I had planned for a vacation to Kodaikanal with my friends. Since we knew nothing about the place we chose to book online and we saw that Travelguru offered cheapest price amongst all. We selected United-21 resort and completed filling the form, and when the payment page appeared I selected cash on delivery option as I was taught to be suspicious over money related issue. However, booking confirmation was sent to me so I was happy for that day. The downstream cascade of events baffled my mind and I was really pissed off at these people.
1) Next day after booking I got a call saying that we have to do payments and I saw the phone number but I never came to know which town they are calling from. A lady spoke to me softly saying that they are sending a person for the payment collection and kindly make the payment. I asked her back was it not cash on delivery? she suddenly changed her tone and asked what do mean by cash on delivery? You have to pay now and she cut the call.
2) I was suspicious and wanted to make straight enquiry to the resort we had booked so I searched for the official website of the hotel and saw nice rooms as shown on Travelguru website. But it also showed check for room availability and the page turned blank and nothing informative was displayed but on Travelguru it was showing that 2 rooms left it was absolutely nonsense. When I saw on the official page the contact number of the hotel in Kodaikanal was missing, but they had put up the number of Mahim branch. I thought I’ll collect the number from the main branch and called them, to my surprise it reached Travelguru. No wonder no one picked up so we called Travelguru customer care again no one picked there too.
3) Then on the third day, a local guy calls me and say that he is agent of Travelguru and want to collect the cash from me. I said I can’t pay you till I see the hotel since I had chosen cash on delivery. I also said what if you are a fake person, what if your payment slip is fake and I have no proof of the payment and I can’t search for you in this world again and he appreciated my doubt to be genuine. I said I will talk to my friends and make a decision and let you know after one day.
4) The surprising thing was that resort we booked was United-21, Travelguru is the agent and the money collector was another agent of Travelguru, I was shocked to hear this big chain of people involved in cheating customers. I can never trust this website, no matter how many good reviews, I see and actually I have seen all bad reviews of Travelguru.
5) Next day when I woke up I saw a message and a mail saying that my booking has been cancelled and if I want, I need to book again.That made my mood really bad and I called the number which they had provided to book again but it was not working. I was happy that I came out of one big chakravyuha and I will book a hotel directly by calling or by others who know the place or visited earlier, I do not mind losing few more rupees than losing everything and taking me for a ride.
This was my first experience with travel booking online and I will never again trust Travelguru and I will be suspicious of other websites too.