In November 2006 I booked a hotel room in Kyoto, Japan through precisionreservations.com (who are linked to Agoda Rewards and HotelCardCharge.com) - I think they are an American company. After I gave my credit card details they held the price of the hotel on my card and made it look like the booking had been processed. However, when I arrived at the hotel, they didn't have any record of my booking. When I emailled precisionreservations.com to ask them to sort out the problem, they denied all knowledge of the booking and said they would release my money in 10 days time. Well, that was not very helpful since I was in Japan needing to pay for a night's accommodation that day and not in 10 days time. I also had to pay 3 times as much, which I wasn't expecting. Any company who takes someone's money but doesn't process the booking and then does nothing to help the client out when they need it is a bad company in my books! I don't think it made any difference that I was making the booking from Australia. The same thing could have happened to anyone booking from any country through these people. I recommend everyone steer clear of them at all costs!
Good warning. I will call myself the hotel I booked through Agoda and ask whether the booking has been done.
Viktor
Two years ago, I tried to book a room in Thailand through Precision Travel. I waited 10 days, and the reservation was never confirmed. I went to the hotel website and was able to book the same room in a day.
Recently, I tried to book a room in Hanoi at the Hong Ngoc 2 Hotel through Agoda. (I didn't realize that it was Precision Travel with a new name.) Again, I waited 10 days, and Agoda never confirmed the reservation, even after I sent an e-mail to customer service.
I have not had problems with any of the other reservations I've made for trips to Thailand. I recommend against anyone using Agoda.
To be fair, we used Agoda to book a week's accommodation in Thailand in January 2008 and had absolutely no problems whatsoever.
Maybe this was in the past and Agoda have changed hands since then or jacked up
Agoda are dodgy, the tax rate changes if you log in to your Agoda Rewards account or not, they add $6 if you are logged in to collect points, so you not only pay more for these points then they are worth but an extra few dollars on top, i guess a little extra for the Agoda bank account!