Lastminute.com, "Top Secret" deals - Don't bother - Worrying Customer Service

peterbaker

I have used Lastminute.com a number of times over the years and been reasonably satisfied. I have also use Expedia and a number of others.

I am writing mostly as a warning to others about Lastminute.com's current customer service standards. They worried me.

I booked a top secret deal "spectacular offer" last night for a 4* hotel and then when the hotel was identified following payment, I discovered that the hotel was criticised in customer reviews online, and had I known its name in the first place I would have only paid 6% more!

I used their website and sent a polite request for an immediate refund as I felt I had been misled.

I got a reply first thing this morning which I found most unhelpful in an almost PayPal-esque sort of way:

Dear Mr. XXXX,

Order reference: 1234567

Thank you for your email.

I have contacted the hotel and would like to inform you that 'Hotel
Dida Dida' is a 4* hotel. Further, the hotel that do not want to
disclose their identity to the customers before the order is processed
are categorised in a 'Top Secret Hotel'.

Further, as per the cancellation policy of the hotel, your booking
should be cancelled 48 hours before check-in. Otherwise you will be
charged for first night.

Please understand that 20.00 GBP is mandatory and is applicable for all
hotel cancellations. As there is no misleading information on our
website, you will be liable to pay cancellation fee.

I appreciate your understanding with regard to this matter.

Kind regards,

Customer Services Team
lastminute.com

MY ORIGINAL COMPLAINT
I am afraid that I am not convinced of the
spectacular nature of your "Top Secret" offer and
now that the hotel is identified I see that the
difference between this and your "hotel name up
front" offer is miniscule. Furthermore I find that reviews
suggest that this hotel may not be what I expect
of a 4* hotel. I would therefore appreciate it if
you could cancel my booking and make a full
refund. As I am feeling somewhat misled at this
juncture I would request that the refund
includes a full waiver of your normal policy of
retaining a £20 booking fee.
Regards

Anyway, on receiving that with my first coffee this morning I leapt onto the telephone to move things along a bit...

The first call led me up a long blind alley ... the final option after about 5 minutes of voicemail was "You have confirmed that you wish to cancel and for data protection reasons we have to inform you that cancellation requests are only accepted in writing. Thank you for calling."

So I tried another tack and another option. I spoke to someone. "Hold on one moment I have to put you through to Head Office" (then I was left with a blank line and after a further minute of nothing realised I was effectively cut off).

Finally after beginning to feel steam spirting from my ears, I got through to India by choosing an option which implied I might want to amend my existing booking.

The lady I spoke to was exceedingly intelligent and proper and agreed with the reasonableness of my original request.

She had to refer-up for authorisation, but she offered to call me back within the hour if I preferred not to wait. She actually called back in about 5 minutes to confirm that a full refund would be processed.

There was an obvious and glaring difference between the service provided by India and that obtainable in the UK. The Indian service was of superior quality and what I have always expected from Lastminute.com, but I fear that the norm for this company might more often thesedays be developing into a 'take-your-money-and-then-hide-from-you' type thing ....

I could be wrong, but I would hesitate to use Lastminute.com again unless I first don my "low cost deals can blow up in your face" tin hat.

dmg24

Why did you not Google the details of the hotel before booking it?

peterbaker

Cos its top secret dmg .... you only get to find out for sure how wrong you are about what you've booked after you've booked :eek:

PS WHere did you get that Village Bike tag :eek:

mountainchrisriver

dmg24... think the OP booked an "unknown" hotel until it had been paid for... bit like those holidays which are 'allocated on arrival"...

All I can say OP is if you book this type of offer then you must expect a certain degree of uncertainty?! If you want to be sure of where you are staying then book a named hotel?! :rolleyes:

Sure the terms and conditions on the lastminute site make the cancellation charge clear... don't think they have done anything wrong...

simongregson

If you cut and copy the hotel 'description' to google, it will usually find the hotel site for you.

dmg24

simongregson wrote: »

If you cut and copy the hotel 'description' to google, it will usually find the hotel site for you.

Thank you! Thank goodness somebody has some common sense on here! x

Nelski

I have booked these top secret hotels a few times and the thing to do is to google the details they give for the hotel exactly and it usually throws up the identity as they use the hotels descriptions. Not a lot of help now I know but maybe for the future

Nelski

sorry simon you beat me to it

loobylou2

I"ve got a problem with Last Minute at the moment as well. We booked named accomodation for a weeks break in Spain over the summer holidays and actually reached the hotel we were booked into before being advised that our booking had been changed. Understandably with 3 kids under 10 years of age in tow and after a long journey I was not happy... Last minute.com had plenty of time to let me know about the alteration, in fact they could have e mailed me or called me at home up to 11.30 am on the day of departure. We went to the alternative accomodation which was perfectly adequate for our needs but not what I had either booked or paid for. I have now contacted Last minute twice by E mail to find out what went wrong and to see if we can get a refund of any difference in price for the accomodation we stayed in as the hotel was not a 4* which we had paid for but a 3* The last contact I had from Last Minute was to say that they were investigating but this was 6 weeks ago now. How long should I give them before I take this further as I'm not happy with the service we received and we they haven"t even had the decency to apologise yet for the inconvienience and stress they caused???

alanrowell

Lastminute also give you an option to rank the hotels in distance from a given point.

You end up with a list where a Top Secret Hotel ends up next to a hotel with a very similar description

peterbaker

mountainchrisriver, if I get sold "a spectacular offer" as a "Top Secret Deal" I do not expect to receive a measly 6% discount.

Cheers Nelski, and dmg (I knew what you were getting at!)How much of the description do you use to get a Google hit? Is it an exact three line phrase copied directly from the hotel's website,or do you have to play around with it a bit to get hits?

alanrowell, are you suggesting that sometimes the Top Secret Hotels are inferior annexes to the nicer ones with similar descriptions? :rolleyes:

Edit:
loubylou, suggest you call customer services and select the option to amend a booking and then speak to the Indians. I venture to suggest that they are much more intelligent, prompt and proper in customer service standards than you will find from any UK representative of Lastminute.com. I am deadly serious. Then email the UK end and tell them what has been agreed with India. I did. UK then emailed back and confirmed what the Indians had agreed