While writing my next post for Sg Entrepreneurs, I remembered the issues I faced with a booking website for hotels in Thailand.
I had booked a room with this booking site and they had charged the credit card. I even got an email confirming the room was booked. A few days later, I get another email saying they regret to inform me that the room was unavailable and asked if I would like to upgrade to another room.
No way. I told them no. I asked them to cancel the charge which they did. To confirm the cancellation, they sent the receipt. Except that it wasn’t for my credit card. It belonged to someone else. Anyway, it was a hassle to get a confirmation of the cancellation. In the end, I contacted the hotel directly and booked the room. No problems at all.
I am guessing that this booking site’s system wasn’t directly connected to the hotels. They weren’t getting real time updates of the availability of the rooms. From my experience, when I booked with the site, they weren’t sure if the hotel had any rooms available. Their database reflected my booking but they still had to book directly with the hotel. I’m guessing they had to manually book the room with the hotel’s system.
I wonder how many other booking sites are like that.
reader | 26-Aug-07 at 2:18 pm | Permalink
Hi,
Just got back from Thailand. Same problem here.
Go to a booking site (low rates) which wants you paid in advance and it came back saying that the room (using internet rates) is not available and want me to upgrade. Of course, I said no and asked to clear the CC blocking charge which is not charged till a room is completely confirmed.
I went to another site (slightly higher rates) and got instant confirmation. You only have to pay at checkout time.
Yes, there are many booking sites, some are less “real” as in real-time updates.