Otel.com
Reviews and Complaints

I booked what I thought at the time was a hotel, 1 room, 2 people for 2 nights at the 5 star hotel pruebas in Madrid for the 21 and 22nd may 2010, 2-3 weeks before we left.

Two days before we leave i have a answer phone message that is very hard to understand, so I check my e-mail, in which it says i booked a test hotel, this is a test hotel.

I'm obviously confused by what this is, so i call up their UK call centre, which isn't in the UK, the person who left me the answer phone message was based in Istanbul, the people i was talking to where most probably based in India.

It took them a while to understand what had happened as well, they couldn't find this place, so in fact it didn't exist, they had a note with the booking saying to give a refund.

This is obviously expected, but I’m now left in a pickle we leave in less than 2 days and we have no accommodation on the Friday and Saturday night in Madrid, which happens to be champion’s league final weekend, so very limited availability now and quadruple the price.

So I try to get them to get me an alternative the call centre people cannot understand my demands that I’m not paying more than before as this is their error and i will even take the 2 star they have left as we just need accommodation, so they obviously don't have this authority.

So i have to make a query on their website, it gets answered the next day, so 1 day before we leave, saying i am sorry for what has happened it won't happen again and just explaining that it was a 'test' but customers shouldn't be able to see it, saying i won't have a confirmation, which I do by e-mail, and that there were no rates, which there obviously were, £46 per person per night as that’s why they are refunding me, which at first said it would be immediate, now say it will be 7-10 days, so all my money is in Euros as spending money now, so i have no money to book anywhere else even if there were still places available. So i say this is your error instead of just telling me what has happened you should be fixing it, you either offer me the 2 star hotel at the same price, give me compensation for having to book another place at quadruple the price or i will report you.

In which they reply again saying I have explained to you that this was a test hotel, it didn't exist, I am sorry we couldn't satisfy you.

So they are technically breaking the law by selling me something that doesn't exist, but at the moment all I care about is getting the accommodation for them 2 nights, but they have made up there mind that they are not going to do anything about it.

In their minds they cannot understand how this is their catastrophic error and how they should be trying to fix it.

At the time of booking this hotel came up, called hotel pruebas, which afterwards i translated the word pruebas which means test, but only a Spanish person would realise that and they say it won't happen again but there is one in English on the sight which says 'this is a test hotel do not book' which is quite more obvious and so is the price at £13 but it still lets you book it, so they haven’t fixed it.

The hotel i booked had everything any of the other real hotels had on their page, description, pictures, room types, availability etc.

It even had a location on the map in Madrid, a couple of streets from the Madrid centre, so it couldn't have looked more real, it is even listed on another website (e-dreams) and i have a link to it on my facebook page which shows the pictures and write up.

The key fact that makes them more in he wrong is that they take 2 weeks to notify me about this 'test' hotel, 2 days before we go and won't refund me until we are back, any sooner then we could have booked somewhere else used the refund money or our spending money and the other hotel prices wouldn't be through the roof and the availability would be much greater.

As it stands we leave in 24 hours cannot cancel the flight now, nor our other accommodation and where we will stay on the Friday and Saturday night is a mystery.

This is a sham of a company and I cannot believe how they do nothing to rectify their mistake.

Thank You for your help

Mr K Payne

I booked a hotel with otel.com last October from an internet cafe and received an email confirming my booking. The hotel was advertised as being 5k from Bergamo (Italy), the taxi driver told me it would cost 1 euro per km so when 25 minutes and a 25 euro bill later I asked why the journey took so long he said that the information I'd been given was inaccurate (this is backed up by AA autoroute). On arrival at the hotel, they did not have my booking and the number I gave them meant nothing, they allowed me to log on to the internet and I found to my horror that my booking had been cancelled.

I ended up having to negotiate a room with the hotel which cost 20 euro more than the price I'd paid on otel.com (though seems they did not charge my card) and forked out a total of 50euro in taxi fares for a hotel which was supposed to be 5km from bergamo and 6km to the airport (both clearly inaccurate).

I have been communicating with various non english speaking customer service personnel (apparently from their turkey office) and in nearly 6 months have got nowhere fast.

They insist the distance to the hotel is correct and seem to ignore my documentary evidence to the contrary.

They say they tried to contact me by phone and because I did not reply they cancelled my booking - I never received a call nor a missed call nor an answermachine message.

They tried to say maybe I'd given an invalid tel number but they contradicted this by stating my "correct" tel number on one of my emails.

They said the person that dealt with me had left the company

They said they would raise the complaint with the hotel - though clearly it was not the hotel's fault.

They insist that they tried to contact me - yet the only contact I had was an email (when I arrived at the hotel) to say they had cancelled it.

Basically they are saying that because they never confirmed my booking and did not charge my card that they cannot help me with my complaint.

I have asked for escalation but I've been told that it is Caroline (born in UK) but now based in Turkey is the highest port of call. She is simply not responding to my questions but is now saying that she cannot help me as it is more than 5 months since the event.

I have kept all the emails and am considering going to trading standards, I have received appalling customer services and they simply are not interested in my complaints and continue to avoid the issues and fob me off.

I'm severely angry and frustrated because of their general attitude and I just don't know what I can do to resolve this matter.

If anyone can offer advice please let me know...