First of all, I was checking the bookings on a hotel from a different website then they told me it was sold out, then I found TravelRepublic and saw that they apparently had rooms left. So I went ahead and made my booking, fully paid, downloaded the app, gave them all my information etc to get as smooth booking as possible.
Then since they didnt give much information about the room I wanted to book I wanted just a simple question to be answered, "how big is the room in square meters" (as we are 3 adults in the same room and the hotel has either a 45 square meter room or a 71 square meter room. So we wanted to know which type of room we booked as there was no information about this at the booking.
I went ahead and tried to call their line in the UK, was in the queue for over 1 hour and 10 minutes and got kicked out of the queue? With the incredible cost per minute of 0,6 per minute. Which cost me 42. Amazing. It doesnt stop there...
I went ahead and messaged them on facebook instead since there was supposed to send me another confirmation e-mail to me which i'd had to respond to within 12 hours of the booking which was about to pass the 12 hour mark. I didn't even get a confirmation email so i was destined to not complete my booking and having to wait 3-9 bank days for parts of my money to come back to my bank account.
I just got a simple answer "there is a queue system that's going by your booking date, thank you for your patience" like what the f***? How ever they did make a costumer support request.
Which took them freaking 24 hours to respond to! And of course in between loads of excuses from their facebook employees, like we will send you an update as soon as we got a confirmation from the hotell, like if i really wanted to I could ask them myself but now my issue was not about how big the room was, but what they will do about this 12 hour confirmation timeline that I was given after the booking? I asked them this multiple times and I get this answer.
"Please do not worry, some bookings can take longer than others to confirm."
How the hell does it take so long time to confirm something when you can instantly withdraw my money from my bank account?
So what was my final answer that I got that made me give this rating?
I got the answer
"We have been notified by your hotel provider, GTA, that the room you have requested is not available. Availability has changed while you were submitting your booking details as providers work on a live system."
GUESS WHAT? NOW WHEN I CHECK THE SITE AGAIN I CAN ACTUALLY "BOOK" THE SAME ROOM AGAIN!? Amazing, scam artists.
Its actually soo much more I could add to this website but its not worth more of my time. I'll just copy and paste this to every review site of Travel Republic so others wont get scammed as I got scammed.
Dont use this site, they are trying to sell overbooked rooms and then to pay you back -10£. which becomes their proffit. Also takes 20-30 hours for them to respond to the most simplest question. example if there is a TV in the room or not. also it will take about 3-9 days for some of your money back.
NOT WORTH IT!!! EVEN IF YOU GET A "BETTER DEAL" rather pay 50$ extra to just skip all this bullcrap!
I recently had a problem booking a hotel through Travelrepublic.co.uk. In the age of booking hotels direct via the internet, this is a scam which is becoming more and more used by unscrupulous hotels and booking sites.
I'd booked and paid for 3 rooms for 3 nights at The Senacki Hotel in Krakow two months in advance through Travelrepublic.co.uk. Five days before we were due to travel, Travel Republic advised us that 'due to an overbooking they were relocating us to the Kossak Hotel'. This is a sister hotel to the Senacki and is claimed to be a 4* and of a similar standard but it is not. Perhaps it was 20 years ago, now it's a tired and ugly 3* at best and located 10-15 minute walk away from the town centre and the hotel we had originally booked, consequently it's 15-20% cheaper then the Senacki Hotel.
Travelrepublic were of course very sorry and if we wanted to cancel we could have a full refund. But as we had also booked and paid for our return flights, airport taxis and Krakow tours this wasn't as easy as it sounds. We did check other hotel options but we couldn't find any that had 3 rooms on the dates we were traveling.
Travelrepublic completely abdicated any responsibility saying it wasn't their fault and there was nothing they could do. Neither they, nor the hotel, offered any price reduction or compensation. We were simply left with a 'take it or leave it' attitude.
I am a frequent traveller who has been using the internet for booking hotels around the world for years. This is the first time l have personally encountered this kind of problem, however I have noticed a number of fellow travellers reporting similar experiences on Tripadvisor.com.
It's a simple scam for a hotel and/or a booking agency to allow over booking at a good hotel then days before travelling advise customers that 'due to an overbooking' they were been relocated to a cheaper hotel. Yes, of course, they could cancel and receive a full refund, but for all independent travellers they would have already bought and paid for their flights and would not have the option to cancel these without incurring quite a substantial penalty. Therefore, with only days before travelling, what options would you have other then to accept the change offered.
Beware fellow travellers!