if any hotel staff tells you such RUBBISH, you should immediately email this to agoda.
the Hotel is 100% responsible which rooms are available at which time.
THEY are in full charge of the inventory and have to honour any booking made thorugh agoda website.
If they don't , call or email agoda immediately and the hotel will be in hot water.
I recommend to call the agoda CS-agent while you are still in the lobby at the reception desk and talk to them so that everyone of the front-desk-staff or even other guests can hear what you say. (for example you could tell the agoda-CS-agent " How can agoda work with Hotels that do not honour pre-paid reservations" or such) You will be surprised how this can do wonders ;-)

You have to understand that agoda only offers the PLATFORM for a hotel to sell the rooms.
the hotel is FULLY responsible for all prices, number of rooms and such. They have to do all the administration themselves (of course agoda provides them with a lot of sophisticated and automatised tools). If anyone tells you "it is agoda's fault", yell at him not to tell you bullshit as it is 100% the Hotel's "work" what can be found online.

Nowadays in Asia, no Hotel (except for China mainland where agoda is not very relevant) can afford to get kicked out of the agoda-system.
So if anything bad happens, immediately report to agoda. They will give the hotel a hard time if it did anything wrong or against the rules.
don't be shy ! contact the customer-service ( cs@agoda.com ) , but make sure before that the error is not on your side, to avoid embarassing situations ^^

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Added on September 14, 2012, 2:21 amthat is 100% NOT correct. all things are fully automatised. How do you think this would be possible, agoda is selling ten-thousands of rooms every day. they would have to employ hundred or more staff only to call the hotels after each bookings.

the hotel gets an email with the reservation details immediately after the booking is confirmed.

That Hotel-staff do not check mails frequently enough or sometimes maybe even ignore it, is another story.
or the front-desk-staff does not have access to the email account where the reservation arrives (for example if a hotel has a dedicated sales department, separate from the front-desk)

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Added on September 14, 2012, 2:27 amin such case, when it only shows 1 guest for the specific room rate, you have to click on "show more available rooms" on the bottom of the pricelist, then more prices will pop-up, most likely those for 2 occupants per room.
The reason is that the cheapest prices are always displayed on the top, so if the hotel offers a lower rate for just one guest (for example, when the breakfast is included), this cheaper rate for just one guest will show first.
I agree that this is not ideal and I wonder why agoda still not has changed this inconvenience.
I am sure that Thousands of users are not aware of that and made a mistake during the booking process

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Added on September 14, 2012, 2:29 amhotelscombined.com and wego.com should do the Job.

those are the best websites to compare many different booking-systems.

Plus you can already fill in the number of guests from the first moment of the search, so it will only display the rates for the correct number of occupants

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Added on September 14, 2012, 2:32 amusually, the hotel dictates the conditions if or under which a reservation can be cancelled.
If you book a loooooooong time ahead, it may make sense to use a booking system that does not immediately charge your card, or only 10% of the amount, such as asiawebdirect or booking.com or asiarooms.com

under these circumstances, it is less hassle when you have to cancel

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Added on September 14, 2012, 2:36 amno need to call, but if it gives you peace of mind as it is your first booking, you are free to do so.

the rule is, the more rooms a hotel has already sold via agoda, and the bigger a hotel is, the less problems you will have.
you can see that yourself when you check how many guest-reviews a hotel has received already.
if those are hundreds (some hotels in KL, Bangkok or Hong Kong even have Thousands), then you can be pretty sure that no problems regarding the booking will arise.

If it is a very small Hotel/Guesthouse or one that has not received many reviews (or is maybe completely NEW), then it makes sense to contact them and tell them about your booking. Just to be on the safe side.

