It is always best to book directly with the hotels but sometimes especially in India they don't have a reservation system that you can book with your credit card so it's easier with a 3rd party. Anyway getting back to Agoda, sometimes it's not the booking agents fault, everyday the hotels can add or remove availability from the agoda website but if it's a hotel that's not very well organised they sometimes forget to remove the room and sell it themselves so when the reservation comes through they ignore it and see what happens when the client turns up now this is where it gets complicated because Agoda want the commission due to them and the hotel doesn't want to give it to them so other than losing valuable clients Agoda also loses the commision as I said it's a bit complicated but before Agoda give you a refund they want to know the full story which is sometimes difficult to get from the hotel owners.

The contract is between the booking company and the customer. If agents of the booking company fail, it is the booking company's responsibility.

I eventually got one refund from Agoda and am still awaiting a second. Not once have they apologised for the inconvenience I suffered or offered to make amends in any way.

I have seldom dealt with a more opinionated, less user friendly and more inefficient excuse for a customer relations department..

The remedy is simple, there are shed loads of better competitors out there.

It's not only agoda that this happens with. We booked a hotel in Hanoi in Vietnam with Otel.com and the week before we were due to arrive I sent the hotel an e-mail requesting a taxi from the airport, they replied that they didn't have the booking and that they were fully booked, I contacted otel and sent them the e-mail that the hotel sent me they told me not to worry that they would take it up with the hotel and that the hotel were obliged to honour the booking as I had a confirmation voucher, I then received another e-mail from the hotel telling me that they definitely didn't have any rooms as they wre full and offered me their sister hotel which I din't want because of the location. Otel kept insisting that there wouldn't be a problem and that it was between them and the hotel but quite honestly I didn't want to turn up at the hotel at 5am in the morning after a long flight to find they didn't have a room so cancelled the room and rebooked another place. Otel phoned me and explained that the hotel through a password can at any time remove or add rooms depending on their avalability and had forgotten to remove rooms when they were fully booked, they told me that they would remove the hotel from their booking system as they didn't want to work with any hotels that were not reliable and cause them problems with guests arriving and finding no room, when I returned from Vietnam I checked the Otel site and found that they had indeed removed the hotel from their booking system. I remember the lady that I talked to on the phone said that working with Asia was a big problem because the hotels aren't used to working with 3rd parties and contracts don't mean a thing and that caused all the booking sites no end of problems.

im in a similar situation now . bloody agoda . just dont go there !

I had a similar problem with Cleartrip on a booking in India. I had a voucher confirming the booking. Fortunately I checked with the hotel a couple of months in advance. The hotel informed me that they had no booking in my name. The hotel eventually was able to straighten it out with Cleartrip. If I had not checked I would have been turned away. When I checked with the hotel there was only one room left available on my booked dates.

Lessons learned: in India when booking hotels either book directly with the hotel in question or book through an established professional India based travel agent.

Sorry to hear what happened. I am a local... and travel a lot within india. Third party like makemytrip.com and http://expedia.co.in have far reach, competitive and popular, and hotels (specially small ones) do care about bookings coming via these players, simply because of the volume of bookings they get. Makes sense?

Hello, same problem with Agoda, the hotel reservation I did in Pondicherry was a shame, and when calling Agoda help number in the voucher, nobody was available on line. Then with insistence and after a lot of discussions with the hotel representative I succeeded in the reimbursement of 90% of the due amount, then find another hotel. AGODA IS A VERY BAD TRAVEL AGENCY WHICH I WILL NEVER USED AGAIN.

Hi mr_metaxa,

It create a bad repo of agora, they should write you and apologize for all happened.

they will certainly. return your second payment as Agoda is one among the popular co. for online Hotel bookings. I don't believe that they do any kind of fraud with their customers

It is lack of inventory control between Hotel and Agoda. I as a part of tourism community from last 23 years and TRUE supporter of responsible tourism in India. Mistake can be a side of Agoda or Hotel and I would say that both are gaining hence both are equal responsible. Hotel should care at most also and short out the issue.

I don't believe that company like Agoda don't pay to the Hotel. But I agree that there are some agents in India they are not having good repo to pay.

I am completely agreed with your post and expect a words of excuse from the management of Agoda ..

I thanking you to post your experience here on TA that brings the awareness among the members and they will cross check the accomodation during the high season to avoids any inconvenience due to mistake of OTA / hotels

Agoda does not have an India customer care number on their website. I had just received an extra charge of 25k on what should be 900 according to Agoda customer care (via email) on a Hotel booking for Bangalore. How can I contact them? Only email which they take time to respond. If this is not fraudulent behavior, I do not know what is. I clearly have the entire conversation in email, I guess I have to take this to consumer court. Being a part of an American company I expected better service.