I saw a "Junior Suite" at a hotel in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, advertised on Agoda. I booked, paid and received email confirmation from Agoda of my successful reservation.

The following day I was informed by email that due to "a technical error on our end" the wrong room was booked and I was offered another room—a downgrade. I requested a link so I could review the room before accepting or declining. That was never done. I was expected to go into a room I didn't book and hadn't seen online.

I was offered compensation in Agoda Cash of a little over a tenth of the amount I paid if I accepted the alternative room. I declined as, due to starting a new job, I would not be able to use the credit within 6 months, when it would expire.

Clearly, I was not prepared to accept a room I hadn't booked, couldn't view through the Agoda website, and was not given the opportunity to review before entering. I tried to initiate a refund, so I could go ahead and book an affordable new room before availability disappeared. It was Friday lunchtime when I was notified of the error and was concerned about re-booking quickly, due to the approaching weekend.

I tried to contact Agoda customer services to resolve the situation and was passed to a WhatsApp group. I was constantly put on hold, passed to multiple Agoda representatives, who all seemed to require exactly the same information I gave the previous person. After five hours, I gave up for the day.

I began again the next day but never seemed to be passed to anyone who genuinely helped. No-one seemed authorised to do anything useful and I was repeatedly given unacceptable options, such as accept Agoda Cash or go into a room I didn't book and hadn't reviewed. I got the distinct impression that the call-handlers hoped I would give up through exasperation (if indeed they are human and not AI).

Any relevant suggestions were made by me, not the Agoda representative. I suggested contacting the property by phone and asking them why their "Junior Suite" was still available through Agoda, but not for me, who had booked and paid for it!

I was constantly informed that the call had been escalated and would take 24-48 hours to resolve. Given the speed with which affordable hotel rooms disappear in Jeddah over the weekend, I complained that this was too slow. 48-hours would take me up to the day before I needed the hotel and there would likely not be anything acceptable available at such short notice.

I spoke to the hotel but they said it was Agoda's fault. Agoda said the hotel wouldn't respond to them. I am stuck in the middle, in a very expensive city with limited affordable availability.

In the end I was offered $150 compensation, despite paying the equivalent of $320 for the reservation. I had no option but to accept a room I didn't book and hadn't viewed. I was effectively coerced into this position by Agoda, as the only alternative would be to lose $170—even although I was not at fault.

Basically, Agoda messed up. The hotel in question refused to bail it out and I was punished for that situation. This is completely unacceptable and, in all likelihood, a conflagration of consumer law.

Be Aware of the Scamm I Got from App Agoda to Book a hotel

Scam= booking/ hidden cancelation/ poor contact/ keep your payment

This was unbelievable, the first and last time I risqued this weird cheap app to book a hotel. Although this company was very suspicious, I gave them a chance unfortunately. They sold me a cheaper no refundable booking, and then on the morning before my trip I called the hotel to confirm and found out my booking was canceled without notifying me, but Agoda let the booking status as active in the app for me to not find out. I called and they denied it. Than they kept ghosting me all day to not take any action. First saying they could not refund me because of the policy, and than saying they could not call the hotel in USA so they could not get any information to cancel or change anything. But the manager called me from Hong Kong to New York and ask me to call the hotel again myself. Liar. At nighttime, after 11 hrs of wait, the manager came back to the chat room saying he called the hotel 5 hrs ago and eveything was ok. At this point I had already lost my flight and was close to also lose my booking. Thia company don't even have an email address for customers, othervthan a no-reply, all you can do is chat with a robot or with those employees who will answer with very polite pre- written msgs but won't solve anything, or the manager who left me on hold for 2hrs, 3 hrs, and even 11 hrs without an answer, time enough to lose my flight, my good mood to travel for thanksgiving and even my coolness because now instead off being traveling I will be home reporting them to whoever possible. If this company made a hell to refund a 2 day booking, you can imagine what they would do with people who pay big places. If they even have any of those bookings they advertise, which I doubt, because for me it seems all they do is scam people and then make your life a living hell. I guess it's gonna take me even a long time to wish to travel again.
#agoda #agodascam #Agodafraud #lifeatagoda #travelwithagoda #travel #holiday #vacation #travelspree #traveldeals #seetheworldforless