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Added on September 14, 2012, 2:46 amIf the hotel does not honour your pre-paid reservation, they should get into serious trouble. Do never accept any "alternative" (and in most cases inferior) accomodation. stand on your ground and demand the room that you have reserved and already paid for.
tell them they are fully resonsible themselves, as they are the ones to administrate the room availability on the agoda-website. agoda does only provide the platform to sell the rooms.
In many cases, suddenly - surprise surprise - a proper room will become available after a few minutes or some discussion, or the front-office staff "checking the reservation again" in the back-office or "talking to the Manager about the matter".

If still no, call the AGODA Customer-Service while you are still at the front-desk, and say something like "why you allow Hotels to use your booking-systems which do not adhere to the rules or refuse to honour reservations that I have pre-paid for" or something like that. maybe other guests will notice the call as well and it can become somehow embarassing for the hotel ;-)

there is no GUARANTEE that this works, but it is definitely worth a try ;-)

If not successful, you should at least follow up so agoda will for sure have a serious talk with them later

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Added on September 14, 2012, 2:51 amthough agoda is virtually unknown anywhere in Europe. But agoda is part of NASDAQ-listed priceline-group nowadays, so no matter if you book via agoda.com , booking.com or priceline.com , in the end it is all the same compny ;-)

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Added on September 14, 2012, 2:54 amthe only problem is that there are near to ONE THOUSAND Phuket-Hotels listed now on agoda, so it may easily take a full day to browse them all and decide where to stay....

But maybe that is part of the fun

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Added on September 14, 2012, 3:01 amyes I agree, the website is very intuitive and easy to use. the maps are a big help too (though the location is not always correct - but that is the hotels fault then - report it to agoda customer-service), and the Hundred-Thousands of reviews from guests who actually STAYED there (not like tripadvisor where there are Ten-Thousands of fake-review, and the tougher the competition at a specific destination is, the more likely u will find plenty of fakereviews - the Philippines are most famous for fake reviews) give the agoda-website almost a community-feeling. No need to check tripadvisor when you are able to browse GENUINE reviews of actual guests, in most cases hundreds or even Thousands for just one Hotel on agoda.

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Added on September 14, 2012, 3:05 amOn the top of the website the following link should be found on the right side :


" New to Agoda? Register Now! "


Just click it and sign up

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Added on September 14, 2012, 3:11 amthough in China they are not very popular and almost no Chinese mainlander is using them for bookings in their own country.
The reason is that the Chinese are not used to "prepaid-bookings", that they can not easily cancel or amend later.

For China (but NOT Hong Kong or Macau) I strongly recommend ctrip or elong.
those are by far the two most important booking systems, and in most cases you will not even need a credit-card to confirm your booking !
So it is very easy to cancel or amend a booking in case you have to change your plans.
Plus both have a much bigger hotel-inventory than agoda, and customer-service-centers that are actually located in China, so they can easily communicate with the hotel in case changes must be made.
Never had any problems with both elong or ctrip, no matter if booking hotels or domestic flights (though their customer-service agents are usually not exactly friendly - but that's the way you would expect it from Mainland China, isn't it ? ^^ )

This post has been edited by Stuttgart: Sep 14 2012, 03:11 AM

This travel agent uses very attractive pricing, offers and employs a viral email marketing technique for its sales. Be careful of them however if you wish to cancel/change your booking. The most important thing to note is to be aware of the notice period. For example they may say "any cancellation received within 3 days prior to arrival will incur the first night's charge. This means if you booked to check in on the 20th, you must cancel latest by the 16th. This area often causes problems.

2 things that Agoda never tells you:

1. When you cancel, this is a charge of US$15
2. When you want to change your booking dates, the notice ruling also applies. So you often find that you will have to pay for than 2x if you change yr booking dates.

In other words, AVOID LIKE HELL BECAUSE THIS AGENCY WITH THEIR CAUSTIC CUSTOMER SERVICE THAI PROFESSIONALS WILL TAKE YOU TO HELL AND BACK IF YOU DEAL WITH THEM!

not sure how many times i would change my booking dates, but thanks for the heads up

Thanks for the heads up. I'll keep that in mind.

