Cancelon

DO NOT USE! Moving my stepdaughter to NJ & had booked a room thru Cancelon the Tuesday before our Friday stay. I received an email stating that they would be sending me a hotel confirmation... never received said email. I sent an email to customer support on Wednesday, but never received an answer. Thursday Morning I noticed that the charge for the hotel went thru, still no hotel confirmation emailed. Called customer support to be told that the hotel was "BOOKED" for those dates. I will give them credit that they did refund my full amount. But, upset at the fact i would have ended up in NJ at the hotel thinking that i had a reservation, but in fact did not! Also, quite upset that they still charged me for the room, even knowing that said room was not available. FYI... I did book a room at the SAME HOTEL, of course a a higher rate since they decided not to inform that the said hotel was "BOOKED" until several days later & I was the one who had to call them. EXTREMELY POOR SERVICE on Cancelon part for lack of communication for a potential customer. NEVER WILL I EVEN CONSIDER USING THEM AGAIN OR RECOMMEND THEM TO ANYONE.

Update - Cancelon went full circle with the same nonsense ("our bank couldn't process the payment" to "we've issued you a refund") after their response below leading to, my one star review remaining and me waiting 48 more hours for their "refund" to show up before Amex issues it to me instead and investigates the fraud.

Keep in mind, I didn't change anything or make errors in booking so I should have been an easy customer for Cancelon. Fail.
--------original review below-----
I didn't have a special circumstance. I did a search, found a hotel room, provided my card info and received a confirmation email from them. They called me hours later to get the complete billing address, which I provided. The charge hit my card successfully.

By the next morning, I received an email saying that a refund was issued to me (with no explanation why) and that it could take 10 days to the refund to appear on my card.

20 minutes later, I received yet another email telling me that their bank wouldn't approve the transaction (however the charge was successfully on my credit card already) and that I was more than welcome to try to rebook using a different card however when I did a search, all of the options for that hotel were gone (there were 5 options a few hours ago).

They also said to 'contact them' if there were questions, but didn't provide contact info.

At best, they are selling hotel rooms they don't have and using your fronted money to negotiate - and failing at it leaving you homeless.

At worse, they are collecting as many valid credit cards as they can using hotel rooms as a cover.

Either way - if you actually WANT a room, I'd recommend looking somewhere else.

I booked my reservation and thought everything was all good. I then received an email stating, Dear Leshaun,
I hope you are well.
Following your reservation at The Westin Michigan Avenue Chicago, we would like to inform you that your booking is still in process as our bank is verifying the payment. In order to approve it, please provide us with your Full billing address, zip code, Additional email address and additional phone number so that we can confirm your reservation as soon as possible.
This email doesn't make a lick of sense. So, I called and talked to a rude customer service rep. I asked why am I giving you my address again, an additional email, and an additional phone number. Needless to say they charged my account and had the audacity to send this email:
Dear Leshaun,
Greetings from Cancelon!

We would like to update you that your reservation at the Westin Michigan Avenue Chicago Hotel with the following booking information is rejected since the Bank didn't approve the transaction. The transaction has been reversed back to your account. Please feel free to try and book it again with a different card.

We are sorry for any inconvenience.
You will see that the charge has been reversed to your VisaCard ending in 0056.

Please let us know if you need further information.

For any inquiries, please feel free to call us, send us an email or leave us a number to which we can call to, using this link.

Best regards,
Blessing
Cancelon team.

Then here is another email:
Refund from Hotel Booking Cancelon.com

Receipt #3337-5805

Refunded
$378.00

Date issued
August 23,2018

Refunded to
0056

This email is to confirm that your refund has been issued by Hotel Booking Cancelon.com. It can take 10+ days to appear on your statement, if it takes longer please contact your bank for assistance.

It's going to take them up to 10 days to refund my money. If the their bank didn't accept my payment then how the hell did you charge my card. This company appears to be a fraud. I am pissed and if I don't receive my money back my attorneys will be on them like white on rice as they would say. I end up using the same card and went through Marriott and had no problems,

They are 2 entire different hotels in entirely different parts of the city.

I was supposed to have free Wi-Fi. That was not the case. I had to buy 1 hour internet cards at a time and stay in a very small hot spot area and hope the Wi-Fi connection worked. In fact 3 of the daysit was impossible to buy Wi-Fi cards at all.

