I see that my review of Otel.com is the same as many others. No mention on the website SPECIFICALLY that my credit card transaction would DEFINITELY be processed through Istanbul. I assumed that since I live in the U.S. my transaction would be processed through Otel.com's New York office. On my printout AFTER I purchased the trip - that is the first time it mentions Istanbul.
I know Otel.com states in their Terms & Conditions they are not responsible for International Transaction fees, but they mislead the customer by not DIRECTLY stating that ALL transactions (no matter where you reside) will be processed through the bank in Istanbul, Turkey, which may result in an International Transaction fee imposed by your credit card company."
And I'm not going to read any Otel.com responses to this message because they are all canned. (Copied from Terms & Conditions and pasted into the reply.)

I made the booking of 6 nights stay at Arpoador Inn of Rio de Janeiro on the web of Otel.com, paid by credit card and got the confirmation. The Otel.com sent me repeatedly its confirmation when the stay was pproaching.

But when I arrived at the Hotel, I was told there was no reservation for me and I had to pay by myself the room charge again to get a room there. I tried to get in contact with Otel.com but the customer care service tel no. of the States was not available because it was on Saturday. (In addition phone charge from Brazil to the States is high. It is not at all practical to use phone, especially when nothing was solved as in my case) So I sent my inquiry through Otel.com Web expecting the problem would be settled soon at latest one day later. But it is not at all the case.But what the Customer Care seems to have done is just to convey my message to the Provider (Who is it ? Metglobal? which issued the prepaid voucher) and it was not at all ready to solve the problem by itself. What I heard is that the otel.com will inform me when it will hear from the provider. I asked who was the provider, but no reply. The customer care just repeated the same message #otel.com will inform me when it will hear from the provider#. Another problem was that during my stay, on one date the hotel was fully booked already. I told it of course to Otel.com in my first contact, but in vain. Also no care to this point.What surprised me more was that Otel.com requested me to send the bill I paid to the hotel as room charges, when the check out date was approaching without solving the problem at all. Why must I send it to Otel.com. To solve the problem must come first ! And of course, Otel.com could have gotten anything if it had contacted the hotel. But it seems not have contacted the hotel at all. So I told the Otel.com " What have you been doing for so long time ?Nothing! " No reply. So literally the Customer Care did not anything.

I am waiting for the refund.I do not recommend you to use Otel.com for hotels outside of USA. If you get any problem with hotels outside USA and you have access just to ordinary phone, there is really no practical way to contact Otel.com Customer care.

I was looking for cheap hotel in Vancouver BC Canada, when I suddenly dicovered the cheapest web page for the hotels and it was otel.com. I found Days In Vancouver hotel which was impossible to book from another web pages because of it's great number of wishers. All rooms were reserved on other web pages an on hotels web page, except otel.com. Of course I booked it and one night I slept very happy. Today morning I casted doubt in otel.com and I decided to check with Days in Vancouver Downtown Hotel, the answer they gave me was: instead of 5 nights otel.com reserved me 1 night and charged my account with amount of 5 nights. After this small shock I called otel.com-s call centre, polite young man asked me to wait for 2 hours for solving my problem and they will call me back. 3 hours later I called and young lady answered, when I told her about my problem she answered me that it will take 48 to 72 hours and then they will answer and tell me if they can solve my problem. It was just today, I must check in on October 20 and my cancalation is free before 16 October 12 in the morning. So if they answered me in 48 hours and tell me that they are not able to book this hotel for me, then I had to pay for cancelation or stay in hotel for one night and pay for 5 days.
So I asked young lady, if any charges will apply on my account, and she told that they even did not charge my account.
I canceled my booking and in few seconds dicovered their e-mail in my mailbox, with text below:
"Your reservation has been cancelled without any cancellation fee. As your credit card has already been charged for the reservation, you will receive a full refund which will appear on your statement within 10 days".
After another a bit larger shock, but with hope to refund my money with few sweet words, I called back to their call centre. Young Lady answered phone, first attempt from her was to blame my bank, for what I answered that I was just coming from my bank and it was not bank's fault. For second attempt she told me that my credit card was already charged and they won't be able to refund money before 7-10 working days. Because of lack of money, I asked to renew my canceled booking, not to stay in the street for my vacation, young lady refused to help me and wished me a nice day.

Thanks to hotel.com for leaving me without money for vacation and the refunded money I will get as soon as I return from vacation.

Hope my post will help someone, not to entrap in hotel.com

Regards,
NC

I booked what I thought at the time was a hotel, 1 room, 2 people for 2 nights at the 5 star hotel pruebas in Madrid for the 21 and 22nd may 2010, 2-3 weeks before we left.

Two days before we leave i have a answer phone message that is very hard to understand, so I check my e-mail, in which it says i booked a test hotel, this is a test hotel.