I went to Brighton for the Pride Parade. I obviously wanted to book my hotel in advance. I checked a few places including Agoda, which seemed to be offering me a very good deal. I've put it down to my birthday being close as I was getting tons of offers in my mailbox from everywhere and didn't think much of it.
The hotel was the Kings on the main road and the price was £25. There wasn't much info about the room other than it was a double bed. I thought it might be one of those "room assigned on arrival" deals.
I got there the day before the parade at check-in time with my guest, hoping to drop our luggage and enjoy the beach for the rest of the day.
Unfortunately, there was no booking whatsoever on our name, and we were not alone. The hotel staff informed us of a scam going on and asked us to call Agoda to get a different booking number. Other guests were at the bar, in the same situation, trying to sort things out with Agoda.
I spent 1 hour 13 minutes on the phone. This was the main call as there were more than one. I got different booking numbers all of which were non existent on the hotel's system. As it was a Saturday AND the day before a massive event, rooms were now priced at £135 (the hotel staff kindly offered to charge £120 for a nicer room).
There are so many more infuriating details and back-and-forths I could describe, but I wasted enough of my time and money on this. Suffice to say, the solution offered by Agoda was to cancel the £25 (non-existent) reservation for free and add 10% (so that's £2.50) in "Agoda cash" for the inconvenience.
There was nothing else available for less in the all of Brighton and we were not driving, so my guest booked a new room at £120 on her credit card as we were at that point stranded. By then, the sun was going down, there were strong winds and currents and, as much as we gave the beach a go, the day was wasted. We could have just travelled the next morning and save £120, or book a different hotel in advance and pay less.
Meanwhile I received an email from a "Catherine" at Agoda, again apologising for the inconvenience and offering the same insulting deal of £25 refund and 10% Agoda cash. By then we were in our £120 hotel room. I replied to Catherine straight away that no, I wasn't happy with the solution and I expected a better one within 12 hours.
Almost a week later, I got another email from "Viral" saying that as they hadn't heard back from me (?), they were refunding the £25.
I have mental health issues. Were things as they were in the past, I would have been outside Agoda's offices looking for Catherine and Viral screaming. Instead I had to calm myself down, reply to Viral after 3 weeks attaching my original reply to Catherine, and apologise profusely with my guest, in utter embarrassment. I still haven't been able to refund her.
Avoid these clowns. Prices might be attractive, but they can afford them only by conning innocent people, and you might be next. Think about it and choose a more serious agent for your bookings.

In short, Agoda will gaslight and blame customers when it is their technical issue causing issues. Their customer customer service team does not use any logic or reasoning when assisting and just provides copy+paste responses. It's all good if everything goes well, but as soon as there is any issue, they will not provide any meaningful assistance and you will be left to pick up the pieces. Customer beware.

