AGODA - What is an "obvious error"? - Peninsula Tokyo
I've booked and paid a stay at the Peninsula Tokyo for this summer on Agoda.
The reservation is for two rooms, and this was all correctly displayed during booking. Each room cost about USD 350 per night. What I paid was USD 700 per night for both rooms. So far so good. Now Agoda contacted me and told me that they made a mistake and they had only charged me for one room. They give me two options: - either pay the same amount I've already paid before another time for a second room. (So one room is now USD700, two rooms USD1400/night) - or they will cancel my booking after 24h notice and they refund what I've paid. Not happy with either option. When I read the Agoda T&C, it looks like they want to invoke the clause: (...) In rare cases, we may also have to cancel or reject a booking or make adjustments due to “obvious errors”, independent of the origin of such errors. For clarity, an obvious error is a mistake on the Site (e.g. in terms of price, conditions, points) which a reasonable person would not consider to be normal. (...) In my view, this clause is not applicable, because what they seem to claim is that I only paid one instead of two rooms (which is technically not correct). This is the same as a 50% discount. It follows that a 50% hotel discount would not be considered as normal by a reasonable person. Now when I look at their website, today, for the same booking period that they want to cancel my reservation, I see on top of the page another 5 star hotel, and they offer it at 55% discount. My conclusion is that is that a 50% discount on a hotel room is something very normal in this industry. Opinions? |
Originally Posted by LoungeLizzard
(Post 29987699)
I've booked and paid a stay at the Peninsula Tokyo for this summer on Agoda.
The reservation is for two rooms, and this was all correctly displayed during booking. Each room cost about USD 350 per night. What I paid was USD 700 per night for both rooms. So far so good. Now Agoda contacted me and told me that they made a mistake and they had only charged me for one room. They give me two options: - either pay the same amount I've already paid before another time for a second room. (So one room is now USD700, two rooms USD1400/night) - or they will cancel my booking after 24h notice and they refund what I've paid. Not happy with either option. When I read the Agoda T&C, it looks like they want to invoke the clause: (...) In rare cases, we may also have to cancel or reject a booking or make adjustments due to “obvious errors”, independent of the origin of such errors. For clarity, an obvious error is a mistake on the Site (e.g. in terms of price, conditions, points) which a reasonable person would not consider to be normal. (...) In my view, this clause is not applicable, because what they seem to claim is that I only paid one instead of two rooms (which is technically not correct). This is the same as a 50% discount. It follows that a 50% hotel discount would not be considered as normal by a reasonable person. Now when I look at their website, today, for the same booking period that they want to cancel my reservation, I see on top of the page another 5 star hotel, and they offer it at 55% discount. My conclusion is that is that a 50% discount on a hotel room is something very normal in this industry. Opinions? |
Yes. That is exactly what happened and also exactly how I see it. It‘s a good rate, but not an obvious error. Agoda customer service started to move a bit in my direction when I kept on insisting that 350$ per room is not an obvious error compared to other discounts they offer. But we seem to be still far away from the point where they will honor my reservation. Let‘s see where it ends. The trouble is that many alternatives are in the meantime sold out for my dates, and I‘d prefer not to sleep under the bridge. |
All sorted
Reporting back:
All sorted now. The original reservation unfortunately got deleted by Agoda by mistake ("IT problem"), and it could not be re-instated anymore due to lack of availability. Before I had a chance to completely fall off my chair, Agoda made up for it in a reasonable way, so I'm fine and I would rate the customer service and recovery as good under these circumstances. The main learning is that based on this experience is that it's sometimes worth to read the terms and conditions. Based on their reaction, I trust Agoda to honour their rules - even if it apparently costs them a considerable amount of money out of their pocket. The fact that they first tried to collect the difference or cancel is probably industry standard by now, so I'm not mad at them for that. What counts for me is that the final solution is ok. |
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