Galahotels.com - please be careful

We booked in September 2009 one night at the Hilton, Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, for early December. A very good price and all the documentation seemed to be correct. However, when we arrived at the hotel they had never heard of us, and we had no reservation with them. They tried to ring Gala Hotels and so did we - both the number in the UK, given on their documents and the emergency number they gave. But at 5.30 pm onwards there was no answer. We had no choice but to pay more than double the price we had already paid to Gala. The next morning, while waiting for our plane we rang Gala again and finally got someone to answer the phone . They said they would ring the Hilton to clear the situation. Five days later we were back in Paris, went back into the Hilton, who said they have never heard from Gala but the voucher had now arrived and so they gave us a full refund.

When we got home, we e-mailed Gala hotels to their customer service section to outline our grievances with them and nearly a week later now, we are still waiting for a reply. We quite understand that it may have been Hilton that lost the booking but the point is that Gala were not answering their phones and they haven't replied back to our e-mail. We will not be using them again because
(a) it is embarassing to have to argue with hotel reception in public and
(b) there are too many reports on the web about difficulties with reservation companies based in Turkey.

It is a real shame because their offers are often exceptional but if you cannot be assured of proper service it's just not worth the stress in the end !!