Summary of our recent experience with Agoda:
- We booked a 5 night stay at a hotel for a good rate 2 months ago (Approx $640 AUD for the whole stay)
- We amended the booking to add on an extra night, on screen it displayed we would be charged additional AUD $53 (approx) to amend to the new dates and we proceeded to make payment
- Agoda then charged us $700 + $400 = AUD $1100 in two seperate transactions
- The booking confirmation page on Agoda's own website stated "You were charged the AUD equivalent of TWD 14,105.66 on Thursday, April 4,2024 [...]". This amount is equivelant to approx AUD $667.94 but we were charged AUD $1100 total.
- We contacted Agoda and customer service chat was almost unusable, kept disconnecting me from the chat and made me go through the chat bot options over and over again to return to the chat with the real person.
- Finally when we chatted with a customer service representative, they did not understand the issue at all and kept giving us canned copy+paste answers and blaming exchange rates and fees which did not address the issue. Exchange rates and fees would not account for a AUD $450 difference in price.
- They asked for proof of the issue during the booking, we advised we don't usually take screenshots of the booking process as we trust the systems.
- We attempted to amend the booking again to replicate the issue and it now showed that we would get a REFUND for the amendment even though it should have cost AUD $195 more. The system was clearly buggy. Agoda again gave a copy+paste answer which did not apply.
- Finally after pushing and pushing, they advised they would escalate to their IT team which would take up to 48 hours. We advised this was now acceptable since we are travelling in 5 days and free cancellation finishes in 2 days for the booking.
- We asked for a quicker resolution and asked them to revert the booking to the initial dates+rates. They said it was up to the Hotel if they want to honour the existing price. We were informed 30 mins later that the Hotel had declined to honour the offer.
- We contacted the Hotel directly and they said they couldn't amend the booking as it had come directly from Agoda.
- Neither party wanted to take responsibility or assist us.

The silliest thing about all of this is if there had not been a technical glitch we would have:
A) Seen that the rate would increase by AUD $450 for one additional night and obviously not proceeded with the amendment, and booked elsewhere for the extra night
B) Paid the existing locked in price for the initial 5 night stay

Instead, both Agoda and the Hotel expected us to be happy with paying the full rate for all 6 nights as a resolution.

Agoda continually gaslit us and tried to say there was no technical issue and continually blamed the customer. The customer service team did not use any logic or reasoning when assisting.

Agoda puts the onus onto the customer to provide proof when it is THEIR system and THEY should do the investigations in their own time to ensure it doesn't happen again. It is not normal practice for customers to take screenshots of every step of their booking process and it's ridiculous that they think having proof should be a pre-requisite to assist.

Agoda has an annual revenue of $760 million and it is clearly at the expense of their customers.

Being a long time customer of Agoda, I will never book with Agoda again. It's all good if everything goes well, but as soon as there is any issue, they will not provide any meaningful assistance and you will be left to pick up the pieces. Customer beware.

Hello

This is about my personal experience from last week.

I'd gone for a trip to Dapoli beach last Friday and I had booked a hotel through agoda

We were almost 8 to 10 people. We saw the pictures on agoda and they were very clear. Everything looked super cool.

We left around 6am and reached by 12pm to 1.

Due to a long travel everyone was exhausted!

As it was afternoon time we had our lunch first and went to the hotel room.

The name of the property is Rohan 2Bhk at harnai.

These people did scam with us. The review were fake the property was 15km away from the main road.

They said beach was 5km away but it was 23km away. The property was on hill top with no water or reception at all.

It was completely isolated area, we left from there and booked a new hotel near by murud beach.

Upon complaining to agoda they refused to listen to our story and started to speak in owners favour.

Owners refused to refund our money where in we didn't even stay at the property. #Rohan2bhk

After sending few documents agoda said we will give you refund we spent somewhere around $20 USD and they offered us $5 USD.

To which I refused as it was not even half of what we spent.

Agoda is not verifying the properties with the vendors. Which caused inconvenience to the customer.

Forger about the money in case of emergency with no water or reception one would face so many difficulties.

Note: Do not book Rohan2bhk at harnai it's not good it is located on top of the hill with no good roads and services.

Thank you and sorry if i've hurt anyone by this feedback but it was necessary.! Thank you for helping people to give there feedback and help others to save there time and money.

Janardan Hotel@ Near KSRTC bus stand, Udupi, Booking ID is *******029
Hotel refused entry and said we don't have to do anything with agoda, they are scamming people, we already raised police complain against them. I drove 500km with a 3yrs kid and wife without any idea what to do now, called to customer care standing outside of the hotel they said sorry sir these hotel people are scamming, but no worries we can refund you then I asked how that is going to solve my prob? My wife is feeding my daughter on road side. After a lot of argument, he said ok give us some time we will check some nearby hotel. After 30-40min called back and said sorry sir all hotels near by are full, please you search by yourself and we will refund you. We have been forced to book another hotel, after travelling this far! I found one hotel around 15km far from the place where I originally booked.

