Annual Holiday is a Bliss. This year i decided to rejuvenate & re-energize myself at nearby Hill Station. Some people feel that over-spending on Hotel Room is a waste of money. In my opinion, it is important to book a good resort to enjoy very few days you get once in a year from hectic schedule therefore i always select 4 star or 5 star resort for my short holiday.
Normally, i book resort directly because any booking through agent or intermediate means sub standard treatment at resort. Based on my friends recommendation this time i decided to book hotel room through MakeMyTrip. I finalized Deluxe Room of 4 star resort for particular date after reading some reviews on web about resort. The best part was that MakeMyTrip.com was providing “Best Price Promise” on Hotel Booking. According to Cambridge Dictionary definition Best Price is the Lowest Price that a buyer can pay something for. Basically, it implies price protection i.e. Price will not go lower then what buyer is paying currently. In short, i was promised Lowest Price. I paid approx Rs 5800 (Including Taxes) for 1 night. There was no discount offered by MakeMyTrip.com on booking. I happily booked resort and was looking forward for my Holidays.
Normally, after booking we don’t tend to re-visit or cross check pricing part. All the research on pricing part is done before booking. After 1 day, just out of curiosity i checked the rate of same room type for same date in same resort. To my utter surprise, i found that MakeMyTrip.com was offering discount of 15% on the amount paid by me i.e. same room type in same resort for same date was available @ Rs 5000. I was zapped, loss of approx Rs 800 in a single day despite advance booking.
I decided to take this up with MakeMyTrip.com & registered complaint. Despite multiple mail exchanges with MakeMyTrip.com and Phone Calls, Customer Support Executive was not ready to accept the Best Price Promise given at the time of booking. According to him, Best Price change daily on MakeMyTrip.com then what is the relevance of Best Price, if it change daily. It was quite painful to deal with this guy and at the same time i was cursing his English Teacher. After some tough talking, i received following definition of “Best Price” from MakeMyTrip.com through email
“Best price promise means wherein the deals/discounts are applicable on the fare reflecting on MakeMyTrip website“. I can’t stop ROFL, after reading the new definition of Best Price from MakeMyTrip.com I will be sending this revised definition for updation in Cambridge Dictionary.
Jokes apart, Despite being reputed online travel portal & Market Leader in travel space “MakeMyTrip.com” refused to honor “Best Price” Promise. In the end as a customer, i felt cheated and have decided not to book through MakeMyTrip.com in future. I can conclude following points for my readers.
1. MakeMyTrip.com is cheating customers by promising “Best Price”. It is quite unfortunate that MakeMyTrip.com is not honoring “Best Price” on its own site. I am not comparing rates with other websites like Yatra.com or for other dates. I understand that rates may vary on different days i.e. weekdays or weekends but for same date, same room type & on same website the price is reduced by 15% in 1 day despite Best price promise.
2. Customer is being penalized for booking in advance. Ideally customers booking in advance get low rates but its reverse on MakeMyTrip.com It simply means that customers who booked in advance were idiots.
3. Last but not least, you cannot trust pricing of MakeMyTrip.com specially Hotel rates on MakeMyTrip.com
Copyright © 2011-2013 Nitin Bhatia. All Rights Reserved.
My experience with MMT:
Recently I took a holiday package from MakeMyTrip(MMT), the booking(my first and last booking from MMT) was done 90 days in advance considering the Dussehra rush, the customer care executive Swetha Ravishankar was very helpful until I made the payment, she promised she will take care of all bookings including hotel, taxi etc., replied to all my emails within hours; I thought I chose the right travel agency for my holiday trip.
To my surprise everything turned negative once I made the full payment. One week before my trip got a call from MMT customer care, saying my booking in Bhoomi Residency(Agra) has been cancelled as the Government sealed that hotel! I called Swetha but she said there is no change in booking. I was not happy with her answer, took the hotel number from internet and checked with them directly. I got the answer that the hotel is not in operation. This time I called MMT customer care, I got the reply that I have to check-in in Bhoomi Residency but stay in another hotel(!). I was totally frustrated, I called Swetha again, this time she said she will check and call me back before 5PM. I waited till 5, no call from Swetha, around 5:15 I called her again, she asked for 30 more minutes. I waited till 6, no call from Swetha. I called again but no one picked the call.
Next day again I tried but no response. I called customer care, they were helpless. Raised a complaint on their website, no action. I had to travel with my family, I will be in deep trouble if something goes wrong, but since I already made the payment(MMT offers only partial refund) decided to take risk(during my trip I went to the first hotel, then they guided me to another hotel which was around 5KM away).
Till the day before my trip I did not have the car detail in which I will be travelling all 6 days. I did not contact Swetha as she already decided not to help. From Customer care I got the car voucher, but the pickup time was mentioned as 12AM. I asked the customer care executive to change it to match my flight arrival time, he put me on hold and tried to contact the car vendor, after few minutes he said the vendor is not picking his call and asked me to contact them directly(!). Hell, is this for what I paid MMT? Later I called the car vendor and fixed the time my own.
The hotel MMT booked for me in Delhi(The Pearl – A Royal Residency) was supposed to be 3 star but in actual it is 1, dirty smelly place in a congested area. Read my review about this hotel in TripAdvisor http://bit.ly/HnQj9c.
So my advise to the readers is: never book holiday trips from MakeMyTrip, better plan your own holiday which will help you save money and also will award memorable holidays.
First prepare an itinerary with the help of wikitravel(or use the one in MMT); second book hotels via popular hotel booking sites(you will get cheaper rates there); third book a local taxi via the hotel(MMT is also doing the same) or Google for local tour operators.
We are choosing package tour to avoid all these headaches but if we are not getting what we have paid for, no point in going with these kinds of lazy irresponsible operators.
Thanks for sharing your experience.