flight. I called back and got my original flight canceled and the new one booked. It still took 3 agents to get everything settled but I can't imagine how much worse the whole experience would have been if I had booked through Expedia or Kayak or any other 3rd party. Now to hope nothing else changes between now and our departure.
raverbashing 4y ago
Very bad experience. I wonder what the reviews say (and you might actually want to read the recent reviews and check more than one website) I always try to check places like Wikivoyage etc for the neighborhoods As per comparing it with "offline travel agents", I've had some bad experiences with them as well.
rosege 4y ago
I had a similar experience with booking.com. I booked a place in Australia and when I got their I found it was a house run by a junkie who chain smoked inside. I cancelled it on booking.com but they refused to refund me because their policy is that they will only do that if the provider agrees. That was the last time I used their site. Agoda also have a scam going - where if you elect to pay later in a foreign currency then they add on a 17% service charge which is hidden in some fine print which I still haven't found. This is illegal here in Australia and I am contemplating taking them to small claims court over it. The amount is small ($100) but I would like to set a precedent.
- slaw 4y ago
  Agoda and Booking is the same company.
  - rosege 4y ago
    And priceline I think too
fho 4y ago
Anecdotal: there are bad things to say about Airbnb... But (for me) their customer service has been top notch. We were twice in a situation were we had to rebook spontaneous, once because the the original host canceled minutes before we arrived, another time because the host was very generous with their descriptions and we found ourselves in a tiny room without AC and shared accomodations instead of an apartment. Both times a call to Airbnb quickly resolved the issue and they even payed the increase in rent.
- mox1 4y ago
  Is this a shill or do you work for Airbnb? The internet is overwhelmingly filled with negative Airbnb experiences... Your experience is by far the outlier from the typical way Airbnb handles this.
  - blep_ 4y ago
    I've only one experience with airbnb support (a host that blamed a cracked window on us that we had not touched or looked at) but they were reasonably okay to deal with that one time. I'm more inclined to think they're very inconsistent, and people are more likely to complain about bad experiences than to loudly proclaim "this company is reasonably okay to deal with!"
  - jstarfish 4y ago
    I would sooner assume this was an outdated anecdote. Companies are more willing to bend over backwards in their early days, when they're still trying to make a name for themselves (the honeymoon period). The abuse starts once they've bested the competition and become a household name.
    - fho 4y ago
      Second time was just two month ago, so not exactly outdated. Maybe geographically? I'm from Germany.
  - fho 4y ago
    Hmm no ... Maybe I just have been lucky?
ww520 4y ago
Book direct with the hotels. 3rd party bookings are most often not worth it.
- wildrhythms 4y ago
  +1 the last time I used such a service to book a hotel they confirmed it and gave me a confirmation number. I printed everything on paper. When I arrived at the hotel after a 13 hour flight, I showed the receptionist the confirmation number and they 'couldn't find it in their system'. I compared my confirmation number with a colleague's who was traveling with me and they were the same unique format. How the hell does that happen

nexus7556 4y ago

I will never use an OTA again too. I booked a massage at the Banyan Tree on Koh Samui via Expedia back in 2021. My email confirmation of the booking said I needed to contact a company Newway Travel via phone to confirm the reservation time. I attempted to call Newway Travel five times throughout via phone but nobody ever answered. I called the Banyan Tree Spa and they had no record of the booking. I waited until later in the day to see if there were just processing delays. Later in the evening I received an email from Newway Travel stating that “for chinese speaking , right ? Becasue this package 90 mins available for that market.” I asked them to call me to clarify their policy and they replied via email and reiterated "*Inform you that 90 mins package available for chainese market only and 60 mins package for worldwide market. Pls inform us guest what nationality ?” I told them I object to such race based discrimination and Newway replied: “As the hotel needs us to report the customer’s nationality and it’s about the different rates for each market as well.” I had to spend about 10 hours on the phone with Expedia trying to get a refund since we were refused service even after sharing the email correspondence I had with them. Horrible experience, horrible customer service.

raverbashing 4y ago
Oh so the Chinese market had the "special package" I guess?! Regardless, I'd try to chargeback this from the credit card

sumedh 4y ago

> My elderly mother and her (also elderly) friend recently booked a place in Lyon, France using a well-known online travel agency (OTA). Did they check the reviews?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
soco 4y ago
At least on Booking.com there are tricks the hosts can pull so you cannot leave a bad review: they cancel your stay as "no show" and booking.com will not do anything about it. The only way is to check reviews in other places as well - google and whatnot.

rytis 4y ago

Is it not possible to dispute and chargeback via credit card provider? My strategy of giving three attempts to get a refund as per their procedures, then warning about dispute, then eventually issuing a chargeback worked quite fine so far across multiple vendors. It rarely goes as far as the actual chargeback, typically the warning is sufficient.

