Ma B.

I had a bad experience using Agoda in August 2023. I had booked an apartment through it and the duration was 4 weeks. I actually knew the apartment having stayed in it before so was reasonably confident that it would be okay.

Previously using Agoda whils traveling in Europe had no problems at all but when it comes to mixing Philippines and long term stays well that is an altogether different matter.

The apartment I had rented in Manila using Agoda was sub standard, unsafe, in need of fumigation and was completely not as described. On day 2 of being there I raised the issues with their customer service explaining that the apartment was a bio hazard and completely not as described. All I got back was endless chit chat about how they understood me and my concerns before finally telling me that to cancel the booking I would need to pay a 25% penalty.

I was stuck in the middle between them and the property owner not knowing what to do however one thing I was totally not going to do was be forced into paying 25% of the entire booking for a cockroach infested dump.

When I left I penned a hard hitting but true and very accurate review of the place and the experience I had been conned into. They did not publish it.

My advice is this DO NOT use Agoda for long term stays when visiting Philippines. In fact I would suggest not using it at all for any long term stay.

Customer service is 10/10 and will always try to resolve issues including offering an extension should connectivity problems be down to them. The downside to using this vpn is the amount of updates. Many updates sometimes only a few days since the last one. In fairness their software does sometimes provide a notice when it is launched but its still an annoyance having to update so frequently. Notice to users in China - the vpn there has had a lot of connectivity problems in the last 9 months which is still ongoing so, while they do try to fix it it is not 100% reliable for use there. The cost of using ExpressVPN is very good and because of their commitment to offering good service it is well worth the outlay. 6 month deal at a time is the best option in my opinion in case something else comes along that is as good or better.