Where do I stand - cancelling a booking

rossk26 said:
Yeh I suspect anyway they can possibly get out of it they will! But it's worth a shot...

Still pleased to have sucesfully been granted a refund for the price difference. Thanks for all of your help with this. I think this line won it during the phone call for me
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Glad I could help :) Feel a bit useless on this forum at times cause I am not a computer geek or anything, so its been nice to put my skills into good use for once :p

Its a good line to use when you are 100% sure in what you are saying is true. It also helps the agent on the other end of the phone. They dont want to deal with a ****** off customer - they dont get paid enough too - so giving them the option to pass the call on to someone higher up is a gift from god sometimes :D
 
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tom_e said:
If you go running straight to the CC company the first thing they'll ask is have you tried talking to the retailer.
They don't want to go around snatching payments back without you at least trying to sort it first.
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Which I understood he'd already done...
 
Top tip: Use Hotels.com in future. I tend to find the price on all of these sites is often within a few pence of each other, but Hotels.com offer both 10%+ Quidco cashback *and* the Welcome Rewards programme. You get 1 night free for every 10 you buy, at the average cost of the 10 nights. Effectively another 10% off.

It's pretty much the only place I use now - have 2 free nights waiting for me despite always booking at the lowest price around *and* getting 10% of that back through Quidco.

Enjoy Vienna and Budapest, though - both awesome places. Not sure I'd have picked July though, I went end of August last year and it was touching 40c in Budapest! I dont think my cars AC has ever worked so hard in its life :p
 
[TW]Fox;23848869 said:
Top tip: Use Hotels.com in future. I tend to find the price on all of these sites is often within a few pence of each other, but Hotels.com offer both 10%+ Quidco cashback *and* the Welcome Rewards programme. You get 1 night free for every 10 you buy, at the average cost of the 10 nights. Effectively another 10% off.

It's pretty much the only place I use now - have 2 free nights waiting for me despite always booking at the lowest price around *and* getting 10% of that back through Quidco.

Enjoy Vienna and Budapest, though - both awesome places. Not sure I'd have picked July though, I went end of August last year and it was touching 40c in Budapest! I dont think my cars AC has ever worked so hard in its life :p
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The only downside with Hotels.com is you pay when you book. It's my preferred choice as well though. Welcome rewards + cash back leads to some really great deals.
 
MickeyFinns said:
The only downside with Hotels.com is you pay when you book. It's my preferred choice as well though. Welcome rewards + cash back leads to some really great deals.
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Not really sure why thats a downside? But yes, most of the good deals are immediate payment.

Had some fantastic deals through them - Courtyard Marriot in Prague for £34 a night AND 10% Quidco AND Welcome Rewards and Dublin Hilton including Breakfast for £60 a night over New Year, again with 10% Quidco on top and WelcomeRewards being the two most recent that spring to mind.

Many of the raw prices are replicatable elsewhere but the additional 20% you get through Quidco and WR make them usually unbeatable.
 
I have booked the other hotels for the trip through Hotels.com, but for some reason at the time of the booking hotels.com was higher price than booking.com for Vienna and Budapest.

I also got my 10% cashback through Quidco. I'm going to Prague as well as Vienna and Budapest. I'm looking forward to 40c heat! The other half was asking me the other day if we should pack warm clothing, I blanked her and told her to examine a globe...
 
[TW]Fox;23849066 said:
Not really sure why thats a downside? But yes, most of the good deals are immediate payment.

Had some fantastic deals through them - Courtyard Marriot in Prague for £34 a night AND 10% Quidco AND Welcome Rewards and Dublin Hilton including Breakfast for £60 a night over New Year, again with 10% Quidco on top and WelcomeRewards being the two most recent that spring to mind.

Many of the raw prices are replicatable elsewhere but the additional 20% you get through Quidco and WR make them usually unbeatable.
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I'm also staying at the Courtyard Marriot in Prague, but only for 1 night as we fly earlyish on the day from the airport. Think I paid £62 which included breakfast (+10% quidco). What did you think of the hotel?

