Goibibo.com spoilt my holiday at Thekkady. I had made a reservation at Buemont Plantation Resort in Thekkady through Goibibo and I still have the hotel confirmation print-out with me. The resort was 15 kms uphill from Thekkady. When we reached there, we received a rude shock. The hotel manager said, they did not receive my details from goibibo and further, there were no rooms available. I immediately called up goibibo’s so called 24x7 Helpline number.
When I provided the booking id to the representative, the phone got disconnected( which I suspect was done deliberately because they realized the goof-up) . Subsequently, all my attempts to reach out to their helpline were in vain. My spouse kept calling from her cell-phone, I tried from my cellphone as well as the resort’s landline number. Each of these attempts to call up lasted at least 15 mins to 30 mins. Yet there was no response, only the music kept playing.
Not wanting to waste any more time on this stupid helpline, we went on with the next best thing we could do - run from pillar to post trying to find an alternate accommodation - this along with 2 small children, my spouse and my elderly mom. Fortunately, we found a place to stay after hours of running around. At around 6PM, I got a call from Goibibo( probably after doing some research on what excuse to give me).
The lady at the other end cooked up a story saying that they had been trying to reach me since last few days to tell me that the hotel accommodation I had booked is not available - this despite the fact that I continue to hold with me a printout taken from their website that says "Hotel Confirmation". Evidently, the excuse given by her was lame. I had neither received any email nor any phone call from them that she told me about. I have stored all SMS alerts I have received from them. I checked those alerts to see if I missed something. I found none that says that the confirmed booking is not available.
The last SMS I received is the one that came immediately on hotel booking that confirmed the reservation. So goibibo not only spoilt my vacation but also lied to me. The lady promised me that full amount would be returned to me, which I have received. But guess what.there are other material costs involved - interest on the period of time for which that money was stuck with them, the cost of travelling to and from the hotel which was considerable distance away from Thekkady, the cost of calling their helpline and waiting on them for hours, cost on the received call (roaming) and then there is the intangible cost a spoilt holiday, running around to find an accommodation meant we lost time that we intended to spend on site-seeing.
Obviously, I am not going to stop with the full refund that I have received. I’m going to drag them to consumer court and make them pay for the suffering I had to go through.