We are in day 2 of our 5 week trip.
We purchased all the flights back in January.
Cairo->Bangkok
Bangkok->Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai -> Hanoi (via Bangkok)
Siem Reap->Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur->Manila
Manila->Seattle (via Honolulu)
We are gonna take 3 weeks to get from Hanoi to Siem Reap via ground transports
We made hotel reservations in every city that we fly into,since those are “hard” dates.
Every other date is soft: we aren’t sure when we will arrive, so we will make reservations a couple of days in advance after we our schedule firms up.
So this afternoon, we are in Bangkok. We leave tomorrow for Chiang Mai.
I was perusing our hotel reservations for Chiang Mai.
I noticed I have a pre-paid, non-refundable room for July 28 for 3 nights via www.agoda.com.
If you notice the date on this post you will notice that tomorrow (relative to the day this post was written) is not July 28th, but JUNE 28th.
My darling wife was sitting across the table from me when I gasped and said
“Oh you are fucking kidding me”.
Kaddee had just been saying that our hotel, Raming Lodge Hotel, looked like a gorgeous place, with a spa and how she was going to get a massage and maybe a pedicure while we were there.
It took a minute before I could summon the courage to tell her
Uh, honey.. we may not have a room.
I explained that I had obviously been suffering from teh dumb the day I made the reservation.
She got the guidebooks down from the shelf of the hotel we are staying at, Wendy House in Bangkok, and started looking for alternatives.
She is a trooper.
I went online to the agoda.com website and clicked on the “chat live” button.
I explained the situation and we waited.
and waited.
The online help finally came back and said
We can change your reservation, they have a room for the new dates, however the rate has gone up and you will have to pay the difference.
I held my breath and asked
how much.
The answer:
$5.13
I thought, well $5/night is really not much of a stupid tax to pay, sure.
But it was $5.13 total for all 3 nights.
Sign me up!
Agoda.com had become my first choice for hotel rooms the last time we were in SE Asia. This customer service really stands out and means I will use them whenever possible and recommend them to anyone that needs a room in SE Asia. (I believe they are also doing rooms in Europe now)
6 replies on “I am an idiot, or why www.agoda.com rocks!”
$5. Heh.
You are so lucky! I trust Kaddee mocked you continuously about that for a few days. “Hey look Jack! What a lovely July day!” “Wow the weather sure is nice for July!” :p
Ha ha ha! I wish I could say I’ve never done anything like that, but I’ve done plenty of stuff like that.
I’ve gone overland from Hanoi to Siem Reap once, and from Siem Reap to Hanoi the following year. Easy and fun. If you want any suggestions, please let me know. Or just click on the relevant bits on mariesworldtour.com,
I am feeling envious, very much like I’d rather be chowing down on sticky rice than falafel at the moment.
Agoda sucks big time, you just got lucky dude! i had a similar situation at hotel in Bangkok I booked with them, and the charge was an extra $50 for a night not $5 for three. Agoda customer service was rude and unhelpful. I had to hump my bags at rush hour to internet cafe to re-book on one of their competitors website. I got me a rate $10 lower at original hotel and great service, and the satifaction of going back to original hotel and gettiing upgraded for my inconvenience …
That’s ok. One time we were going to a conference in Knoxville and when I went to buy my plane ticket to match KC’s, we discovered he’d bought his tickets for Nashville. It all worked out in the end, I think we didn’t even have to pay a stupid tax, although we certainly deserved one!
My worst fear on a vacation is messing up the dates. Someone was smiling on you today.