Warning about hotel websites especially roomsnet.com

S

Shopaholic

Registered User
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I just want to make people aware of this problem. My parents are staying at a hotel in Tenerife at the moment, we booked the accommodation through www.roomsnet.com back in February, I paid for the booking with my credit card at the time and they then emailed a 'pre-paid voucher' for the hotel. This is the norm for bookings on this website and a lot of other sites (I have used this site numberous times before with no problems) but this time, they never paid the hotel in Tenerife and now the hotel manager is looking for the money upfront or my parents have to leave the hotel.

I have spent the last two days on the phone to roomsnet.com customer service which is absolutely appauling and the problem is still not resolved. They say that their 'payment methods' are down and they can't pay the hotel...............

The saga continues but I just want people to be aware in these recessionary times, it might be a good idea not to book through this website........
 
Re: Warning about hotel websites......

Tell roomsnet then as your parents are getting kicked out of the hotel that they can give the money back to you when their "payment methods" are back up as you have to pay for this yourself as I suspect you may. Its kind of not the hotels fault but hopefully theyll assist you by refusing another payment from that company.

Get on to CC company straight away as we. you paid for something which you did not get and once you pay for it again, you wont get at all.
 
Re: Warning about hotel websites......

It may not be the hotels fault but doesn't the hotel have an agreement to honour rooms booked through roomsnet?

OP you may be covered by your credit card payment, check your terms and conditions and you may be able to get back this payment from the credit card company.
 
Re: Warning about hotel websites......

I would be interested to know if Roomsnet also trade under different names as a lot of the other hotel discounters do. This is bad for everyone.
 
Re: Warning about hotel websites......

Yeah I know it's not really the hotels fault but they should honour the bookings they have through roomsnet, afterall, he has an agrement with them, that should have nothing to do with the customer (my parents). I actually have not been speaking to my parents over the last day or two so I'm not sure did they get it sorted with hotel manager.

They are due home on Sunday.....I will post the update if people are interested but I do agree it's very worrying if they trade under another name..........
 
Re: Warning about hotel websites......

Sounds to me like roomsnet are in financial difficulty and possibly dont have the money for some reason or another!!!!

If roomsnet have confirmed that they have not paid the hotel then get a rep of roomsnet to put the hotel on their credit card and they can be repaid when payment methods are back up and running.

I would be afraid of paying for the hotel twice otherwise!
 
Re: Warning about hotel websites......

i would just move out and book into another hotel and claim the money back through my credit card.

It can take a while but ring customer service on your card and ask them if they can do a "charge back" or something.

Visa did this for me when I bought and returned mis-sold camera to a shop in New York, who were refusing me a refund.

Thanks Visa!
 
Re: Warning about hotel websites......

Sounds like Roomsnet is experiencing cashflow difficulties. I would be slow to pay the hotel up front in the hope of getting the money refunded from Roomsnet when their "systems" are back up. Do you / parents have travel insurance? It would be worth checking out to see if such a situation might be covered.
 
Re: Warning about hotel websites......

I used them a good bit in the past, then about a month ago I was trying to book a hotel for Budapest and suddenly discovered the amount of hotels available went from about 200 to zero. So I'd say something is afoot with them. The master company name I think is Jumbo Tours and they are London based.

RoomsNet International Ltd
2nd Floor,
45 Craven Road,
London W2 3BX,
United Kingdom.

Phone (UK) +44 207 402 8192

Registered in England - No : 05362140

I suspect whats happened is they use some other 3rd party provider and hadn't paid them, who pulled the plug. I don't see any links to memberships of ATOL or any similar organisations so its likely they are in trouble. I haven't booked anthing with them for a while now.
 
I would like to warn about these <snip> as well. <snip>

I booked 9 nights at a hotel in Benidorm. The room was paid for the 9th of June. I could see on my bank statement that the money was taken from my account.

When we arrive at the hotel the 29th of July, nearly 2 months later, the hotel informed us that we have no room because roomsnet.com has not paid the hotel.

We had to ring rooms.net and first they tried some bull s… story that we had not had money in the account when the room was to be paid and that the booking was cancelled.
When I told them I was looking at my bank statement and could see that the transaction was made they change the story to that their agent in Spain had not been able to forward the money to the hotel due to computer or transfer error or some other stupid excuse.
They had sent us the voucher we were going to give to the hotel, you never get that if your booking isn’t paid, but for nearly 2 months they didn’t tell us we had no room.

We were going to get our money back, but of course it would take 2-3 bank days.
In the meantime we had to pay the hotel 870 euro out of own pocket. When we got the money back from rooms.net we got the amount that we had paid to book with them which of course was less, that’s why you use internet booking – to get a good price.. So all of a sudden the hotel coasted us 240 euro more.

I have e-mailed roomsnet.com several times because I think they should compensate me for the price difference but they don’t even have the decency to answer.

I have definetely booked my last hotel with this Internet site and I don’t recommend it to anyone else.
 
I have added a link to this thread to the Key Posts.
However, please refrain from posting comments which could be considered libellous/defamatory (I have edited the last post to remove some slightly colourful expressions).
 
It is very interesting that one cannot find any references on roomsnet's website. Guess why? GT
 
Just wondering should we be worried about the rest of these booking sites. We frequently use Alpha Rooms and Bookings and up to now have never encountered any problems but if one goes down what aboout the others ?
 
There was an item on Liveline about roomsnet.com recently. It's available as a podcast on i-Tunes
 
same thing happened to us this october in mijas, spain, we got to the hotel only to be told that our booking had never been paid for and the hotel subsequently cancelled same. as there was a wedding in the hotel that particular week we were lucky to get the last room which we had to pay for out of our own money. we had tried unsuccessfully to get onto roomsnet by phone. luckily the hotel were very accomodating and despite having a higher price to the one that we had paid roomsnet they only charged us the lower price. since coming home we have been trying unsuccessfully to get our money refunded but since it has been 6 weeks i really dont hold out much hope now. just wondering did anyone get money back from them. i have used roomsnet on several occasions and have recommended them to friends and family, never again
 
Roomsnet International Special Announcement

Roomsnet International wishes to announce to all our valued members that the problems which led to certain bookings being canceled by some suppliers last year have been resolved. We would like to reassure all our members that all current and future bookings are completely secure and guaranteed. We deeply regret the inconvenience caused to some of our members last year. We have resolved over 96% of the cancellations that were disrupted in 2009 due to circumstances beyond our control arising as a result of the severe economic downturn experienced worldwide and are working with our suppliers and credit card companies to resolve the outstanding cases expeditiously.

We are continuously improving the Roomsnet.com site, features and member services based on your feedback and would like to thank all our members for their long standing support and look
forward to serving you again in the future.

 
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