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News Forum - British tourist left high and dry as hotel vanishes on Koh Samui

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An idyllic Thai getaway turned into a financial nightmare for a 30 year old British tourist when he landed on Koh Samui only to discover his booked hotel was nowhere to be found. Glen Parke had his holiday dreams turn into a financial quagmire when he shelled out £282 (approximately 13,000 baht) for a 59-night … …

The story British tourist left high and dry as hotel vanishes on Koh Samui as seen on Thaiger News.

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ChrisS Mentor

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Does not show Booking.com in a very favourable light. Not surprised though in my time as a manager of hotels in the UK Booking.com guests were often mis sold rooms and then blaming the hotel to their guests.

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rattlesnake Proficient

rattlesnake

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59 nights in a "one-bedroom house" for 13,000 THB is a red flag in itself, but he's probably not familiar with Thai prices.

Agoda is better than Booking IME.

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Vigo Grand Master

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3 hours ago, rattlesnake said:

59 nights in a "one-bedroom house" for 13,000 THB is a red flag in itself, but he's probably not familiar with Thai prices.

Agoda is better than Booking IME.

They have the same platform.It's just different branding, much like Unilever sells the same soap under different brand names. Booking.com, Agoda, Priceline, Kayak have the same owner. Agoda  used to focus on Asia and Booking.com on Europe. Not anymore. The pricing can be different because they offer different packages like breakfast or internet included or different rooms, or refunable payments.

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BlueSphinx Grand Master

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1 hour ago, Vigo said:

They have the same platform.It's just different branding, much like Unilever sells the same soap under different brand names. Booking.com, Agoda, Priceline, Kayak have the same owner. Agoda  used to focus on Asia and Booking.com on Europe. Not anymore. The pricing can be different because they offer different packages like breakfast or internet included or different rooms, or refunable payments.

Also if a Hotel of your liking is 'not available' for the period you like to stay on Booking (or one of the other booking sites), it is worth checking at the other sites.  It looks that those sites have a limited number of rooms which they can sell per Hotel.  

Best is of course to go to the website of the Hotel.  Not only do they sometimes have promotions there which are not on the Booking-site, but then you will be sure whether indeed there is no room available for the period of your liking.  Note that that is probably the reason that the booking-sites often do not provide the website of the Hotel, so you would have to do a Google-search to find it. 

Anyway the above is my experience when I was confronted with a 'not available anymore' for my favorite Bangkok-hotel.  I also once had the experience that when not having made a booking, that hotel-reception told me to book via Agoda as that would be cheaper than the price they could offer me at the counter.

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yselmike Community Regular

yselmike

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I've been looking on booking.com for a place in Pattaya, January 3 to Feb 2.Two people have complained about the hotel they booked did not exist.i looked at one and I know that the place they claimed their hotel was is a building site.Some of the prices are silly,€350 for 30 nights in a condo with all the bells and whistles.If it seems too good to be true .,...you know the rest. Booking com seems to give me the best deals price wise,better than kayak and Agoda even though the are all the same company.They say I get a discount for being at genius level 2

I can't book with Airbnb untill I renew my passport when I visit the UK in a couple of weeks.At the moment it looks like its going to cost at the minimum €1000-1500 for a month in a reasonable place.

 

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rattlesnake Proficient

rattlesnake

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7 hours ago, Vigo said:

They have the same platform.It's just different branding, much like Unilever sells the same soap under different brand names. Booking.com, Agoda, Priceline, Kayak have the same owner. Agoda  used to focus on Asia and Booking.com on Europe. Not anymore. The pricing can be different because they offer different packages like breakfast or internet included or different rooms, or refunable payments.

Okay, good to know, thanks.

All the bad hotel experiences I have heard over the years were on Booking, so I'm thinking there must be some middle management differences.

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Grumpish Grand Master

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11 hours ago, Vigo said:

They have the same platform.It's just different branding, much like Unilever sells the same soap under different brand names. Booking.com, Agoda, Priceline, Kayak have the same owner. Agoda  used to focus on Asia and Booking.com on Europe. Not anymore. The pricing can be different because they offer different packages like breakfast or internet included or different rooms, or refunable payments.

That I didn't know. I have never used booking.com, but have used Agoda quite a few times without any problems - often as not I just use it to see what is out there and then go the hotel website. Expedia is my pet hate, I have had a lot of issues with them.

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