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“Worst experience ever!”

written by PeytonCraig on 28/04/2015

The only reason this is getting even one star is because I technically have to give it some form of a rating to be posted. Never, ever again would I book a hotel through Travel Republic. My friend and I have been traveling throughout Europe and the UK for the past 2 weeks, London being at the end of our holiday. We spent quite a bit of time searching for a hotel that had a great location, price and all around good reviews. We finally found it through travel republic once we were told we were confirmed. We traveled over 200 miles finally arriving at our hotel to be told they didn't have our reservation. We thought hey, no problem, let's just call the company. Oh boy, that is when the trouble began.
The phone call started with "we tried to reach you yesterday (which according to our very well working phones and email they did not) to tell you that the booking was not placed(after we had already received verbal confirmation that it had been confirmed from the travel agent)". The credit card placed under the booking number had already been charged, which is absolutely absurd considering the hotel never even had availability. So now we are stuck on the phone with the travel agency for 40 minutes after getting nowhere they tell us they have another room at the hotel lobby we are sitting in but it is well over $150 pounds more. Again after asking the travel company to uphold their pricing we locked in 3 days prior, we get nowhere and just decide to book the room for the extra cost. They need my card again for the difference and charge my card immediately along with confirming the booking was done and that an email would be sent with our confirmation via email in 15-20 mins. 30 minutes later while still in the lobby of our supposed to be hotel(who were very gracious and understanding of our situation) we call back again and ask where the confirmation email is, only to find out that they had been calling other hotels for a room for us because once again the booking was a scam. The room was not available, it was never available according to the hotel in which we have now been in for over an hour. Finally the "booking manager" who we have asked countless times to speak with has now been transferred to us. She proceeds to tell us she has found another room in a different location but the same hotel chain for 294 pounds(wow that's amazing!) for our entire 3 night stay, we confirm with the the hotel that we are currently at and are told the 294 is per night, which now has put us out an additional 344 pounds with fees and breakfast(which we kept saying we didn't want/need but they wouldn't book it without tacking on our breakfast fees). I am embarrassed to say that it took us to this point to finally give us and say forget it. This whole fiasco was a complete nightmare. In total we spent 3 hours in the hotel lobby from beginning to end dealing with this awful and useless company, another 2 with having to find and then drive to an available near by hotel, an entire day(in which we had things previously planned out) was wasted from our holiday.
If they had just been upfront with us from the beginning and told us "I'm sorry, we'll reverse the charges, we can no longer honor what we originally sold your hotel to you for the prices we set" we would have most likely understood and gone quietly. I'm sure we obviously would have been upset but to lost an entire day of our trip due this companies lack of professionalism, customer service, communication and concern is horrifying and I hope no one else ever has to deal with something as awful as this. On that note, the credit card charges have still not been removed.
Also, I really hope this reaches trip advisor or any other sites, as we know "Yelp" is not a common or even a known form of social media reviews in Europe of the UK.