Hotel Makes Guests Pay Extra Upon Arrival Despite Completing Their Bookings Online
The hotel owner also admitted to scolding people for breaking her homestay's strict rules, and instead blamed her guests for tarnishing her property's image.
By May Vin Ang — 27 Dec 2022, 04:58 PM
A hotel in Teluk Intan, Perak, has come under fire for making its guests pay additional fees for their rooms, despite having completed their bookings on Agoda
Facebook user Nazeerah Bashah highlighted her unpleasant experience of booking a room at TnT Novelty Vacation House in community group Hotel Review Malaysia on Monday, 26 December.
In the now-viral post, Nazeerah wrote that she booked a triple sharing room for three adults and two children below the age of 12 at the hotel for one night on Christmas, 25 December, through Agoda.
However, upon her arrival at the hotel, she was welcomed with accusatory questions by the staff at reception.
"Let me see your booking? You booked through Agoda. [It's a scam]. How can this room be this cheap? This also happened to another group today," Nazeerah quoted the female staff as saying.
The woman then asked her to pay an additional RM180.
"You have to pay RM180 for a new room, or just cancel. If you cancel, you will not get a refund. If you pay the new amount, you can get the refund from Agoda," Nazeerah was told.
Bewildered, Nazeerah said she immediately made a complaint to Agoda about the hotel
"The staff at Agoda were also given the same treatment, they said the female staff was also rude to them," said the regular Agoda user.
She said Agoda then offered to pay the additional charges so that Nazeerah and her family could still spend the night at the hotel.
However, the female staff told Agoda that she would only accept payment if Nazeerah herself paid up front at the hotel then and there.
Nazeerah told SAYS that she walked out of the place and spent the night at another hotel in Teluk Intan because she was fed up with the receptionist's behaviour.
"Have a good day. We won't waste our money at your hotel!" she wrote.
The dissatisfied holiday-goer later found out online that the hotel had been doing the same thing to previous hotel guests
As sighted by SAYS, the hotel has 430 Google reviews and a 2.1-star rating as of writing.
While there were positive reviews commending the hotel for its clean, comfortable surroundings and unique wooden decor, the hotel was also plagued with guests complaining about the hotel's rude owner, a woman they named as Ms Tan.
As with Nazeerah's experience, many said Ms Tan was also rude to them and had asked them to pay up after calling the online hotel reservation platforms, Agoda and Booking.com, scams.
There were also reviews alleging that the owner was racist.
When asked for comment, TnT Novelty Vacation House sent SAYS a series of emails explaining their side of the story
However, instead of acknowledging that her customers had paid the prices as advertised online, the hotel owner claimed that she was the victim and blamed the reservation platforms for the issues instead.
According to Tan, she partnered with Booking.com and Agoda to advertise her hotel's rooms. However, she had only advertised larger, family-sized rooms on Booking.com and standard-sized rooms on Agoda.She said the issue occurs when Agoda also advertises the larger rooms from Booking.com on its website at a discounted price, not to her knowing or power.
"I do not know why Agoda puts all the Booking.com rooms in Agoda without my knowledge, and the image for the RM450 family deluxe is put on the RM189 family room [listing]. A lot of customers scold me when they order the family room because they expect the family deluxe room as per the picture shown in Agoda," she wrote.
The hotel owner also admitted to scolding people for breaking her homestay's strict rules, and instead blamed her guests for tarnishing her property's image
She called Booking.com customers "cheeky" and up to "hanky panky" by always trying to bring in more guests than their room's stated capacity.
"Sometimes the customer brings more people into my homestay. So for sure, they have to pay extra money. If they are reluctant to pay for the extra people, I have no choice but to ask them to cancel their booking and I will help them get their money with no penalty charges to them," she said.
"Failure to follow the law of homestay rules must be impose the penalty of one night fee right? (sic) I do believe right is right, wrong is wrong. No such thing as customer is always right."
The owner also sent SAYS a screenshot of herself scolding a hotel guest for bringing in more children than she had declared in her booking.