The Hotel Terral was supposed to be a new facility with only 14 rooms overlooking the water.

While the Hotel Telegrapha is a 1960s hotel in need of updating plus there was mold on the walls. The sheets were never changed nor were the towels throughout my stay.

I felt I was held captive and had no choice what so ever. No way to contact anyone to voice my complaints

The breakfast that was included at the Hotel Telegraph served hotdogs for breakfast sausage. The buffetwas never filled. Most of the food was previously served and never refilled.

The hotel Resturant itself was out of 7 of the 8 sandwich selections, 3 out of the 4 deserts and out ofthe first 3 entre' items on the menu. After that I gave up.

I feel that this was "Bait and Switch" to book me into at a hotel that had been and still was closed at the time of my booking.
Booked a hotel that you advertised that was closed. You never let me know so I could cancel or choose another accommodation. I am stranded in a foreign country and forced to stay in a hotel not of my choice.

I have been ripped off. This is bait and switch.

UPDATE: I have since been contacted by Cancelon who have requested a full list of the correspondence I have had with their support team, as well as asked further details on our re-booking. They have committed to using this incident as a training and development case for their team and for further improvement.

They have now refunded us fully and are compensating us additionally for our costs and the issues faced. We are pleased that this has at least restored our faith in Cancelon's level of customer services, a positive feat after grueling days of uncertainty.

REVIEW

Do not book with them, I don't even know where to start. Either way Cancelon genuinely had me in tears and anxiety for 3 days. We booked for a Hotel in Zakynthos, beautiful villas, 4 months Before we travelled. I did at the time ask them to reconfirm the rates, and dates which they did.

One week (!) before my trip, they said they had a 'technical glitch' and said I was booked in another hotel. The initial offer was - 100% refund OR 50% refund but I can keep my reservation in that Wrong hotel (!). So I researched the hotel, its a Shack in the WRONG GREEK ISLAND! I was aghast that they even suggested giving me only Half my money back if I... changed my travel plan a week in advance to another island (!). I have now been promised my refund 100% will reach me in 10 working days, so I'm waiting.

Do not book with them, I, like so many others get this 'story' that they book you in the wrong hotel by mistake, or wrong dates 'by mistake' its filthy the way they work. I wont even go into the other 20 emails where they contradicted themselves, at one stage even Re-confirming my initial booking. Its incredible their ineptitude. Please, do not ever - for your own financial and mental health - book with them (!). This was mean to be our Couple Getaway week in Zakynthos and a week in advance it has been so difficult to find any decent hotels, I'm upset that their scamming ways have made us start our holiday with me in tears and having to pull out cash to pay for another week at a hotel at short notice (in the hope that refund does arrive in 10 working days!).

I book hotel rooms on a consistent basis and have never had such an unprofessional experience or have been previously scammed.

I saw an advert on kayak.com for Cancelon with a special rate for Le Méridien Koh Samui Resort & Spa - Ko Samui, Thailand. I have never booked on Cancelon before, but as it was advertised on kayak.com, which I use regularly, I thought it was a legitimate business. It advertised a room for 131 USD a night at Le Méridien Koh Samui Resort & Spa - Ko Samui, Thailand from 19 August to 24 August. There was a 30 minute window to make the purchase at which time the room should be blocked from purchase by anyone else (as the website explains). I made the purchase and my credit card was charged 855 USD. Subsequently, I purchased the flight to Koh Samui from Europe.

I received an e-mail the next day stating that my reservation was cancelled, as at the same time other people booked the same room and offering me a 10% discount for my next booking. This is false advertisement and criminal, as customers are being charged for non-existing hotel rooms and then only reimbursed 3-10 days later. I wrote an e-mail and was not responded to. I then spent over an hour on the phone with an agent and then a supervisor (who after insistence provided his name as Jack Merlin). I was offered a higher class hotel room with breakfast at Le Méridien Koh Samui Resort & Spa - Ko Samui, Thailand by the agent and had to negotiate for the 10% discount promised with the supervisor. After I was charged 1118 USD, it was clarified that it was not a higher class hotel room at all and the view can be absolutely anything. At this point I cancelled the reservation, clearly stated what is in this e-mail and received an e-mail stating that I will receive a refund, which is now around 2,000 USD in total, in 3-10 business days. This is a scam. It appears that Cancelon collects money for the same room from multiple clients, which would be a very cheap way of financing a business.