Erm... many other online travel booking sites have similar rules as well. Some rates are prepaid and can't be canceled. If you must, then your money is burn.

The bottom line is, always read the fine prints

Funny, I changed before my date.. No charges at all. Not sure this is a poison letter against them

You are trying to be funny.

If u read my advice, this depends on the terms and conditions at the time of booking. If you change within the "safe period" yr booking should attract no new charges. But if you change after the safe period, welcome to AGODA's trap. The issue is that they don't clarify this to you on their FAQ. Why? I thought the purpose of FAQs is for customer satisfaction? Why have FAQ when certain pertinent information is withheld and one only discovers it in the hard way?

This is not a poison letter. I have better things to do. It is to provide information to users, without prejudice, so that they are better informed.

You can be funny now.

I have booked through agoda for trip to Hong Kong, Shang hai, Bangkok, and Singapore as well. So far I'm quite satisfied.

Only thing to take note, always use tripadvisor to check the comments on the hotel before booking. Then you'll be fine.

The way you voiced it more like you are from their competitors

I recently booked with Agoda for my Japan trip next month.
As usual, they will charge in full straight away. When I was booking the rooms, I was given a choice for the same room - 1 with free cancellation but more expensive and the other 1 was much cheaper but clearly stated that it will charge US$15 if we cancelled. Due to the weather conditions, we decided to not go to certain parts of Japan and had to cancel the room. So had to pay the US$15.

But point is, I was clearly informed about it.

Its not trap or whatever. Its your responsibility to read all the term and condition when you do booking. You have to pay more if you want flexibility or you can get cheap by booking promotional rates. Even in official 5 star international hotel website, you can't change at all if you book advance purchase.

I'm out of here. Too many "supporters" if you know what I mean. Next time I'll keep it to myself

This post has been edited by faradie: Dec 10 2012, 12:08 AM

I'm like the others, just a user seeking the best deal. I find them OK even though you have to pay the full amount upfront. It's willing buyer - willing seller basis.
There are lots of booking sites and you can contact the hotels direct. Some don't even collect a deposit like the China hotels.

We are not really a supporter of agoda.. They are not perfect but you sounded like wanna "Kill" them off.. They also not the cheapest sometime and agreed that some of their terms are implied and the so called Sales tax & service charge can be very high. Well so do other booking webistes..none of them perfect.. really depending of personal preferences...If don't like agoda, we still got other websites to go for.. hotel.com, booking.com, asiarooms & more

Anyone with this experience before?

I have a booking made with Agoda for a twin-sharing room (2 pax) that comes with a free cancellation policy.

1- I would like to change the booking to a family room (3 pax). What is Agoda's way of handling this?

(a) Cancel the 1st booking and made a new one, or

(b) Request for change to a family room, and how will the rate be?

2- If I cancel and re-book, how will Agoda refund the payment for the first booking (paid using credit card).


Thanks

hey, thanks

Guys WTA let now i'm eyeing this 1 hotel in Singapore but not sure if will be visiting that area yet on saturday. My question is how likely will agoda increase their prices?? Would i still be able to get the current rate on Saturday or most like it will increase??? Bcs it has a no cancellation policy.

This post has been edited by JustcallmeLarry: Jul 8 2013, 05:32 PM

Did anyone experience this before with Agoda

Yesterday I saw my ideal room offer at Agoda.com

Today when I re-visit the page it says rooms on my selected date are not available/sold out

Why so fast... any chance for me to get that room again?

This post has been edited by panasonic88: Jul 9 2013, 05:04 PM

unlikely and if it run out it will be quite in sync with other websites as well

Try contacting the hotel directly. Agoda and other hotel/travel agencies usually have a few rooms allocated to them. Meaning the resort might still have vacancies available, even though agoda and other websites list them as sold out. Else, try other online hotel websites. There's expedia and asiarooms, amongst many others. Good luck.