tluyben2 4y ago
If you paid via Cc sure, but, in the EU at least, bank or debit card are pretty common, and while it is possible to charge back with those, it is pretty hard depending on the policies and size of the bank. I have a bank acc in Spain who chargeback without questions when I pop over an email, while my dutch or uk accounts require stacks of paperwork and often say ‘nope’.
- yencabulator 4y ago
  For what it's worth, some places in EU at least used to have "debit cards with credit-equivalent consumer protection". My MasterCard back in the day explicitly advertised that. Just don't rely on every debit card doing that.
- rytis 4y ago
  I'm in UK (so until not that long ago, EU :) ). Don't need credit cards for the "credit" part, but I'm exclusively using them for online (or any) shopping, purely for the safety reasons mentioned. As far as I can see, there's no downsides as long as you're paying it all off every month.
  - tomduncalf 4y ago
    Exactly, plus I believe paying off a credit card improves your credit score. Some debit cards at least do offer protection (mine is Santander) but it’s not by law so I don’t know if it is as effective as chargebacks, which I’ve had cause to use a couple of times and thought worked great. I also only pay on credit online now and pay off in full, and tell others to do the same.

gravlaks 4y ago

When flying, I will avoid using an online travel agency (OTA) as well if I can . I booking with Gotogate.com, but the flight was canceled. Then when trying to get a refund Gotogate systematically try to stall time as much as possible. You have to call support, and are answered by people with very thick Indian accent which is impossible to understand. Luckily I had paid with Paypal, so I could request a refund through there. Unfortunately, when booking flights that needs connections, you have to use an OTA. If one flight is cancelled, the others should be too, which an OTA fixes.

tluyben2 4y ago
There are good ones and bad ones; gotogate so far is awful; I avoid them like the plague. Direct with the airline is better anyway.
- muro 4y ago
  Worst experience ever with gotogate. Never ever ever.
  - muro 4y ago
    credit card chargeback worked, Gotogate wanted to charge $30 to refund a flight cancelled by the airline
beojan 4y ago
You should book directly with an airline who will book all the connections so long as they're all with partner airlines (i.e usually in the same alliance). Often you can even book with an airline in that alliance that you won't even be flying to possibly get cheaper tickets. Some OTAs will book connections on airlines that aren't partnered as separate tickets so if you're incoming flight is delayed and you miss a connection, tough luck.
- brewdad 4y ago
  This. I booked an international flight with Delta for next month. On Saturday I awoke to find that KLM changed my European connection to 28 hours later than originally booked and this would screw up all of our hotels and rental car. I talked to Delta and after about 30 minutes of the agent doing everything she could including escalating was told that they couldn't make any changes for 10 calendar days as KLM was blocking them out. Today, I found a Delta itinerary that actually fits our plans better than the original flight. I called back and got my original flight canceled and the new one booked. It still took 3 agents to get everything settled but I can't imagine how much worse the whole experience would have been if I had booked through Expedia or Kayak or any other 3rd party. Now to hope nothing else changes between now and our departure.

raverbashing 4y ago

Very bad experience. I wonder what the reviews say (and you might actually want to read the recent reviews and check more than one website) I always try to check places like Wikivoyage etc for the neighborhoods As per comparing it with "offline travel agents", I've had some bad experiences with them as well.

rosege 4y ago

I had a similar experience with booking.com. I booked a place in Australia and when I got their I found it was a house run by a junkie who chain smoked inside. I cancelled it on booking.com but they refused to refund me because their policy is that they will only do that if the provider agrees. That was the last time I used their site. Agoda also have a scam going - where if you elect to pay later in a foreign currency then they add on a 17% service charge which is hidden in some fine print which I still haven't found. This is illegal here in Australia and I am contemplating taking them to small claims court over it. The amount is small ($100) but I would like to set a precedent.

slaw 4y ago
Agoda and Booking is the same company.
- rosege 4y ago
  And priceline I think too

fho 4y ago

Anecdotal: there are bad things to say about Airbnb... But (for me) their customer service has been top notch. We were twice in a situation were we had to rebook spontaneous, once because the the original host canceled minutes before we arrived, another time because the host was very generous with their descriptions and we found ourselves in a tiny room without AC and shared accomodations instead of an apartment. Both times a call to Airbnb quickly resolved the issue and they even payed the increase in rent.

mox1 4y ago
Is this a shill or do you work for Airbnb? The internet is overwhelmingly filled with negative Airbnb experiences... Your experience is by far the outlier from the typical way Airbnb handles this.
- blep_ 4y ago
  I've only one experience with airbnb support (a host that blamed a cracked window on us that we had not touched or looked at) but they were reasonably okay to deal with that one time. I'm more inclined to think they're very inconsistent, and people are more likely to complain about bad experiences than to loudly proclaim "this company is reasonably okay to deal with!"
- jstarfish 4y ago
  I would sooner assume this was an outdated anecdote. Companies are more willing to bend over backwards in their early days, when they're still trying to make a name for themselves (the honeymoon period). The abuse starts once they've bested the competition and become a household name.
  - fho 4y ago
    Second time was just two month ago, so not exactly outdated. Maybe geographically? I'm from Germany.
- fho 4y ago
  Hmm no ... Maybe I just have been lucky?

ww520 4y ago

Book direct with the hotels. 3rd party bookings are most often not worth it.

wildrhythms 4y ago
+1 the last time I used such a service to book a hotel they confirmed it and gave me a confirmation number. I printed everything on paper. When I arrived at the hotel after a 13 hour flight, I showed the receptionist the confirmation number and they 'couldn't find it in their system'. I compared my confirmation number with a colleague's who was traveling with me and they were the same unique format. How the hell does that happen