I will probably make a thread nearer the time to ask on places to see and where to eat, so looks like you will be the ideal person to speak to!!!
 
There are two, mine was the one in Flora. Very happy with it lovely hotel.

Last year I took my car round Europe staying in Dortmund, Prague, Budapest, Munich, Innsbruck etc. Any questions just ask :)
 
[TW]Fox;23849500 said:
There are two, mine was the one in Flora. Very happy with it lovely hotel.

Last year I took my car round Europe staying in Dortmund, Prague, Budapest, Munich, Innsbruck etc. Any questions just ask :)
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Think we are at the one on the doorstep of the airport, as it will be ideal to have a lie in, get breakfast and not have a panic about getting to the airport on time.

We are pretty set on where we want to go in Prague (I leave that stuff up to her!). But please feel free to recommend good places that you went to and any food places that you can recommend.

As for Budapest, she's getting me this for my birthday! So that will be an enjoyable day out :D. And typical sight seeing will be done as well.

How did you find getting around when you were in the city centre's? Did you just use the car or prefer to get around on public transport?
 
TrixiBuG said:
Erm...no the Op hadn't...they asked if going to the CC company would be an option...Looks like its sorted now anyway
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rossk26 said:
After a short phone call they couldn't explain why it took over a month to charge me, and that I should have been charged on the day of the booking.
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They had contacted the provider. My assumption was that did not get what they were after, and therefore should approach the CC company.
 
Public transport all the way. With the big cities I parked the car in the underground carpark at each hotel and left it there until it was time to leave. You don't need or want a car to see cities like Prague and Budapest (And the roads are shocking, I actually managed to damage the undertray on the car entering Prague and needed to do some quick repairs in the hotel carpark!). Most of Prague is cobbled streets which adds to its charm and makes you not want to drive anywhere near it :p

Prague has a fantastic tram and subway system - and it's not particularly expensive either. You can buy an all-day ticket from the reception in the hotel (Most of the ticket machines don't do card) at the same price you'd pay at the ticket office so there is no downside to this (Though pay in local currency not sterling!!). This lets you use trams, buses and subway. The centre of Prague itself is quite compact and you can walk to all the major sites.

Budapest also has a good underground system. Infact it's fairly fascinating as its all Soviet-era stuff, Russian build plates on the side of the trains etc. All day ticket is cheap and useful. Again, the machines are a pain with cards so use the ticket office, of which there should be one at most stations.

With Vienna, use the U-Bahn or S-Bahn to get into the centre of town - again, all day tickets are available. Vienna's public transport system is much more modern than Prague and Budapest. Make sure you head out to Schoebrunn Palace, which is simply beautiful but a little bit outside of the city centre.
 
Excellent advice, really appreciated.

How did you find understanding the transport systems? Is there anything in English, or is it case of finding out what routes you need before you go?

We are booking trains to get us from Prague > Vienna and Vienna > Budapest, and finally Budapest back to Prague for our flight. Simply because they are cheap and quick! Hopefully all will run smoothly.
 
It's pretty easy, the maps are easy to understand. Vienna has automated machines which are available in English for ticket purchase.
 
UPDATE:

Quite an interesting phone call with customer service rep @ booking.com.

It appears they have read this thread! Lady on the telephone quoted a lot of comments made, and mentioned the price match guarantee. As I predicted they bounced that back due to the 24 hour "policy".

Do companies often read up on forums, and ring customers to discuss comments? I was took by surprise when overclockers.co.uk was mentioned!!

Anyway the outcome is pleasant, I will hopefully be receiving a refund for the error made.
 
You'd be surprised how vigilant hotels are, we had a hotel poach some of our staff from a Premier Inn in Glasgow.

They are obviously driving round the local area and phoning commercial vehicles, they both met and beat the Premier Inn price by a reasonable amount.
 
A lot of places these days seem to employ staff specifically to search the Web for comments about them as they know how easily it is for a bad experience to spread like wild fire
 
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