1800hotels.ie gone bust?

N

nic

Guest
I made a booking with 1800hotels on July 3. I received the confirmation email as usual, and the money was taken from my credit card. I arrived at the hotel this afternoon to find there was no longer any reservation for me. GTA Travel, which appeared on the confirmation email, had contacted the hotel on July 10 to cancel the booking. I received no emails about any of this.

The hotel staff were extremely helpful and contacted GTA directly. It turns out that 1800hotels have apparently gone bust. I have no idea if this is true but there's clearly something going on, and I'd advise anyone who has booked through their website to contact the hotel directly to check out whether they do in fact have a reservation.
 
OMG 1800hotels were always very competetive. I hope you are wrong - but nothing surprises me now. It looks like direct bookings with hotels is the route to go (providing the hotel does not go bust) Did the hotel honour your reservation or do you have to pay again?
 
aristotle said:
I checked my hotel booking with the hotel and they have no record of it. Money has been taked off the credit card a few weeks ago.

Bit of a disaster.
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Write to your credit card company asking for a refund. It might just work for you given it is only a couple of weeks since your card was debited.
 
MaryBM said:
Did the hotel honour your reservation or do you have to pay again?
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The hotel staff were really good to us and gave us a staff rate for the couple of nights. We were lucky that they had rooms available I suppose. Not having received any payment in relation to our reservation they didn't owe us anything but really did the best they could for us. Hopefully we'll manage to get our money back from the credit card company.
 
How about giving the Hotel name a mention. Not many hotels would be so accommadating. Good service deserves a mention!
 
Anyone can set up a website offering worldwide accommodation without any security whatsoever for the client. Yes, chasing up credit card companies may help but if one has paid by Laser, cheque or ,for example, walked into the Clontarf office of 1800 and paid cash then the customer loses .

Its the same with airlines - there is no consumer protection if one books a flight with an airline and the airline goes bust.

Only licensed travel agents in this country offer full protecion. We have to have bonds, audited accounts, government inspections etc, all of which are an expensive drag.
Considering that less than 20% of overseas travel is now booked through travel agents we wonder why accommodation websites, airlines etc are not subject to the same scrutiny as the quickly diminishing number of travel agents (just twenty traditional retail agents left in all of Dublin)

And ,of course, if one gets really rotten deal on a hotel then at least with a travel agent there is a chance of complaining face-to-face with a human being -and ,it often happens, getting some compensation.

Sorry about the rant.
 
On LIVELINE today ( 13 July 2010 ) - load of people caught out on holiday having to pay ... again. Apparently 1800 had not paid the hotels. Also a load of people with advance bookings having paid in full.

Maybe some return on credit cards?

PLUS go here - www.1800hotels.ie

GONE ....

Cheers
Bob
 
I assume that means that all related 1800 sites have gone wallop - we've used the car hire loads of times and got really good rates for US car hire. Real pity if it's gone.
 
This is a copy of the DNS information that is freely availalbe on the internet about 1800hotels
Domain name: 1800hotels.com
Registrant Contact:
1800hotels
graham peakin ()
Fax:
1-2 The Grain Store
Distillery Lofts, Distillery Road
Dublin, 000000
IE
Administrative Contact:
1800hotels
graham peakin ([email protected])
+353.599183072
Fax: +353.599146329
1-2 The Grain Store
Distillery Lofts, Distillery Road
Dublin, 000000
IE
Creation date: 05 Mar 1998 05:00:00
Expiration date: 04 Mar 2011 05:00:00
domain: 1800hotels.ie
descr: 1800 Hotels Limited
descr: Body Corporate (Ltd,PLC,Company)
descr: Discretionary Name
renewal: 14-April-2011
status: Active
person: Claire McAnaspie
nic-hdl: AAR948-IEDR
source: IEDR
 
I booked a hotel in Rome with 1800hotels in May, son getting married there in Sept and yesterday on liveline on rte I heard the news that there were problems.

Our booking was for two rooms costing approx 11000 which was taken out of the visa account.

On hearing about the debacle I rang the hotel involved and they have no record of a booking or even a cancellation of a booking.

Who can advise me
 
according to the radio show liveline today they are now bankrupt,you should get your money back as you paid by visa ,can take up to 30 days,from the info i found so far you will need to send them a copy of your print out,but contact your bank first, a few people told me they have already contacted their bank and they will recieve a refund, but having to find another hotel and pay again until your refund comes through is annoying,also avoid roomsnet.com things are a bit shaky there also,i would book directly with hotel,or one of the bigger hotel websites,all is not lost ,its just a glitch in your case.
 
franmac said:
Our booking was for two rooms costing approx 11000 which was taken out of the visa account.

On hearing about the debacle I rang the hotel involved and they have no record of a booking or even a cancellation of a booking.

Who can advise me
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€11000 for two rooms .. how long are you staying for ? :)

Regardless of the actual amount as you paid with Visa you'll be fine - as salaried says contact your bank - it may take a little while to get refunded but you'll get your money back

The people who could be in trouble are those who paid with Debit Cards or in Cash as you don't have the same protection in such cases.
 
Unfortunately this type of thing will put people off booking with similar sites now causing further instability in the market.

If you can close up shop and "disappear" just like that, others will try it on.
 
Having worked in the accounts section of a hotel who used several of these online booking companies I would always advise against using them. They were always a nightmare to get money out of, generally they won't pay up until after the customer has stayed, one in particular (can't name them obv) would insist we sent an invoice with proof the client stayed then would take up to 3 months to pay up, despite the hotel having a standard 30 day policy. in theory, if a customer booked on line in January for a stay in July, the hotel may not receive payment until October...

Much better to negoitate direct with the hotel for a good rate and pay when you get there.
 
I tried a few hotels I liked recently in Portugal, but they were all 30% - 40% dearer direct than the same room with pool view etc booked through Alpharooms.

I went with Alpharooms, paid with a credit card, if anything does go wrong hopefully I can claim on the card.
 
I filled out a credit card charge back form on wednesday with NIB and got refunded yesterday. I rebooked directly with the hotel and it cost about an extra 20 a night but overall I am quite happy with the result. NIB proved great to deal with.
 
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