I'm obviously confused by what this is, so i call up their UK call centre, which isn't in the UK, the person who left me the answer phone message was based in Istanbul, the people i was talking to where most probably based in India.

It took them a while to understand what had happened as well, they couldn't find this place, so in fact it didn't exist, they had a note with the booking saying to give a refund.

This is obviously expected, but I’m now left in a pickle we leave in less than 2 days and we have no accommodation on the Friday and Saturday night in Madrid, which happens to be champion’s league final weekend, so very limited availability now and quadruple the price.

So I try to get them to get me an alternative the call centre people cannot understand my demands that I’m not paying more than before as this is their error and i will even take the 2 star they have left as we just need accommodation, so they obviously don't have this authority.

So i have to make a query on their website, it gets answered the next day, so 1 day before we leave, saying i am sorry for what has happened it won't happen again and just explaining that it was a 'test' but customers shouldn't be able to see it, saying i won't have a confirmation, which I do by e-mail, and that there were no rates, which there obviously were, £46 per person per night as that’s why they are refunding me, which at first said it would be immediate, now say it will be 7-10 days, so all my money is in Euros as spending money now, so i have no money to book anywhere else even if there were still places available. So i say this is your error instead of just telling me what has happened you should be fixing it, you either offer me the 2 star hotel at the same price, give me compensation for having to book another place at quadruple the price or i will report you.

In which they reply again saying I have explained to you that this was a test hotel, it didn't exist, I am sorry we couldn't satisfy you.

So they are technically breaking the law by selling me something that doesn't exist, but at the moment all I care about is getting the accommodation for them 2 nights, but they have made up there mind that they are not going to do anything about it.

In their minds they cannot understand how this is their catastrophic error and how they should be trying to fix it.

At the time of booking this hotel came up, called hotel pruebas, which afterwards i translated the word pruebas which means test, but only a Spanish person would realise that and they say it won't happen again but there is one in English on the sight which says 'this is a test hotel do not book' which is quite more obvious and so is the price at £13 but it still lets you book it, so they haven’t fixed it.

The hotel i booked had everything any of the other real hotels had on their page, description, pictures, room types, availability etc.

It even had a location on the map in Madrid, a couple of streets from the Madrid centre, so it couldn't have looked more real, it is even listed on another website (e-dreams) and i have a link to it on my facebook page which shows the pictures and write up.

The key fact that makes them more in he wrong is that they take 2 weeks to notify me about this 'test' hotel, 2 days before we go and won't refund me until we are back, any sooner then we could have booked somewhere else used the refund money or our spending money and the other hotel prices wouldn't be through the roof and the availability would be much greater.

As it stands we leave in 24 hours cannot cancel the flight now, nor our other accommodation and where we will stay on the Friday and Saturday night is a mystery.

This is a sham of a company and I cannot believe how they do nothing to rectify their mistake.

Thank You for your help

Mr K Payne

I booked a hotel with otel.com last October from an internet cafe and received an email confirming my booking. The hotel was advertised as being 5k from Bergamo (Italy), the taxi driver told me it would cost 1 euro per km so when 25 minutes and a 25 euro bill later I asked why the journey took so long he said that the information I'd been given was inaccurate (this is backed up by AA autoroute). On arrival at the hotel, they did not have my booking and the number I gave them meant nothing, they allowed me to log on to the internet and I found to my horror that my booking had been cancelled.

I ended up having to negotiate a room with the hotel which cost 20 euro more than the price I'd paid on otel.com (though seems they did not charge my card) and forked out a total of 50euro in taxi fares for a hotel which was supposed to be 5km from bergamo and 6km to the airport (both clearly inaccurate).

I have been communicating with various non english speaking customer service personnel (apparently from their turkey office) and in nearly 6 months have got nowhere fast.

They insist the distance to the hotel is correct and seem to ignore my documentary evidence to the contrary.

They say they tried to contact me by phone and because I did not reply they cancelled my booking - I never received a call nor a missed call nor an answermachine message.

They tried to say maybe I'd given an invalid tel number but they contradicted this by stating my "correct" tel number on one of my emails.

They said the person that dealt with me had left the company

They said they would raise the complaint with the hotel - though clearly it was not the hotel's fault.

They insist that they tried to contact me - yet the only contact I had was an email (when I arrived at the hotel) to say they had cancelled it.

Basically they are saying that because they never confirmed my booking and did not charge my card that they cannot help me with my complaint.

I have asked for escalation but I've been told that it is Caroline (born in UK) but now based in Turkey is the highest port of call. She is simply not responding to my questions but is now saying that she cannot help me as it is more than 5 months since the event.

I have kept all the emails and am considering going to trading standards, I have received appalling customer services and they simply are not interested in my complaints and continue to avoid the issues and fob me off.

I'm severely angry and frustrated because of their general attitude and I just don't know what I can do to resolve this matter.

If anyone can offer advice please let me know...