Travel Guru — They made a mess of our vacation and overcharged for worse alternative option

Address:	Mumbai City, Maharashtra
Website:	travelguru.com

Travelguru is the worst. 6 weeks before my Pondicherry vacation I paid Travelguru Rs.8986 for 2 nights (Rs.4493 per night) at the Villa Bayoud and received an email confirmation from them. When my wife and I arrived at the beachfront hotel and showed the manager our Travelguru confirmation, he looked very surprised because they had been fully booked for two months and had even notified Travelguru of the same.

I called customer service and spoke with Niranjan Dhamankar, who said we could either (1) request a full refund and find another hotel ourselves or (2) have Travelguru call me back in 30 minutes with alternative options of equivalent or better price and location. As it was a long public holiday weekend and the town’s hotels were almost all booked, I decided on option 2.

Niranjan never called back so after 90 minutes I called and he proposed Lotus A Pondy Hotel. When I asked what the price was in comparison to the Villa Bayoud, he replied that it was much higher, but not to worry as Travelguru would cover this cost because of the inconvenience. Not only was the location considerably worse (not beachfront and not even in White Town), but when I immediately googled the price of it, I found the same deluxe room at 1899 per night! So because we accepted Niranjan’s so called help, we lost Rs.5188 (Rs.8986 minus 3798), not to mention the aggravation..

When I got back to Hyderabad I emailed Niranjan and asked for a refund of Rs.5188. He refused, and when I asked to be put in touch with his manager or the Head of Customer Service he also refused! I followed up by email for a couple of weeks but never heard back from him (Customer Service) or from the Feedback department, who I cc’d to my emails.