12 reviews for HappyRooms are not recommended

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Chris E.

Canada

1 review

4 helpful votes

Not-Such-A-Happy-Experience With Happyrooms.com

October 1, 2016

So, we are not just shy of one month since booking with Happyrooms.com and still there is no resolution to our booking at the Ibeostar Grand Hotel in Mexico with Happy Rooms. To date, not once has an actual manager or supervisor contacted us via e-mail or telephone to discuss this matter, but they have had our money since the booking.

Alex J... please, DO NOT write on this site how sorry your company is, or how hard you are working on our case, as Happyrooms.com has only tried to offer us two very substandard options to switch over to, and we have refused. It is laughable how awful the customer service has been, so what can a consumer do?!?

Well, we have issued a complaint with the BBB, as Happyrooms.com is owned by Emerging Travel, based in the U.S., and we have issued a complaint to the Bureau of Consumer Protection in the US. In addition, we have contacted Kiril Makharinsky (owner of Emerging Travel) and Artem Kubatkin (Ostrovok who is also affiliated with Happyrooms.com), via LinkedIn. We have even reached out to some popular mainstream travel magazines, both online and print to discuss our story, especially given how much online vacation booking has increased. We will continue to update our post here, plus on Trust Pilot and other social media until this gets rectified accordingly.

Finally, we also had to be proactive, and alerted our credit card company that the credit card transaction is for a payment on a product which we did not receive, which we will move forward with as a fraudulent charge and let the credit card company do what they need to do, if need be.

The only solution Happyrooms.com (and Alex J., "yes", we know you read these, but no need to state "Our apologies", let's see some real action) is to stop these bait-and-switch tactics you are employing. Stop blaming your partners... stop blaming the database, or any other technical glitches and simply owe up to what you have advertised and what clients have purchased, and deliver the product to your customers like any other reputable company would do.

To others who may book with Happyrooms.com, we highly recommend that if you do make an online booking, call the hotel you booked and ensure they have your booking for the correct stay, room category and that it has been paid for. Honest online reviews are one of the powerful ways we as consumers can hold companies like Happy Rooms to be accountable. So Happyrooms.com, are you going to provide us with the product we purchased---you've had 25 days so far to do so?!?

For those of you who don't know, here is what happened to date with our booking...

On September 9,2016, we booked a two-week stay at the Iberostar Grand Hotel Paraiso (adults-only, all-inclusive resort) in Mexico via the website happyrooms.com. We received a confirmation of the booking AND the actual hotel voucher, which clearly states the name of our hotel that we booked: the Iberostar Grand Hotel Paraiso. Our credit card was also charged in full for this purchase. (see previous post on 9/26/16)

As we always do after an online hotel booking, we contacted the hotel to confirm that they received our reservation from HappyRooms.com. The hotel informed us that they unfortunately did not have a reservation for us at the Iberostar Grand Hotel Paraiso (as per the booking we made), but rather, that our reservation was at their much lower-end family-friendly property, the Iberostar Paraiso Del Mar.

Subsequently, we sent an e-mail to Happy Rooms telling them that there is a problem with our hotel reservation made via HappyRooms.com, and included the hotel voucher clearly indicating the name of the hotel we had booked (the "Grand"). We also included screen captures of the Web pages during our online booking process and search results from their website with the price of that hotel at the time we booked. This was when Happy Rooms "realized" that they sold us the room at a cheaper price than they had intended to (OR, they knew exactly what they were doing and this was a 'bait and switch' tactic).

Our resolution on this matter up to this point has been far from ideal. There have been many emails sent to Happyrooms and many phone calls made. Their common response is that they are working with their partners to find an acceptable solution. One e-mail response stated that their partners presented them with the solution to simply "cancel our reservation", but that they didn't believe that this was an acceptable solution. We have repeatedly asked to be put in contact with a manager to remedy this situation. This request either gets ignored or we are told that "the manager is currently on the phone" but will be in touch. Not once were we ever contacted by a supervisor or manager via email or phone regarding this booking. They obviously don't care about the reputation of their business or what we are going through.

Finally, more than two weeks after our initial contact with Happy Rooms about this problem, and after putting pressure on them to come up with a resolution by September 28, they came back with this email message:

Dear Sandra and Chris!

We have received reply from our partners.

Unfortunately, they were unable to relocate your reservation to Iberostar Grand Hotel Paraiso and offered 25% refund for your reservation if you agree to stay in Paraiso Del Mar Hotel.

On our side we can try to find another hotel for you to stay in Playa del Carmen.

Please take our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused by the mistake, that occured on our partner's side.

Our response to them was that this solution is completely unacceptable that this appears to be a "bait and switch" tactic by Happyrooms, and they cannot pass the responsibility for this mistake in pricing to their "partner" and leave us with a room in a hotel we did not purchase. We booked our hotel with Happyrooms so the responsibility for rectifying this situation rests on the shoulders of Happyrooms. We are still shocked that they are blaming their partners, and that they believe this is a sufficient excuse and now they are trying to wash their hands of it.

We did not enter into contract with their "partners" when we made the purchase and we could care less whose fault it is on their end. We entered into a contract with Happyrooms and expect them to honour it We also noted to Happyrooms that the alternative hotel they are now trying to send us to is a FAMILY property, not an ADULTS-ONLY property as per the one we booked. The alternative hotel is also much cheaper than the hotel we had booked.

We have now involved the Better Business Bureau (U.S.) and the Bureau of Consumer Protection. After booking this hotel for a certain price and being issued a hotel voucher for that hotel and that price, it is Happyroom's responsibility to honour it. A reputable company would not come back to a customer to say they charged the wrong price by accident AFTER they had issued the hotel voucher and charged our credit card in full, and also offer a much lower end alternative hotel. One will notice the form responses by a Happyrooms representative on this Sitejabber review site. We do not want a pre-scripted form apology response... ACTION ONLY is required.

We will keep all readers apprised, and we warn you all, that should you chose to use Happyrooms.com, you should check your reservation with the hotel immediately to ensure it exists and it reflects what you booked.