Avoid EBOOKERS at all costs

wannagobacktogreece

Fancied a break away with my friend to Prague, spotted this nice hotel in the centre near wenceslas square the novotel,with pool jacuzzi sauna gym you name it it had it, looked round must have been 50 websites for the cheapest price, ebookers beat them all with £355 for three nights, wow what a bargain!!! what a disaster more like!!! clicked room type, breakfast etc and then enterd all credit card details, received an email saying pending confirmation, thought hmmm ok pending payment confirmation, must take a few hours, returned to the site next day still pending confirmation, ok this is now strange, emailed them and got no reply, today (friday )checked again, still pending confirmation i now thought there must be a problem with my credit card as id only just got it and this was the first thing i wanted to buy on it. so i decided to give them a call (india call centre big mistake)after being put through to the wrong department i was being told my booking ref did not exist, started to get high rate now as you can imagine, got put through to another department yet again, to finally be told (2 days later) that there are no rooms available in this hotel and therefor have offered me an alternate hotel, checked this hotel out and it had not even half the facilities as the original request and not only that but it was not even in the centre either, i hadnt confirmed this when i recd an email that stated my booking was confirmaed and payment had been taken. furious now i gave them yet another call to go throught the process of "we have offered you alternate accomodation as yours was not available" YES I UNDERSTAND THAT BUT AS I SAID MANY TIMES BEFORE - Y IS THIS NOT DONE AT THE TIME OF BOOKING, A CLICK OF A BUTTON IS ALL IT WOULD TAKE, NOT LEAVE ME 2 DAYS WONDERING,(if i had known this was pending confirmation of the hotel and not the payment i really wouldnt have wasted my time)i demanded to speak to the manager and got told basically the same thing over and over again, i got very annoyed told them their website is very misleading and demanded my payment back. unable to cancel due to computer fault their side i rebooked with superbreaks.com, and rang ebookers back 15 mins ago to cancel as their website is not working for the my account section at the moment,after waiting for 10 mins on hold, the woman put the phone down on me so i called back and got the "your booking ref doesnt exist" grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr by this time im like totally annoyed,anyway it turns out that they now have a request to cancel my booking and when they asked y i wished to cancel i clearly stated that the customer service stinks and the website is a joke. she dint know what to say.
to cut my very long story short
DO NOT USE EBOOKERS FOR YOUR HOTEL BOOKINGS IT WILL NEVER BE GUARANTEED!!!!WHAT A JOKE OF A COMPANY.

dmg24

I am sorry to hear of your bad experience, but I am sure some people have had positive experiences also?

GlennTheBaker

Yes, I booked a room with Ebookers for a work colleague. No problems whatsoever and a really good price.

bosey

Not a positive experience at all. long story but unhelpful CS, unhelpful policy and showed (in this case anyway) incompetence.

Won't be using them again.

MarkyMarkD

Most online hotel booking sites have some hotels which give instant online confirmation and others which require them to check the availability offline (probably by automated fax/phone) and then get back to you.

The fact that they operate this system isn't unusual, but the better sites tell you up-front if they are going to confirm straight away.

In any case, they should have got back to you within a reasonable time, and they should not have made the alternative booking without your explicit consent.

* Having looked at Ebookers' website, they follow this convention and show hotels as:

AVAILABLE - Instant Confirmation On Request - Response within 48 hours

But the Novotel shows (at least for the date I looked at) as AVAILABLE.

Is it possible it actually said "On Request" when you booked, because Ebookers' allocation of rooms had already been used up?

wannagobacktogreece

many thanks for peoples replies, i did check the available and the on request for the 11th may as this is when i wanted to stay and specifically chose this website as it said available. which is why i was so annoyed,i am now more bothered that i have been charged 355 quid for a hotel i didnt even ask for.
i do however think that 2 days to inform me is unexceptable, i could have booked my flights which i very nearly did and had i declined the alternate accomodation would then be stuck with another hotel to find or a cancellation fee for the flights.
im sure in response to someones reply that some people have had no problem with them but i personally would not use them again and certainly would not reccomend them to anyone else.
superbreak.com gets my vote- she was astounded by the service i had or hadnt received.

cullin

Had thought of using them but definitely not now.

wannagobacktogreece

very wise decision culin.
i would try the superbreaks.com they have a brochure out in the travel agents, very good, fantastic customer service and i have received confirmation within half an hour.

ALSO CHEAP AND VERY UNRELIABLE ARE BROADWAY TRAVEL, BOOKED WITH THESE LAST YEAR TO GO TO GREECE TOOK THEM 3 MONTHS TO CORRECT THE PAPERWORK FOR THE LENGTH OF STAY,and we only received it day before departure bear in mind we booked 6 month prior t departure., i ended up ringing the hotel direct in greece to confirm what we had actually booked.
i dont have much luck do i really.lol

shown73

One and only time I used E-Bookers, I was in a hurry, family problems, etc., needed a flight, but could only confirm if I bought their travel insurance, which I neither needed or wanted. Didn't have time to sit trawling through websites for alternatives, so had to do it, but never again. Sharp practice.

budgetflyer

wannagobacktogreece wrote: »

very wise decision culin.
i would try the superbreaks.com they have a brochure out in the travel agents, very good, fantastic customer service and i have received confirmation within half an hour.

So because you had a bad experience, no one should use ebookers? Thousands of people use them with out a problem.
There is probably not one company that gets it right all the time.
We have the same type of "DONT USE" thread for expedia,ebookers Alpharooms, ryanair,easyjet,bmibaby, flybe etc etc.

To then suggest Superbreak ?
In your situation Superbreak were ok. Often Ive seen Superbreak charge double what their competitors charge. Other times they can be cheapest.
My logic is, loyalty to one supplier costs money.

littlereddevil

I've always found superbreak very expensive nowadays