We are preparing for a holiday in the Italian riviera at the beginning of
September. Several months ago, I had suggested that we stay in
Rapallo,
but when we looked at videos from there and neighbouring towns such as Santa
Margherita Liguria and Camogli, my wife wasn't very enthusiastic. "It's all
the same - all one can see is the sea". So I compromised and suggested that we
stay in Genoa and make day trips to the various towns along the coast, as well
as seeing the (few) sights of
Genoa.
Now that the major mourning period for my
late brother in law1
is over, my wife very much needs a chance to recharge her batteries, so I
renewed the idea. We looked at hotels in Genoa and were very disappointed:
none of them seemed to answer all of our needs (not that there are that many).
I suggested another compromise, that we spend a few days in Genoa and then
move to Rapallo, but after seeing those hotels, we decided to abandon this and
spend all our nights in Rapallo as I had originally intended.
We will fly to Malpensa airport, north of Milan, as we did last year; from
there we have to take the soi disant Malpensa express train2
to Milan. From there, there is a direct train to Genoa, although that part of
the journey takes about two hours. I thought that we would have to change
trains (again) in Genoa, but it turns out that the same train continues to
Rapallo (and who knows where else, probably Cinque Terra and Pisa). Depending
on which time we catch the first train, the cost for both of us one way can
vary between $50 and $75! Buying a return ticket is not possible as we will
not be returning in the same week.
Then I started looking for hotels in Rapallo. The first one that I found seemed
wonderful and not too expensive until I realised that the price that I was
looking at was
per night and not for the entire stay. Then I found another hotel
which seems to be far in excess of what we need but will give us a good chance
to relax:
Hotel Italia e Lido Rapallo. Like our hotel at Lake Como, it's across the road from the water.
Obviously we have to have a sea-facing room, despite the cost.
Here the story becomes more complicated. I thought that I was ordering the
room from the hotel's website, but it turns out that I was ordering through a
third party, Guest Reservations. I booked the room and gave my credit card
details; a moment later - and a moment too late - I realised that
they had added 45% to the cost of the room, a mere $1285. The
additions were for "Tax recovery charges" and "Service fees", as if it makes a
difference. I was incensed.
The GuestReservations site has a 'contact us' page, but when I tried to write
an annoyed letter, every time it would be rejected as I was lacking an
'itinerary number' that is mandatory on their form but was not included in the
confirmation letter that I received. In the evening, I tried phoning them;
supposedly they have a local telephone number, but this number is not in use,
so I had to phone USA. I was answered by what is presumably an AI bot who was
operating off a script, so it was very difficult to progress.
After about five calls, I finally got through to a human being (Indian,
judging by the accent) who seemed very apologetic but probably was laughing to
himself all the time. After we got through the preliminaries, he gave me the
missing itinerary number; I checked that I had written it down correctly. Then
I asked about the charges and was told that I should speak to the hotel about
them. Finally I asked about cancelling and was told that in that case, I would
receive a refund of about $150 - I don't remember the actual figure as it was
so insulting, but it was about 4% of what I had paid.
I sent an email to the hotel asking about those fees; to my surprise, I
received an answer quite swiftly - they didn't know what I was talking about.
Shortly after, I went to bed, but all night my mind was occupied with this
problem.
I decided that the best thing to do would be to instruct the credit card
company not to honour the request of GuestReservations; I wanted to keep the
reservation but pay the hotel directly. So I was carrying on three
conversations at once: with the hotel (not very productive), with our travel
agent (also not very productive) and with the credit card company (slightly
more productive). To conclude: they had yet to receive a request so they
couldn't cancel it, but I think that I managed to convince them that I had
fallen victim of a fraud - that should be reason enough to refuse the charge.
Later on, my travel agent sent me the picture shown below - someone had also
been stung by this company.
Internal links
[1] 1957
[2] 1749
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