Rianne K.

Booked a double room in London for a very attractive price, all seemed good and the hotel confirmed the booking. A month later we got our money back on our creditcard without any notice, not from the hotel and not from ZenHotels. If we had not seen this, we would probably have arrived in London to find out at the hotel that the booking was cancelled without notifying us. Luckily, because we sent an email to the hotel, we found out that the booking was cancelled. They told us that the price was not correct. We tried to figure things out, but the hotel sent us to ZenHotels. We called the support center, but two calls (with very bad service) did not help much. We then decided to send an email. It looked like they were going to fix things, but we did not hear anything anymore. Only after emailing and asking ourselves we got the message that they were working on it. This gave us the confidence that it would be fixed and that's also why we did not book other accommodation ourselves. Finally, two weeks later we get an email that our booking with the hotel is indeed cancelled (which we already knew) and options for alternative accommodations that are way more expensive than our initial booking. The reason ZenHotels gave for the cancellation, overbooking, is also not the same as the hotel gave us - that ZenHotels let us book for a wrong price -. We checked online and the hotel was not overbooked at all since rooms were still available. To us this appeared as if ZenHotels is not willing to acknowledge their mistake and make up for it. They advertise with nice prices that are not true, leaving customers without accommodation. It's only because we found out and contacted ZenHotels that they have looked for alternative accommodation for us. And then we get offers that are more than double the price we initially booked for. Moreover, after looking at those offers, we found out that we could book exactly the same rooms for lower prices ourselves. All of this led us to decide to book our own accommodation. ZenHotels asked for the payment invoice of this accommodation, to look at a refund/compensation. We emailed the invoice right after our stay in London to ZenHotels (June 14), but since then heard nothing anymore! They said they send it to their complaints department, but it's totally silent. Two emails from our side asking about the status of things are totally ignored.
So here we are, many calls, emails and frustrations later. We lost money because the amount we paid for the hotel was not exactly the same as the amount that got transferred back. Furthermore, the costs of our accommodation were now way higher than the price we initially booked for on ZenHotels.com. Between our initial booking on ZenHotels.com and booking ourselves, and even between our first contact with ZenHotels support about this issue and booking ourselves, the prices of hotel rooms have gone up a lot and many good accommodations got fully booked. ZenHotels service was very disappointing, and now they even ignore us. All in all, things would have gone way better if we had not booked through ZenHotels.com. A lot of energy, money and frustration would have been saved.