So I started my hotel and flight search on booking.com, found some hotels and entered my information, but not actually booking anything, moments later I receive a phone call from an agent asking me about my possible booking as they retrieved my details from the website, I thought great I can speak with someone about the booking and clarify things like can I cancel and change my accommodation after booking etc. I was told everything I wanted to hear over the phone by this agent 'LUCY' sounded French, but found out she was based in a call centre in madrid. Anyway after reassurances that changes could be made to my accommodation, I ended up booking over the phone for flights and a hotel, which I though was booking.com, but turned out is handled by lastminute.com - once I received the email confirmation, lastminute.com were the providers and not booking, com as originally seen. This was a little strange, but everything seemed ok with the booking. Two weeks later I call to make a change to the hotel as I then decided after collaborating with friends also travelling, that I wanted to stay in another location and hotel for 3 nights, as opposed to staying the full 14 nights in one place. Well as soon as I called 'lastminute.com' I get through to a call centre in India now, all of a sudden I cant make any changes to my accommodation as it was booked with flights and is a 'package' even though contracts are separate and I didn't want to change any dates. They said they couldn't guarantee any changes and it would take 7 days for someone to get back to me by email?! WOT after being misold the holiday and given verbal reassurances of being able to cancel and change, I was hearing something different all of a sudden. They said changes could be made on the my booking part of their website - NO this is a totally useless thing where no changes can be made and no further information is available in regard to cancelling or changing. I rang three times and all three times I was told they will be looking into the original call when I made my booking to ascertain what I had been told - I only want to change 3 nights and this is a simple enough request with any other holiday provider especially as travel is not due until late August?! I paid a deposit and was told if I cancel now I will lose my deposit?! THIS WAS NEVER RELAYED TO ME AT THE POINT OF BOOKING?! Surely something as important as this should be the first thing you tell someone?! The agents are totally useless and are die hard sellers trying to make commission and will tell you what you want to hear to make the booking - nothing has been confirmed with my booking as I've only paid a deposit and they are waiting for full payment?! This to me means I can change hotel accommodation If I want? TO cut a long story short I could have booked the flights and hotels separately (saved money) on the booking. Com website and been able to make changes IF the agent had not called me and convinced me to book both through her - this is misleading and totally scrupulous of lastminute.com not to not advise of all my options and the issues with booking a 'package' even though we can book these things separately and have more flexibility. PLEASE DO USE LAST MINUTE OR BOOKING.COM FOR FLIGHT AND HOTEL PACKAGES THEY WILL SCAM YOU AND MAKE IT DIFFICULT TO GET YOUR MONEY BACK - I am now having to dispute the deposit taken with my credit card company for a refund as I was totally mis-sold - SHOCKING that this company has a huge presence on the internet and are not taking responsibility for the rogue sellers they employ and for misleading people.
I have never experienced such poor customer experience.
I reserved a week long hotel stay for business. I have to report my expenses to my employer with taxes separate from rates, per night. Their original receipt had just a lump sum total. When I got to my hotel I upgraded my room to relocate closer to the entrance, for $10 per night. Because I did this, I got a receipt from the hotel that exposed all taxes and rates on that nightly $10 upcharge.
This is a report of my efforts to obtain an accounting of my taxes from limit club:
1st attempt: Contacted customer support, transferred to accounting yes sir we will send you a broken out receipt shortly. No receipt.
2nd attempt: Contacted customer support, transferred to accounting yes sir we will send you a broken out receipt shortly. No receipt.
3rd attempt: Contacted customer support, transferred to accounting yes sir we will send you a broken out receipt shortly. No receipt.
4th attempt: Contacted customer support, transferred to accounting yes sir we will send you a broken out receipt shortly. I received a receipt that broke out room rate by day, and taxes as 1 lump sum. Taxes was 4.5% higher than it should be and I needed it broken out by day.
5th call: This time I called the number on the receipt which was to a company called Tourico Holiday, Inc. I dialed the appropriate extension 6, my call was disconnected.
6th call: tried Tourico Holiday, Inc again. I dialed the appropriate extension 6, my call was disconnected.
7th call: tried Tourico Holiday, Inc again. I dialed extension 0, got a nice sounding lady who then offered to transfer me to the right department, I was placed on hold. After 3 minutes of hold music the line went mysteriously silent. I gave it a couple more minutes then hung up.
8th call: tried Tourico Holiday, Inc again. I dialed extension 1, was transferred to accounting. After holding for 15 minutes, the line was hung up.
