Well, victims of such an ordeal are Yatin Taneja and his parents. Yatin had booked a hotel room from Cleartrip.com for his parents’ Jodhpur visit, but little did they know how they are going to remember this trip for all the wrong reasons.
Here is a first person account from Yatin:
On 27th November, my parents had planned to start from Jaipur and after visiting Pushkar and Ajmer on the way, they were scheduled to reach Jodhpur by the evening. Thus, I logged into some hotel booking websites, and through Cleartrip.com booked a hotel room for the night of 27th November. I read the reviews of this hotel at various portals and forums before going ahead with it. This booking was completed at 8:13 am. As per cleartrip, the hotel was among the top 4% hotels in Jodhpur and the top 10% hotels booked on their website.
At 1:20 pm while I was at work I got a call from cleartrip.com to tell me that the hotel room I had booked was already sold out, and was wrongly displayed for the availability.
He offered me another hotel at the same cost and benefits. I requested him to call me back at 1.45 since I had a meeting scheduled at 1.30pm. In the meanwhile I quickly went to my desk and checked the original rates of the new option and myself called up their customer care to confirm the change.
I went with whatever they offered me as I had no other option than trusting Cleartrip.com, my parents had already started their journey and I was stuck at work in a brainstorming session with no laptop or mobile.
I also demanded the voucher details to be texted to our cell numbers, but never got that. Even the email voucher didn't come automatically in the morning; it just came after the change of hotel.
At 7:06pm, while I just parked my car at home, I got a call from my mother and she was sounding very upset and low. She told me that the replacement hotel was in middle of a minority community area, and it took them 45 minutes to navigate through the narrowest lanes to reach the place. The problem was that the fragrance of non-veg food being cooked was very suffocating. On top of this, the hotel management was unaware of the booking. I spoke to my father as well and he told me that we have been cheated by the online booking company, as the hotel has been opened in a house with few rooms converted for guests. He further said that they were anyways planning to find other option on their own as a lot of embarrassment had been caused already. I didn't have any answer for them.
Then I called up one of my friends in Rajasthan and he told me that he'll arrange something. Meanwhile, I also called up Cleartrip.com (at 7:13pm) and the executive shamelessly told me that since the system is down, I need to call back after an hour. When I told him that this is not acceptable, especially when the exact duration of their system downtime was not available (I would have preferred to hear 8:00pm or 8:30pm, rather than a vague one hour), and also that my parents were very tired and disappointed with the recent turn of events.
I demanded to speak to supervisor who also very conveniently told me the same thing. I gave him the hotel's contact number and asked him to talk to the hotel guys. He kept my phone on hold and probably did call the hotel in the background, and after some time told me that the hotel will now accommodate the guests. This was not very convincing as without their system being up, how can a hotel accept a booking based on a phone call. Also, my parents had already left the place after having had their share of humiliation.
When the supervisor came to know about in what circumstances my parents had left, he just said that since the guests have left, he won't do anything. He didn't even offer to talk to my father directly and explain him the problem and any arrangement that he could offer. I asked him to connect me to his manager, and he blankly told me that the manager's shift got over at 7:00 pm (it was 7:24pm already) and he won't connect to him. So this guy was actually asking to let my parents wait outside in cold for another hour, but won't call his manager who completed his shift just 25 minutes back!
Since I had already initiated an alternate stay arrangement, I just asked for the refund for which the supervisor didn't agree. He did mention that there is a mistake, but didn't want to admit the source of it.
After this I called up my father who had already hopped to 2 more hotels by then and was struggling to find a decent place in a strange city for my mother and him. I connected him to my friend's contact and assured him about the new hotel arrangement that was being done by the friend. Since they had a dedicated vehicle for the entire trip, it was still easy for them to move around the city. The new place was nearby and fortunately my parents liked it. Since we were out of Cleartrip's trap altogether, my parents decided to move on.
BIG QUESTIONS:
1. How credible is the point system that such websites like Cleartip.com use to rate the hotels?
2. Shouldn't there be a regulating authority in place that keeps a check on such websites, saving consumers from being vulnerable to cheating and harassment.
3. In wake of what happened with Yatin’s family, how sensible it is to go to an unknown place trusting the judgment of a website that seems to be least bothered after the booking has been confirmed?
4. After Yatin contacted Stuart Crighton, the founder and CEO of Cleartrip.com, the later apologized for the terrible experience. But is an apology and refunding money with a minor monetary compensation enough?
Let's see the results with the consumers after getting reported in the media and demanding the justice with the government and law.
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