When I called them back again sorry for the inconvenience can you please the receipt I shared and called them back again said it is not clear can you send again, I will keep close eye on it you will get refunded to your paid account. After three days again I called they said no we can't refund to same card, share your account detail I did. After 3days again I called asking I didn't got refund, Sorry sir actually we will send you one link please click on that link and we will initiate refund, waited for another 3days again called back, sorry sir I will make sure you get the link within 3 days.

Strangest thing is the same hotel still listed in their website - https://www.agoda.com/en-in/janardan-hotel/hotel/udupi-in.html?finalPriceView=1&isShowMobileAppPrice=false&cid=-1&numberOfBedrooms=&familyMode=false&adults=2&children=1&rooms=1&maxRooms=0&checkIn=2023-09-8&isCalendarCallout=false&childAges=8&numberOfGuest=0&missingChildAges=false&travellerType=2&showReviewSubmissionEntry=false¤cyCode=INR&isFreeOccSearch=false&isCityHaveAsq=false&los=1&searchrequestid=f7abae92-de79-4a2b-aafc-99bd2c1342a3

I booked 3 rooms through Agoda for 2 nights at the Hong Kong Disney Discovery Hotel with 5 adults and 2 children with daily breakfast. To my amazement Disney staff told me Agoda locked in only 5 adults and I have to pay for my 2 children. This caused huge commotion between me and the Disney staff due to Agoda greed to earn 2 children breakfast for these 2 days. I posted the same review on their apps but they did not post mine where they claimed all reviews will be posted irregardlesspositiveor negative. It such an embarrassment for Agoda for stooping to such low level. I challenge Agoda to revert to me if any of my words has been falsify.

I booked a 3 night stay, paid upfront and received confirmation. Hours later I received an email stating my reservation was canceled due to payment issue(even tho money was already charged). I had no alternative option other than to immediately seek another reservation. I ended up having to sleep in my car with my wife and our babies due to the time of 1am and now a new day so check in would be at 3pm! That day after checking in I called agoda to ask why they had charged me for a room they canceled and was advised I had to deal with the hotel for any chance of a refund as they had already paid them for this "canceled reservation" and to not get my hopes up as it was not refundable. If I could somehow get them to approve a refund I would be reimbursed. They asked if I did get a full refund from the hotel would I be OK with agoda cash or refunded via the way i made the payment and I responded "Please reimburse my credit card. 2 days later(after going up the managerial ladder) is was able to get a full refund(refund went to agoda). Before I could call agoda again to confirm my refund I received an email stating " WE HAVE RECEIVED A REFUND ON YOUR BEHALF, UNFORTUNATELY DUE TO OUR NO REFUND POLICY WE ARE UNABLE TO REFUND YOU, IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT US. I would spend the next 12 hours getting the same email when I requested to speak to a supervisor. I will go thru the excruciating process to get my refund as this is THE MOST MANIPULATING COMPANY I HAVE EVER DEALT WITH AND CANNOT LET ANYONE GO THRU WHAT I AM ABOUT TO GO THRU. SAVE YOURSELF THE AGONY. USE A REPUTABLE COMPANY AND DO YOUR RESEARCH BEFORE LETTING THIS COMPANY STEAL UOUR HARD EARNED MONEY. THANKFULLY THEY HAVE HABIT OF RIPPING PEOPLE OFF THAT IT WILL GO THRU A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT SOON THAT WILL GET THEM OFF THE INTERNET. AGODA IS 1 STAR OUT OF 5 ON BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU 1 STAR OUT OF 5, TRIP ADVISOR 1 STAR OUT OF 5, REDDIT(READ THE REVIEWS), TRUSTPILOT 1 STAR OUT OF FIVE, MOUTHSHUT 1 STAR OUT OF 5, TRUST INDEX 1 STAR OUT OF 5, PRODUCT REVIEW 1 STAR...I COULD GO ON AND ON BUT YOU GET THE PICTURE. SAVE YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY!

