Sawadee.com/r24 cancellation
 

Has anyone ever cancelled a reservation made with these guys? For the first time ever, I used a booking agent...Eddi at huahin.20m because he is so highly recommended here.

We reserved, paid for a room in chiang Mai, and paid for sawadee's 500 baht cancellation insurance offered at the time of payment. Eddi was quick to respond and helpful when making the reservations...but now that we are trying to cancel one, neither he nor whoever mans the e-mail for questions or problems on the payment page answers.

We have 2 reservations made through them, and are keeping one and cancelling one...just change in plans, not any particular problem. We decided to stay longer at Yaang Come Village rather than another place...and r24/sawadee didn't have rooms there when I requested the change - he was very quick to reply about this too. Yaang Come Village did have rooms for direct booking though, so we decided to go ahead and change to stay there longer booking ourselves and cancelling rather than changing the reservation we already had for another place using the cancellation insurance. No response, nothing, nada. I'm really hoping it's not so, but it seems as if the service stops once the reservation is paid.

If I can't get a refund in spite of buying their cancellation insurance, it wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would irk me a bit, and would confirm to me that direct booking is safer and easier to work with.

i am unaware of the cancellation insurance...don't you have something written on it??

in general these discount hotel sites are slow to respond to problems, complaints, changes....several fodorites have recently report refunds take up to 4 months...

be patient and keep reminding them you are waiting...be nice however...

The cancellation insurance is offered for 500 BHT the first time you pay...the deposit. It is on their payment page at the bottom, a small check box. It is listed on our e-mailed receipt from them:
"This is to confirm, that the amount of
1890 THB(plus 500 THB cancellation insurance)"

I've written 3 times, always nicely, asking how to cancel. No reply.

OK...just now I received mail from Edi saying we would receive a full refund to our card. All is fine I believe now. Slower than the making reservation process, but it seems they will refund without hassle. That is good. My faith is restored.

don't hold your breath until it appears....it may take a while...keep that communication....


bob

I contacted Amex about it and they noted it on our record and told me that if I didn't see the refund post before we left for Thailand on the 22nd to contact them again and dispute the charge...but to be sure it was before our trip, as 60 days after the charge first posts you cannot dispute it anymore.

Kim, Have a great trip and please post on Yaang Come Village when you get back. We'll be there in February & looking forward to hearing how you like it. Also, sounds like you will be doing some interesting things in BKK - e.g. Joe Louis Puppet Theater - so anxious to hear about that too.

Good news...refund posted today to AMEX account. It took 2 days from the time Eddi answered my e-mail until it posted. Very good.

So, in the end, I found the booking service to be good, the prices to be good, and the refund timely and easy to get. DO buy the cancellation insurance if there is any chance at all you even might cancel a reservation, as otherwise you stand you lose at least your deposit, which might be a lot, depending on the hotel.

One other point...I was able to book a room for us at Yaang Come Village directly at a very slightly higher rate (400 baht/night higher I think), but no rooms were available when huahin.20m did the availability check. The very nice woman I corresponded with at Yaang Come Village told me that they were no longer selling rooms at that discount rate, and offered me the slightly higher rate I took. So if the place you want comes back unavailable, it certainly won't hurt to try direct booking or another booking agent.

Here is a second on the checking somewhere else if Sawadee says the room is not available. We tried to book a room at the Sala Samui for next June, and they said the room type we were looking for was not available, and they tried to sell us the next higher room. We got the room we wanted through asiarooms.com. Of course, I did not realize that asiarooms would charge us for the full $2800 immediately...well at least it is paid for and we won't have to worry about it in june.