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Don't book hotels directly through Kayak.com -- they don't guarantee the reservations!
I found a great hotel deal in Paris (France) for my honeymoon through Kayak. I booked my reservation directly through them (and paid upfront for the hotel).
Turns out it is scam. I had a friend in Paris call the hotel to confirm the reservation. They refuse to honor the reservation, as they don't work with Kayak.
I've now spent three days on the phone with Kayak. First, all of their contact numbers transfer you to customer service in India. They will not let you talk directly to anyone that speaks clear english in the States.
At first, they wanted to book me into nearby hotels which were literally three times as expensive ... and they wanted me to pay the difference.
Next, they started promising to book me into another hotel, put me on hold and then the phone disconnects. Or they never pick up the phone again.
They refuse to refund my reservation, as there is a 100% cancellation charge.
After three days, I have spent over 10 hours on the phone (and on hold) with them.
Absolutely horrible experience.
My honeymoon is in two weeks and now I'm stuck trying to find a place to stay ... and the rates are ridiculous because it is so close.
Do NOT use Kayak to directly book a hotel. They do NOT guarantee the reservation and they refuse to refund my money. (I'm working with my bank to dispute the charge on my credit card.)
I had a glitch with my reservation. When I called customer service to try to resolve it, my call was routed to San Salvador. My call was escalated to the San Salvador call center manager, Lori. She was rude and extremely unprofessional. When I asked for her manager's name, she told me that she is the highest level that I was going to reach- there was no one above her. Very frustrated and almost in tears, I called the Kayak help # back. This time, I was routed to Manila. Long story short, I am out $132.60.
I feel like I have been robbed and no one at Kayak cares. Trying to get someone at the corporate office is almost impossible. I also posted this same review on the Kayak Facebook site- Kayak took my post off their Facebook page. It is obvious that Kayak is not interested in resolving any issues regarding their bookings. I am deleting my IPhone App. Sorry Kayak- it is just bad business.
kayak is not doing a fair comparison tool at all. I get to reach much better and cheaper merchants thru hotelscombined.com. It is a great comparison site with many merchants and real rate comparison...
Even though the site may say that hotel reservations can be canceled without penalty, they will do everything they can to hold onto your money. Two phone calls and a lot of waiting later, I am still trying to get them to do the right thing. This is what happened: I got the beachfront room I wanted, but not with the beds I wanted (only clarified on making the reservation). Called the hotel to switch--they said to cancel the first reservation with kayak and they changed the room. Now Kayak is saying that the hotel has to waive fees to make a refund available!
Stole money from me. please stay away.
Care to elaborate?
Booked a hotel with Kayak based on their ads. Very disappointed as to how they represent their site as searching for the best rates. Assume thet the good reviews are employees and relatives based on my experience. The room booked through Kayak $186.67 at the hotel $140.00 Room Tax on Kayak $20.77 at the hotel $16.65 ----- $50.79 to use Kayak to book a room the website is not what they say they are, stay away. Book it yourself or at least from a site that does what they say.
Horrible! I will never use this "Search" engine again. The android application was buggy and booked me through "getaroom.com" horrible as well, bottom feeders. Wrong day, wrong month. called and was told too bad. Kayak allows these scamming third parties to be listed through their site, they know they are bad but continue to list them. Do not trust kayak or any of the "search" results. go through the hotel, airline, call directly. use them as a "search only" never book through them.
I made a reservation which I though was thru bestwester but was kayak. I tried to cancel the next morning., three days before the day i wanted to stay. The motel could not cancel and I could not find a telephone number for kayak. They have to be one of the bigest ripoff artist in the country. Do not do any buisness with the. Iam turning them into our bbb for their crooked practices.
Do *not* book your flight without delay on Kayak.com. Their site is misleading and says that your flight will be managed by Travelocity, however in booking it on Kayak and not directly on Travelocity.com, you are not afforded any of the benefits of a Travelocity purchaser (namely, you cannot benefit from charge or service guarantees).
Shift to the travel agency location and book without delay. DO NOT BOOK ON KAYAK.COM!
(And also, their client service is yet to reply to my complaint.) theholidayhotels.com seemed a lot improved to me.
I was a big fan of Kayak, but I want to warn everyone about a recent experience that has changed my mind. Our family lost $1000 in savings because of a Kayak alert failure.
I set up a daily alert for specific outbound and return dates. The alerts only last for 10 days at a time (highly inconvenient if you plan trips any reasonable time in advance, such as searching for a flight a month or more ahead of time - e.g. Xmas, three months in our case). I had it running (with resets) for about six weeks and saw only minor fluctuations in price. However, with my most recently reset alert, it failed to come after the seventh day (the email on the seventh one said it will expire in "three more messages" = 3 more days). It resumed again on the 10th day (last day of that cycle).
When I went to reset the alert, I did a check on Kayak's "chart" to see past price fluctuations and noticed that there was a $300+ dip very recently. After reviewing all my alerts, it became obvious that it occurred during the time frame of the missing alerts (represents over a $1000 missed savings for our family). Also, that alert on the 10th day and all subsequent email alerts from the reset now have a new format (i.e. look and feel).
Like most people, I'm pretty busy these days so did not specifically notice that the emails were missing as they hit my general email along with hundreds of others on a daily basis. I usually just give them a quick look as they come in. What's the point of having an alert if I cannot rely on it, but instead need to specially monitor if it will come and then do a manual search myself if it doesn't? It seems likely, if not evident that Kayak were sloppy and screwed up in its transition to the new format, but fat chance getting them to admit so, nor, if they do, getting any meaningful consideration for it, given their terms of service. (I have contacted them and they are "looking into it" - my paraphrase).
So now I am signed up with five other services (not just one any more)...you can bet that my next booking will be on those ones - I may still use Kayak just to search a route and validate prices, but that's about it.