My experience w. Venere.com- Europe: BAIT & SWITCH
 

Venere.com has a very nice, helpful site for making hotel reservations in many European countries. I decided to use them for an upcoming trip to Portugal. My experience was very disappointing and I would like to share it so that others planning to use them are aware of their practices.

Here is what happened:
- I picked a hotel; the site displayed: "Average double room rate/night: 48 EUR "
- I entered my dates and got a quote of 115 EUR/night
- I decided to make the reservation, entered all required data, the system confirmed everything (including the quoted rate/availability) and took me to the CONFIRM button to make the reservation; I printed this screen and seconds after reviewing it I pushed the CONFIRM button
- I was told that rooms are available only for EUR 125/night
- I made the reservation assuming some kind of system error, as I have never seen anything like this before, a price hike after the rate is confirmed during the reservation process
- I sent an email to Venere’s Customer Service, asking them to honor the quoted rate; the reply stated that they forwarded my request “to the person of Venere responsible for this matter”
- when there was no follow-up, I sent another Email requesting contact info for the responsible party. I got was a reply stating “for your information, only properties can access both booking request they have been sent through Venere and their pricing list. Venere Team intervenes only upon specific request and authorization from the property”. “We regret to inform you that we have checked in our system, and the hotel changed its prices in our system IN THE SAME MOMENT in which you were making your reservations”. They also informed me about my rights to cancel the reservation. Then I received another Email from them with the detailed steps for canceling the reservation.
- there is no phone number published for their Customer Service; after this experience I decided to follow their advice and I made another reservation and cancelled those made through Venere.

It seems that their systems are setup to change prices while one is making a reservation, a very unprofessional approach. If a hotel is supposedly making changes to prices “at the same moment” when a customer is pressing CONFIRM, the system should ensure that the reservation is made at the confirmed price (apply “record locking”, in more technical terms). Otherwise, the practice is clearly a BAIT & SWITCH one.

Make reservations with Venere at your own risk.

Im so sorry to hear about your negative experience with Venere. I have scheduled many hotels on their website and have never had a problem.

suzanna, you said you made another reservation and cancelled the venere reservation. What method did you use to make the second reservation and what was the did you get the same hotel for the original price?

I think you were just unlucky, we have used Venere quite a few times now and never had any problems with our reservations.

This is the second report I've seen in past couple of weeks regarding a rate change after a confirmation. It was posted either here or on the TA forum.

Unfortunate event, what did the hotel say when you contacted them directly about the price issue?

PaigeS, I used the Lonely Planet website which takes you to HostelWorld.com. The reservation made through this site was confirmed by the hotel.

Jeremygil, I didn't check with the hotel regarding what Venere did.

I know that unless a company wants to have applications/systems do this, standard programming practices are used to PREVENT something like this from happening.

The hotel usually has little to do with this, it is the reservation engine that has control over this and that belongs to Venere.

I did not have the time and desire to argue w. Venere after they did not provide a number to call and after they sent me two messages to tell me how to cancel....

Hi S,

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience.

However, it wasn't bait and switch, nor was Venere trying to cheat you. Venere relies on the hotels to tell them prices and availabilities.

Price changes happen all the time, all over the internet.

I have had similar things happen at other booking sites.

Notice that your "Average double room rate/night: 48 EUR " wasn't available either.

I hope you don't show up at your hotel and find that they "lost" your reservation, but have a lovely room at another hotel for a bit more.

That's bait and switch.

((I))

I had a similar experience with them for a hotel in Nice in 2004. I had the chance to canceled much quicker than what you apparently were able to, but after that, I vowed NEVER again to use them.

I understand not wanting to mess with it when there are plenty of other sites available. I just mentioned contacting the hotel directy because I tried to book a hotel on venere and it said there were no rooms so I contacted the hotel directly and they had plenty of rooms and took another 10E off per night for the hassle. I think venere is great because of the prices but I agree it may not be the most reliable booking engine available.

Ira, you are right, Venere relies on hotels to provide prices and all hotels change prices all the time - but not after you went through all the steps for a reservation. Standard programming practices are available to prevent the price from changing after someone started to make a reservation and got a quote. All reputable sites I am using for shopping sell you items at the quoted price.

Less than professional outfits do what Venere did: confirm a price and then when you accept it, suddenly raise it.

It is our choice to use (or not) sites like Venere. I do mind being treated like this, others might not care. I will not deal with a provider which doesn't care about my business and tells me that if I don't like what they did I can cancel and go someplace else.

It is not the 40 EUR that I mind, it is the way they do business and the way they treated me.

Luckily we have options even if we don't have an Internet BBB or Internet Consumer Affairs. Travel boards like this one are the judges and can potentially get sites like Venere to change the way they operate.

Ira was also right that it wasn't a bait & switch, which you claim, in your title, in all caps.

Talk about the way people operate ...

I am sorry if I might have offended some of you, but the dictionary definition for bait and switch is: "A bait and switch is a form of fraud in which the fraudster lures in customers by advertising a good at an unprofitably low price, then reveals to potential customers that the advertised good is not available but that a substitute good is. "

As far as I am concerned, that's exactly what Venere does, as also confirmed by others.

People can decide for themselves how to call an experience like this and if it's worth the time and the frustration to use an outfit like this.

The important thing is that they can make an educated decision based on experiences from others instead of having to experience it first hand - should they not care for it.

jeremygil: I don't think it's unusual to try to book a room through some agency on the net and be told no rooms are available, only to call the hotel and find there are rooms. It is my understanding that hotels assign blocks of rooms to various sources, but keep some available for walk-ins and people who call the hotel direct as you did.

We too have had good results booking through venere.com. Sorry you had a problem Suzanna, but it seems the majority of Fodorites have dealt with them successfully, since they are so frequently recommended and even on this thread many have posted their satisfaction.

It really wasn't "bait & switch" as ira pointed out -- and you could cancel almost immediately. Your blaring headline BAIT & SWITCH EVERYBODY PANIC is unfair to Venere, but then we regularly read posts by highly highly offended people who are outraged that their trip was not 100% perfect.

Hotels do update their rates on a regular basis. Everytime the reservations manager or revenue manager is at work (or on their laptop) they are changing information such as rates / minimum stay dates / rooms available for sale / # of each room type available, etc. It does happen almost on a constant basis. The last hotel I worked for this happened a lot. I would get calls late at night from groups trying to make reservations and their rate was sold out. I would have to contact the revenue manager to add more rooms to the room block at the appropriate rates. Changes occur often in a hotels reservation system. Unfortuantely you just got unlucky with that particular reservation.

Suzanna,
I'm sorry that happened and I too would have been upset. I have noticed that I like using Venere.com less and less lately, and not because I had an experience like yours, but I feel that as they've grown, the quality of their products have declined.

This could be said for most Internet booking agencies, I guess. They seem less useful to as more hotels get on the Internet. I sometimes use them for research, but don't find myself booking through them at all.

Again, yours was an unpleasant experience. Thanks for the account; I will keep it in mind.

Call it what you will.
Split hairs as you wish.
I for one appreciate the information.
The company behaved unethically and that matters. Thank you for the heads up Suzanna.

Agree w/Rob; disputing how to call the underhanded maneuver by Venere is an exercise in futility at this point. Calling attention to it is more productive, which Suzanna has done well.

I have used dozens of websites for hotels & flights reservations throughout the years. Venere is one of two sites that have pulled a fast one on me in those many years of doing travel arrangements thru the web (the other TISS.com who is probably under another name by now). I don't used them and I don't recommend them either.

Thanks Suzanna.