dogcanyon

Recently booked a property on Booking.com that listed the following services and amenities: 24 Hour Front Desk, Room Service, Laundry (Additional Charge), Dry Cleaning, Tea/Coffee Maker In All Rooms, Beach Front. Sounds like a full service hotel that is beachfront, right? Upon arrival,found out that it consists of 4 rooms managed remotely by a woman with a cell phone and is nowhere near a beach. No employees on-site, no Front Desk at all (let alone a 24 hour one), no Room Service (with no phones in the rooms and no employees on-site how could it possibly claim to offer Room Service), no Laundry or Dry Cleaning services offered, no Coffee/Tea Makers in the rooms. After emailing Booking.com about this 5 times, finally received the following response from a supervisor: "Please note that, according to our terms and conditions, the property is the sole responsible for all the information published on our website, as they are the ones to set it.". So, evidently a property can publish anything they want on the web site and Booking.com refuses to get involved when it's not true. Buyer beware.

MSPeconomist

Romelle

I hope you will review the place on booking.com and maybe save the next person. Also, if you post the hotel name and specifics here, you could save the next FlyerTalk member.

Did the place have any reviews when you booked?

I've encountered some quirky places using booking.com, but not blatant misstatements.

dogcanyon

Unlikely it will save any future FlyerTalker from staying there since it's on Easter Island, but the name is Hostal and Cabanas Manatea. Before anybody slams me because it has the word 'Hostal" in the name, in Spain and Latin America a hostal is a lower-priced hotel and does not equate at all to what we call in English a hostel (super cheap dormitory style beds with shared bathrooms, designed for student backpackers). Yes, inexplicably, this place had a 9.0 rating at the time I booked (makes me wonder where these people had stayed previously that made them feel this place was worthy of a 9.0 rating) and none of the reviews mentioned the discrepancy between the listed facilities/amenities and reality. I did leave a review on Booking,com. They have since removed the Beach Front icon but the other parts are still there. The most frustrating part to me is that Booking.com refuses to make them correct the profile, so it makes me wonder how many other establishments on Booking.com are getting away with doing the same.

Romelle

You might have done more good for FlyerTalkers than you realize. I just searched this site for "Easter Island" and got 994 hits (including your thread). Last I looked, FlyerTalk membership was over a 1/2 million.

There is a certain amount of chicanery around reviews. I've read of disgruntled fired employees systematically slamming places. And also of establishments flooding their sites with fake friendly reviews. But FlyerTalk has a certain "family" aspect, and one can check posts here against the poster's other items.

I looked on Trip Advisor and, oddly enough, it is not there although it may have been. The name showed up as I filled out the search filter, but it currently didn't have a listing.

Edit - I missed it on Trip Advisor. It is there. 4.5* out of 5.0*. Up to you if you want to spend the time taking another swing at the place.

In any case, you took a decent swing at the situation.