Grrrrrr. I’ve had a bad afternoon.
The wife and I are going to the Champagne region in France for a few days in early June, and I still had to book a hotel. After all the usual websites (Expedia, Hotels.com, Kayak, etc) hadn’t given me any good results, I just googled “hotel deals in Reims” or something, and found a website called www.francehotelreservation.com, which gave me a nice selection of hotels. I found a nice three star one I liked, checked the availability, and wahey! They had a room for about EUR 79 a night. Fair enough, whip out the credit card, clickety click.
Five minutes later, the “confirmation” e-mail came in. I’ll abbreviate the e-mail convos as I have not the energy right now.
Planigo.com: “Hi, you booked through francehotelreservation.com, which is ours. Thanks for your confidence. Your hotel is unfortunately full. We will find you comparable accomodation within 24 hours.”
Me (smelling a rat): “Errr, no. Your website said the hotel had availability. This was 5 minutes ago. Your methods don’t inspire confidence. Cease any bookings on my behalf, and don’t you dare charge my CC.”
Planigo.com: “Hi! You’ll be happy to know we found you a comparable hotel! It’s a two star, at EUR 89 a night!”
Me: “I SAID NO BOOKINGS, COCK GOBBLERS. I REFUSE THIS RESERVATION. DO NOT CHARGE MY CC OR ELSE.”
Planigo.com: “Hi! Your reservation at Hotel de la Merde has been made. Should you wish to cancel, our usual cancellation policy applies.”
Of course, I hadn’t read that entire 20 pager I OK’d when I clicked “Confirm”. :rolleyes:
Sure enough, there it was: any cancellation resulted in a fine worth 15% of the original booking amount. All right, that only amounts to about EUR 25, but I’ll be damned if I let these cunts take my money, right?
I called the hotel itself. The one Planigo.com said was fully booked, yeah?
“Oh no monsieur, no problem, plenty of rooms available! Also, we have not been contacted today by Planigo…”
If I had any doubts left about this being a scam, they had been evaporated now. I’d been had, dammit.
All right, one last e-mail to the offenders:
Me: “LISTEN UP, YOU SHIT LICKERS. THE HOTEL WASN’T FULLY BOOKED. YOU LIED. DON’T CHARGE MY CARD OR I’LL GO MEDIEVAL ON YOUR ASS.”
Silence on the other end, for a good two hours.
So, I got on the phone with MasterCard. They’d already charged my card for EUR 1, surely just to see if it wouldn’t bounce. The helpdesk guy was sympathetic to my plight, and issued a new CC free of charge, immediately blocking my current one. As a result, I can’t use my CC for a week, but that’s better than letting these thieving bastards take any more of my money.
Further Google searches revealed pages and pages of similar complaints. That’ll teach me to be careless about an online company I don’t know already. But what unbelievable SHITS. Turns out they’re French, but operate out of a PO Box in Monaco, for some reason under Swiss law, with a helpdesk in Romania. Yeah.
(All right, I made the e-mails a tad more colourful, but fun would a polite exchange have been. In a fucking pit thread.)
So, in short: avoid Planigo.com and its affiliates like the fucking plague, for they suck major ass.
Thanks for letting me vent.