9th call: Called limit club 1-900 number. Got a nice sounding guy. I explained I was very unhappy and wanted to speak with a manager. He tried to help me by basically providing me with a copy of the lump sum receipt I originally got. I said that will not do. He transferred me to a supervisor. She told me that their system did not provide them with a taxes breakout, she would have to calculate it manually. So she just took my lump sum total, subtracted out the correct hotel tax rate and gave that to me. Then I told her the receipt I received the previous day directly from accounting had a completely different tax total on it. She transferred me to accounting, after 45 minutes of being on hold, accounting came on the line and told me that they were sorry but whoever from accounting sent me the previous receipt miscalculated the tax rate.
The amount of time I spent trying to get my taxes broken out on my receipt was ridiculous. And in the end it sounds like they had to manually calculate it. I cannot understand how an accounting department has to manually calculate taxes, and guess at my charges, instead of providing documented evidence of what I was actually charged. I have little confidence that at the end of this whole nightmare, I got a receipt of actuals. I suspect they just fudged the numbers to appease me and get me off the phone.
Hello,
My wife and i were at the lax Airport checkin-in to make a nice and good weekend in Panama City, Panama. Once checked in, and after passing through airport security, we used the LastMinuteTravel.com website to book a hotel in Panama as we saw plenty of hotels were available on the day before.
Therefore, we booked the Hard Rock Hotel Panama Megazlopolis from 06/01 to 06/04 and we were charged $360.84 for the three days then, received immediately a Hotel Reservation Confirmation.
However, just before boarding the aircraft, LastMinuteTravel.com sent us another email saying that they cancelled our reservation...!
"Thank you for choosing Last Minute Travel. This email is to inform you that your reservation has been cancelled as the information you provided does not match the credit card used. Your credit card was refunded. Please contact your bank to verify your information before submitting a new reservation... Please be advised, all transactions are subject to verification of all information provided and may be cancelled due to verification failure..."
I provided them exactly with the real and accurate credit card and billing information so i was really upset as the money we used was dedicated to be used on that trip for hotel booking and was deposited on a prepaid visa card, so they were holding that money until the refund was appearing back in the account...!
My wife and i were completely bored because we were then boarding and had no hotel booking plus less money to travel because the money which was on the prepaid account was blocked by the credit card company to guarantee their payement to LastMinuteTravel.com...! Also, we had to use another credit card and booked another hotel with Expedia which was going through very well as usual...
Following that incident, we arrived in Panama with less money than expected for the weekend so we did not travel a lot during the weekend because a part of our money was blocked for nothing as LastMinuteTravel didn't do a good job.! We also called them from Panama spending lots of money for nothing as their customer service didn't take care of what we were saying and told us, you have been refunded with no apologize or help to compensate what was happening... Plus, the person on the phone was rude and didn't explained us what happened saying that "if we cancelled, it's possible that we did not receive approval for the payment or information was not accurate" while i was charged and the money was blocked by the bank immediately after the reservation...
I also called the bank and they guaranteed that they gave approval for the transaction with a valid approval code which confirmed my reservation with the online travel agency...
I was reviewing plenty of other complaints with LastMinuteTravel.Com as saw that plenty of people complaint with this travel agency, lost of them saying hotel bookings were cancelled, refunds took long time, customer service was not attentive and taking care of customer complaints... That's exactly what was happening also to us...
The charges were appearing on the account as debited on 06/02 only one day after the reservation made throughout their website while the refund appeared into the account only on 06/05 three days later contrary to what they said when sending the cancellation notice via email on the same day of making the reservation...! Unfortunately for us, we already came back to LA when we received the refund to the prepaid card, and we spent 3 days there in Panama with less money during our stay as we had to pay twice for the hotel, so we didn't do lots of things due to lack of money... Also, the refund received was not equivalent to the original charges and we received $5 less than what was charged before!
I emailed LastMinuteTravel.Com one time last week, attaching copies of the bank account statement, the detailed credit card charged made with approvals, and a copy of the billing information plus copies of the card used for booking, re explaining what was happening and telling that i will dispute this issue if they weren't do anything to compensate, and they answer that this issue was due to insufficient funds or the credit card was denied, while money was approved and put on hold on the credit card..., and they added that they will not do anything to compensate as there were not in fault...!
I replied another time and re explaining the situation and the answered that the information was certainly not accurate so they had to cancel the reservation and refund the booking... while i already sent them proof that there was no particular issue with both the card, the billing info and the money available in the account which was blocked until charge definitively by the travel agent...
I will never use again their services also.
Hope the review will help lots of people!