Kayak

Don't book hotels directly through Kayak.com -- they don't guarantee the reservations!

I found a great hotel deal in Paris (France) for my honeymoon through Kayak. I booked my reservation directly through them (and paid upfront for the hotel).

Turns out it is scam. I had a friend in Paris call the hotel to confirm the reservation. They refuse to honor the reservation, as they don't work with Kayak.

I've now spent three days on the phone with Kayak. First, all of their contact numbers transfer you to customer service in India. They will not let you talk directly to anyone that speaks clear english in the States.

At first, they wanted to book me into nearby hotels which were literally three times as expensive... and they wanted me to pay the difference.

Next, they started promising to book me into another hotel, put me on hold and then the phone disconnects. Or they never pick up the phone again.

They refuse to refund my reservation, as there is a 100% cancellation charge.

After three days, I have spent over 10 hours on the phone (and on hold) with them.

Absolutely horrible experience.

My honeymoon is in two weeks and now I'm stuck trying to find a place to stay... and the rates are ridiculous because it is so close.

Do NOT use Kayak to directly book a hotel. They do NOT guarantee the reservation and they refuse to refund my money. (I'm working with my bank to dispute the charge on my credit card.)

I would've given them 0 stars if I could
The worst experience EVER. I don't think anybody should be doing business with KAYAK, period. I am a frequent flyer, I used Kayak on most of my international trips. They used to be amazing and their prices were decent. Something ha penned lately (I guess they have merged with travelocity) and their service when down hill. I booked a flight, paid for it and only to find out, a day later, that they have cancelled it. I called their number (which by the way was hard to find since they don't publish it on their website) and spoke to more then ten people and got the same answer, sorry we can't help you. Tried to go back to their website and rebook my flight again and what a nightmare. I chose a booking, I fill out all the information only to get an error saying that the flight is no longer available. I tried more than 30 different flights and was getting the same error. (the only reason I went back to their site was because I had already paid for my first flight and didn't want to lose my money) What a shame. I work in the hospitality industry and will have a good word about them.

This site is good for finding flights, but I am utterly disappointed in the experience I had purchasing from them. Not only is it sometimes cheaper to book directly with the site, I had a bad experience when I bought tickets for a JetStar flight. Apparently booking with Kayak sometimes directs you to a third party website, which seemed to offer a great deal for the price of the plane ticket, little did I know that it was because they took away the luggage price that is already included in standard JetStar flights. Knowing that the airline included the right to one piece of luggage included in the price I opted out of purchasing extra luggage for the flight. To my considerable surprise checking in at the airport I was told that I had to pay for my luggage and I was tremendously appalled to find out that the price of my luggage was nearly twice the price of the plane ticket! ( As you may know, paying for luggage at the check in counter is more expensive than pre-booking it). Whatever little amount of money I may have saved booking with Kayak, rather than the airline directly had all gone to waste. There was 3 other people with me that day, and we ended up paying extremely more in luggage fees than the cost of our flight tickets. Around $600 dollar just for luggage. Looking back, I dont even think that the items within my luggage amounted to the cost of the fees. I really cannot recommend booking with Kayak, nor will I ever do so again in the future.

Just to warn you that this is the worst service ever. They do not have any responsibility for nothing. My husband bought a ticket fly using this website and suddenly he ended up booking with the company directly which is American Airlines and they didn't give any confirmation of this transaction. We thought that it was not a purchase made cause we haven't been charged so we bought the same flight ticket from American Airlines to Flight Hub where it went well. Then 5 days after we found the charges that we made using Kayak and when you go through its privacy terms, there is no way to get a refund. We spoke to American Airlines cause we have double ticket flights and they say we can't get a refund cause is a non refundable ticket. We explained to them the issue and we didn't receive any notification from them but AA say that they only can give us credit for 2 years, what the heck!. Very disapointed of both Kayak and AA, they have the worst service ever and I won't buy any tickets from them even though they say they are the cheapest. Be aware!

Whenever you attempt to book a Rental Car Deal that you think is "too good to be true" well you aren't far from the truth. These bandits show you a good deal but when you try to take advantage of it their site says " NOT AVAILABLE". They just want to make an "UP SELL" to the higher priced rental. They appear to give GREAT DEALS until you click on it to find it is not available. Kayak is a scam!

Use Kayak to search for flights BUT NEVER EVER BOOK THROUGH KAYAK. WHEN YOU PUSH THAT BUTTON YOU ARE HEADED FOR BOOKING HELL AND A COMPLETE RIPOFF. Just went through this. Somehow got sent to AA for UA flight one way and the return on Alaska. I discovered 30min after booking that I was overcharged $300 compared to booking directly with those airlines. And of course AA refused to cancel reservation when I called back in less than an hour. Kayak's response was that "AA must have a data feed problem".
Insult to injury is that every leg of the trip was difficult because of different locator numbers, inability to choose seats, etc.
NEVER BOOK THRU KAYAK. THEY ARE DISHONEST, UNRESPONSIVE, AND SHOULD BE SHUT DOWN.