I am writing this so no one has to go through the stressful situation we did.
There is a button to change the dates, once you make a booking, but it doesn't work like you think it would! We made a booking 3 months in advance, but life happened and we had to shorten our stay in Barcelona for 2 nights. As we made a reservation that is flexible and can be cancelled for free at a later date, we tried to modify the dates by clicking on the option that is provided. When you click on it, you are first given the option to check the availability of the hotel. Which is irrelevant if you want to shorten the stay, note that we are not changing the check-in date but only the check-out. After checking, we got the information that the hotel was full and we couldn't modify the dates. It's fine that the hotel is full, but why can't we shorten our stay?!
Now we come to the issue of Agoda.com (live) support... Which is non-existent! I've sent an email to support to help me modify the dates. Support via email just copy-pastes default text without actually trying to resolve the issue, and then they tell you that they are just support and can't do anything about it because it's just how it works. Get this, the only solution to shorten your stay is to cancel it first and then wait for the room to become available again and then rebook it at a higher price if someone else doesn't book it first! But there is no chance for you to know that when you first make the booking, as they advertise that you can modify your booking and the dates. False information!
Now, for the best of their support… In case of getting cancellation email from the property, in my case due to property "Casa Lolita Guesthouse" double-booking our room, they structure it in such a way where it would seem like you have a choice: accept refund and agoda cash credit or accept their help to find you a new accommodation. If you choose the second option, they don't actually do anything but respond that they couldn't find another accommodation and direct you to option number 1. How do I know they didn't even look for a solution? Because the day after I found another accommodation which falls in their price range. They have policies and guides for these situations, which they don't implement - https://partnerhub.agoda.com/what-should-i-do-if-i-cant-accommodate-a-guest/. Support via phone is just a machine. So, if you have any problem with a booking it will be difficult to find a resolution.
Do not use Agoda.com if you want to have peace of mind when booking anything for your vacation.

We booked Grand Oberoi Kolkata from 5th Dec 22 to 10th December 22. Booked pick up from Airport. It was received well and had no issues. This hotel is located in a busy town of Kolkata. Upon reaching, I checked in and found that the lobby carpet and rooms carpet were extremely old and appeared dirty or dusty. We can hear noises from upper or next room. Privacy was not quite. The lightings were good that you cant see the carpet dirty. We were told to pay upfront for entire booking. Shocked. No hotel will ask you to settle full amount first before your stay. Later discovered toilet were too small with bathtub. Beds were comfortable. Toiletries were Good. Towels were not 5 star and bedsheet only 4 star. Lights were well done. Room carpets appeared run-down down and hotel carpets Dirty with too many furnitures. Air-conditioning was on and auto off. I complained and was shifted to another room. The room toilet were slightly better but the bed was hard, and I could not sleep two nights. Complained and beds were changed slightly better. Breakfast spread was only rated 3 star. Limited Western and Indian foods. 5 days eating same spread. But chefs and restaurant manager managed my expectations my ofering carrot but i was unhappy. Paying for 5 star but chefs but getting 5 star quality food. Pastery chef made fruit cake and was average quality and taste. Oberoi rations were not fresh. Specially the fruits, meat and fish. I tried thier Oberoi briyani and baked Tradditional bengali fish. It was disaster. Paid 5 star but quality was poor. Briyani had no aroma. Chefs cloths and waiters dress code was impressive. The Oberoi chefs were under qualified in Grand Oberoi Kolkata. I stayed in Taj Varanasi and Taj Bhubaneswar. My expectations were high but not as good as Taj Hotels and ITC or Hyatt Hotel. I would grade Grand Oberoi Kolkata as only 4 star Hotel. I am member with Shangri-la Hotel, Hyatt Hotel and Taj Hotels.