Complaint Review: Otel.com - ISTANBUL Internet

On 29th July 2013, using my Credit card, I paid for 3 nights stay in a Rome hotel (called River Chateau) which was booked for 27th September to 1st Oct 2013 with "www.otel.com".

When we arrived at the hotel we were told that there was no room available for us. We were told we could stay at a hotel close by called Flemming hotel. This was further from the town center, in a noisy and dirty street and not of a similar standard (the hotel we had booked; River Chateau, costs about £75 per night (even when booked 2 months in advance as we did), the replacement hotel, called Flemming, we could have booked for under £50, even if booking that night.

So, although River Chateau claimed Flemming was the same standard (4 stars) it was in fact about 25-30 pounds cheaper per night. But I digress, my gripe is not with them. River Chateau are not at fault here and they were very courteous.

We complained via email and telephone to Otel.com and requested a refund for this night (or partial refund is what I was naively expecting) as it wasn't at the hotel we had paid for. They took it upon themselves to cancel the remaining 2 nights leaving us with no where to sleep for the remainder of our trip! Presumably this was a genuine mistake caused by the language barrier (me being English and them Turkish).

We contacted them to make them aware of the error they had made. They told us they would try to book us into a replacement hotel and we should wait at the hotel lobby. We waited until around 1 or 2pm (bearing in mind we were supposed be on holiday seeing the sights of Rome) and otel.com had still not booked a replacement so we booked a hotel ourselves.

The new hotel was expensive by our standards: £260.55 for 2 nights, because a.) we were booking at such short notice and b.) It was the last weekend of the month when the pope addresses the crowds so most hotels were booked and those that weren't could charge a premium c.) I was National Tourism day, or something of the sort, meaning the hotel booked at short notice was even more expensive given that there was so little choice they could afford to charge a premium.

Otel.com failed to uphold their part in the contract with us because a.) There was no room at the original hotel despite them confirming and charging us months in advance and b.) they then cancelled the remaining nights we had originally booked despite this not being what we asked.

Otel.com have since refunded us 2 of the 3 nights but charged us for one night at the same rate had we been staying at the more expensive "River Chateau". I believe this is unfair. We spent a small fortune in mobile phone bills calling otel.com, we lost a large portion of our holiday trying to resolve a problem they had caused, we were forced to book a new hotel at short notice meaning it was more expensive, our first night was at an inferior hotel (compared to where we had actually booked to stay) but we were still charged the nigher price. Is it not fair to compensate us for the stress, disappointment and cost incurred (debit interest, phone bills, breakfast at the new hotel- our initial booking was bread and breakfast) due to the incompetence and neglectful customer service provided by otel.com?

On top of that. adding insult to injury; we had paid for bed and breakfast at the original hotel (River Chateau) but we had to pay for breakfast both nights at the new hotel (Veneto Palace) as breakfast was not included in our booking.

It isn't purely monetary loss; we lost half a day making calls and sending emails and, also, having to move to a new hotel ruined our first night. In fact the whole fiasco pretty much put a downer on the whole trip (which was a birthday present for my girlfriend). It's impossible to put a monetary figure on two peoples emotional distress. I suggest a full refund would have been fair.

I had tried to resolve this with Otel.com directly. I thought common sense may have prevailed and they could have maybe used their buying power to book us a night or two in a nice hotel in the UK or perhaps given us a voucher towards our next booking as a gesture of good will, I would have probably been satisfied with that and wouldn't have felt the need to register on sites like this to warn people of otel.com's poor service. Instead they have refused to take any responsibility and fobbed us off, hence I have contacted my credit card provider and now seek full and fair compensation under section 75 of the consumer credit act; one of the many great things about the UK!