I attempted to book a room through Kayak.com. Like many travelors I was on a budget for my trip and wanted to find the best hotel. Kayak.com took my payment information, attempted to book me a room, failed at the booking, yet still put a hold for the full cost of the room on my account. I called the number on the transaction with my bank and was told that they could not help me (offshore support company), so I placed a customer service form through Kayak.com's website. I received the email below as a response. Obviously Kayak.com has put alot of time and effort into positioning themselves as the middle man with no responsibility as to the successful completion of the booking, but as they took my payment information directly, I don't see it that way. I will never use them again and I have spent the last few days making sure my social media circles are aware of this company's shady business practices.

Email from "Melissa" at Kayak.com

Hello: I see your recent reservation processed by Travelocity. To help clarify, KAYAK provides an option to complete a hotel reservation using third party providers, such as Travelocity. All service inquiries are handled directly by Travelocity and their policies apply. For assistance kindly contact Travelocity at *******849, or *******997. Kind regards, Melissa KAYAK Consumer Services Rep

Giving these guys a rating of just one star is being super charitable! We started at Kayak to purchase airfare to Sydney, Australia. By the time I paid for the tickets, I discovered that Kayak had pawned us off to Vayama which Ive never heard of before. Too late, monies had already been sent. Then the problems really began. TWO weeks BEFORE we were scheduled to leave, I called Vayama to see if we could upgrade our Qantas seats to premium economy. The agent politely asked if we were aware that our final segment home was cancelled. I said no and asked when were they planning on notifying us? I received no reply. They said they had to send this up to the ivory tower and would hear something within 48 then 72 hours. ONE week later, they provided us with a flight changes. We tried to obtain seats and after researching American and Qantas, we determined that Vayama had somehow obtained two different record locators for us, one being an impossible route. We called again to notify them of this and an agent confidently indicated we didnt know what we were talking about double locators were impossible. She said shed send this up to the ivory tower again. THREE days before we were to leave, Vayama emailed us to indicate that indeed we had two record locators for the same trip and that between them and American Airlines, they determined the best approach would be to leave well enough alone and to struggle through our seat assignments at the airport. Well never use either of these travel agents again.

Kayak works through chatdeal.com to process all ticket purchases. If anything goes wrong, you will not be taken care of at all. You end up dealing with a bunch of crafty indian people. I had to cancel my flight because I got Covid. After waiting forever over the phone, they asked me 400usd of penalty in order to get my 2 tickets refunded. When I realized I was scammed, I called them back, and of course the played dumb and denied everything, stating my tickets were not refundable. I contacted the airline, but they couldn't do anything, since I didn't buy the ticket directly from them. AVOID BUYING TICKETS VIA KAYAK!

I booked a hotel room from kayak.com, the pictures did NOT reflect what the hotel looked like in real life.

I cancelled my reservation as soon as i saw the rooms.

I had booked my room on saturday and was unable to contact a person, as opposed to an automated machine, until today (monday).

The first customer service rep i talked to said he wasn't able to refund my money. I called the hotel to confirm the information, then called customer service back.

The next rep i spoke with was extremely helpful, he called the hotel to verify the information i gave him and proceeded to refund my money. I was informed that processing of my refund may take up to 7 days. However, that is not my main concern.

Aside from having to make multiple phone calls, the process went well over all. It should be noted that the wait time was next to nothing when trying to get a hold of a rep during normal business hours. I'm glad I got my money back and I will be sure review the hotel's i find on Kayak next time.

The last day of our holiday in the U.S.A. we needed a car to get back to the airport, to travel back to the Netherlands.
I found one via the kayak website, made a reservation, and got a confirmation by email that we could pick it up at Avis, 1092 S Ponce de Leon Blvd.
So far, so very good.
Until we got to this address. No Avis! So we called the toll-free phonenumber that was in the confirmation. It is just a computer, reading 35 different non applicable options, there is no real person on the Phone.
So this was no solution.
We asked the other companies at the Ponce de Leon Blvd.
They told us that Avis had moved more than a year ago (!). So Kayak used an address that is outdated for more than a year.

Saint Augustine is not a very big place with lots of rental car locations. So we asked a lot of people, and drove around for almost two hours until we found Avis at the Wallmart. There was no reservation on my name off course, because the reservation was made for the non existing location.
You can understand that this procedure causes a lot of stress. We took some extra time for the procedure, but we had more than 2,5 hours delay in getting the car at that moment.
Pat of Avis helped us out. He found us a dirty car we could use, it was the only car he had available. We were relieved to finally have a car, so we cleaned it ourselves.
We were on time at the airport, but the last day of our holiday was ruined because of the stress.

DO NOT BOOK HOTEL ROOMS THROUGH KAYAK! We booked a room in Laughlin Nevada for one night and "upgraded" to the "Deluxe Tower" which is adults only and non-smoking. The room we were given was a dump - looked out over the trash cans, not in the Deluxe Tower and, it was a smoking room. We marched back down to the front desk where we were told that the rooms booked on a 3rd party site were not guaranteed and there was nothing they could (or would) do about it. We left and went to a Hilton 20 miles down the road. Guess it could have been worse. We could have booked and paid for a penthouse suite and ended up with this dumpy room...