As Agoda increases in popularity with people traveling around Asia and particularly in Thailand, it has come under closer scrutiny from travelers. After writing about the review of Agoda done recently over at ReserveThaiHotels.net, I have been looking into their cancellation policy and have come across a lot of posts in forums and such, on the subject.
I also became interested in this topic just this week as I was planning my year-end vacation. I have Royal Orchid Plus miles in my Thai Air frequent flyer account that are expiring at the end of the year (why do they do that? so annoying).
We decided to go to Ko Samui and started looking at hotels on Agoda. I was just about to book our first night of accommodation when I checked the cancellation policy of the hotel. It stated that the reservation was non-refundable and could not be canceled. Since we hadn’t secured the flights yet I decided to do that first, and I’m glad that we did.
Thai Air only has two flights a day to Samui and there were no award seats available to Samui for a week either side of the dates we wanted to travel. If I had booked the hotel first I would have had to either pony up 300 dollars for the flight to Samui and let 17000 miles expire on December 31st, or cancel the hotel reservation on forfeit the money I paid for the reservation.
We ended up choosing to go to Phuket, which had plenty of award seats since they have numerous flights a day to Phuket.
The point of this little story is, that most of the people that you find complaining online that “agoda is a scam”, “Agoda’s cancellation policy sucks” and “I got burned by Agoda, will never use again”, could have easily saved themselves the stress and trouble, not to mention the money if they had just taken the time to read the cancellation policy of the hotel at the time of booking.
The cancellation policy is examined closely at Agoda’s cancellation policy examined over at the Thai Hotels Blog, ReserveThaiHotels.Net
If you are going to book through a discount reservation site at the lowest rate possible, you should expect a little inflexibility. So much aggravation can be avoided if you just follow what seems like common sense:
- Read the cancellation policy of each hotel before you book it.
- If the hotel cancellation policy is restrictive and doesn’t allow for changes or refunds, DON’T book until your travel plans are final.
- If you think that you may need to change your plans but really need or want to book anyway (perhaps to secure a room in peak season) choose a hotel whose cancellation policy will accommodate changes and not be so restrictive.
There is no point complaining about a policy that is clearly stated and which you agreed to (whether or not you took the time to read it) when you made the booking.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Yeah its no surprise that 3rd party booking companies do not allow cancellations as they have to lock in their booking right away (or may have already done so as consolidators). However, I often find sites like Agoda do not offer any significantly better price than the original hotel itself so I typically check the price on the main site before confirming any booking on the discount site. Original hotel sites generally do let you cancel/alter reservations which is something very important if you book significantly in advance. The only real advantage of discount booking sites I find is the ability to consider several locations at once – and that doesn’t cost anything.
I just want to warn you about Agoda.
I booked a hotel room in Singapore through Agoda just recently. But, a minute after booking, I found a better deal with a different site so we asked Agoda to cancel our booking with them. But, in doing so, I asked Agoda to first inform me of whether there would be any cancellation charges applied because if the cancellation fees were to be a lot, I though I would just stick to the booking with Agoda.
A minute later, I received a cancellation notice by email stating that my booking has been cancelled and the total amount minus the cancellation fee will be refunded to my credit card within 10 days. Based on this, I though my booking was successfully cancelled, and my payment would be reversed within 10 days. So, I went ahead and booked another hotel room through another site.
After coming back from Singapore, I notice that there had not been any reserve payment made to my credit card yet even though 10 days had already gone by that time. So I contacted Agoda about it. Now, they told me that it was no-refundable reservation, and they consider this a no-show. Agoda’s explanation was that it was stated so when I booked it.
This is ridiculous. I just wonder why they send me a cancellation notification saying noting about non-refundable part and telling me about the reverse payment within 10 days, and why they did not inform me about this when I asked them about cancellation fees. Or, they could have just indicated this on the cancellation notice that it was non-refundable instead and would be considered no-show. Only if had known about this, I would not have booked another hotel and stayed at the hotel I initially booked with Agoda since it was non-refundable anyway.
This is unethical practice. Why should they assume that someone would want to throw away US$500, just like that? Even if they could accuse me for not reading the booking conditions carefully, it is their responsibility to tell the customer that booking was non-refundable before cancellation request was processed or to state that in the cancellation notice clearly. I do not think anyone would agree with this kind of fraudulent practice. This is a scam.
This kind of unethical practice destroys someone’s heard earned vacation.
Agoda is the worst on-line booking site around. I had to change a reservation, within minutes, canceled (received a statement that my credit card would be refunded in 10 days) and rebooked with them. They charged me for both reservations.
I do NOT recommend Agoda, unless you are the type like “James” who reads small print and gets a kick out of feeling superior when others get ripped off.