Singaporean claims booking fail leaves them stranded in Australia

SINGAPORE: A reader reached out to The Independent Singapore to ask us to shine a light on a problem they allegedly encountered with the search engine and digital travel agency Agoda, which left them in the lurch while on a recent trip to Cannington, Perth.

According to the reader, a Platinum Agoda customer, they made a booking for a property in Cannington for Aug 12 to 17, which they fully paid for and was confirmed by Agoda. However, they did not receive any check-in instructions from the property.

When they arrived, they were told that the property had never received the booking from Agoda. And as the accommodation was full, the property asked the customer to settle with Agoda.

They spent four hours, from 3:00 to 7:00 p.m., out in the cold because it’s winter in Perth, calling both the property and Agoda, in an endeavour to arrange for a place to stay. Since they did not have a local SIM, they used their Singapore number for these calls, which totalled more than 65 minutes at S$5 per minute. This meant over S$300 for their telephone bill.

Although Agoda offered to refund the customer or find an alternative accommodation, the customer said that these were far from the original location or were lower-end motels and lodges, since Agoda wanted to stay within the original price range.

Somehow, the customer was able to secure a room at the original property.

They then asked Agoda to reimburse them for their phone bill, since the failed booking had not been their fault. However, the company allegedly refused, saying that there was no record of these phone calls.

The customer added that Agoda repeatedly misunderstood their emails, confusing the complaint with another booking and potentially jeopardising that reservation as well.

This is not the first time an Agoda customer has claimed to have this type of experience.

A Reddit user claimed in 2021 that they also had a hotel booking confirmation made through Agoda, but when they went to the venue, they were told that they had no reservation. While Agoda could see the reservation on its own system, it couldn’t explain why the hotel didn’t have it. The customer and partner were left exhausted and had to find another hotel in a tourist area on a Friday night.

Another Reddit user asked for advice in 2024 after they had booked a hotel with Agoda, but when they called the hotel in advance to be sure that everything was in order, they were told there was no reservation for their name on the booking dates. 

In Singapore last year, the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) took action against Agoda over concerns about features of Agoda’s Singapore website and app that could potentially mislead consumers. Agoda voluntarily undertook to change its website and app. /TISG

Read also: CCCS flags Agoda’s ‘problematic’ website and app features that could mislead Singapore consumers