Complaint Rating:

Company information:
CentralR
Ireland
www.centralr.com

Planning a trip to Europe? DON'T use centralr.com to make reservations. I reserved a hotel in Lisbon back in January 2008 for a trip in June 2008. I was sent a confirmation number indicating a cancellation policy of 24 hours before the visit. The hotel later received awful reviews from travelers... dirty sheets and bad food. Only when I cancelled the reservation, was I informed that centralR had charged my credit card $32.70 Euro, or about $50 bucks. Unlike Expedia or a more reputable service, they don't give you a receipt for this deposit or put on your confirmation email that they have charged you. It took three days to get a response from their "customer service" after several attempts to email them bounced back as undeliverable. They would not consider a refund, claiming that it was my responsibility to have clicked on a tiny "terms and conditions" icon that you can barely see with all their claims of quality and good service. Their boilerplate also says they are not responsible if the hotel doesn't have a room for you or is dirty and has bad service. So you are really paying for nothing, even if you don't cancel, since they don't guarantee the room in the fine print. AVOID this service and stick to the reputable travel web sites like Expedia (which show the deposit charge right on the confirmation page along with the confirmation number) or reserve with the hotel directly.