written by on 05/06/2011
I recently booked an apartment in Spain through laterooms.com. Upon arrival, at 11pm, we tried repeatedly to contact the phone number for the apartment owner that we had been given. There was no answer and no answer phone service. After several hours of wandering streets of a strange city with our suitcases, unable to contact the apartment, we eventually found another hotel at 2am and booked in
The following morning, i tried to complain to laterooms. After queing in their phone system for ages i eventually got through to someone who was going to investigate. I was put on hold for ages again, and eventually they cut me off altogether (supposedly by mistake). As the hotel we had stayed in were asking us to get our luggage out of the rooms if we wern't staying longer, and we still had nowhere to stay for the coming night, we decided to stay where we were and not to waste any more of our holiday on hold to laterooms.
When we got back, i complained further to laterooms only to be told, to my complete horror, that the apartment were charging us in full for our original reservation. This is because we hadn't shown up and not cancelled with more than 48 hours notice. After much arguing with very unhelpful laterooms staff, i spoke directly to the apartment owner in spain, who was unable to explain why she did not answer the phone, but agreed verbally to refund me as they had let us down. She also told me that laterooms had been putting her under pressure to not refund (presumably they don't want to refund their commission). Another week passed and no refund. I spoke to the owner again who now told me that laterooms had convinced her to not refund after all. I am now in a legal dispute to try and recover the money.
I'm not a natural complainer but feel i have to as this is the worst customer service i have ever experienced. If it wasn't actually happening, i wouldn't believe that service this bad was even possible. That laterooms would not try to protect me, their customer, when one of their hotels had clearly let me down (i have phone records to prove my multiple attempted contacts) is bad enough. But for them to actively pressure the hotel to withold my money, when they know full well that the only reason i didn't keep the reservation was because i could not contact the hotel, is tantamount to stealing (in my opinion).
If you use laterooms then just pray that nothing goes wrong. If it does they will not do a single thing to help you and possibly, like in my case, they will actively attempt to make things worse so they can keep their commission. They are simply the worst company i have ever had any dealings with and should be avoided on pain of death. Choose any other hotel booking agency instead - whoever they are, they've got to be an improvement on laterooms
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