I tried to cancel my reservation, but went through an endless circle of calls, each telling me that I needed to call someone else. This is a deliberate plan to deny refunds for cancelled reservations.
Consumer Complaints & Reviews
Through Venere, I made reservations for the Ferman Hotel in Istanbul for August 22-24. I used a debit card to hold my spot. The debit card was linked to a new account at Chase Bank. Later, I was informed by Venere that the booking was canceled because my debit card did not authorize the charge. I called Venere and told the agent that the card was new and had not been activated yet. However, I would activate the card, and that I was just using it to hold my reservation, as I intended to use cash to pay for this room for two. I made a second booking for the Ferman Hotel.
Once in Istanbul, my travel plans changed. On August 18th, I called the Ferman Hotel to cancel the booking, since it was a local call. The agent at the hotel told me to call Venere. Within minutes, I called Venere and the agent told me that the reservation had been cancelled anyway as they do not accept debit cards. I read the confirmation sheet from Venere which directs customers to call Venere or use email with a password to cancel a booking. I never received a password.
The most difficult thing to do was reach Venere at an 800 number while in Turkey. I had to find a calling card to call the US and call India (?). I am looking at this note from you and it states that I had three reservations; however, I only made two. Venere wrote to me stating:
In fact, our customer care department is supposed to manage all the requests made by e-mail or telephone within two working days. However, in particularly busy periods, we cannot take pace to all requests and some of them may be managed late. For this reason, we give our users the opportunity to cancel their reservation by themselves and this is clearly specified online.
On 24 April 2011, my wife and I reserved a room in Hotel Cantagrel in Paris for 20-26 June using the site www.venere.com and received a confirmation from Venere.com. Then on 15 June, I sent an email to the hotel to verify that our reservation was okay. The same day, I got a response from the hotel that everything was okay.
Can you imagine my surprise when on 17 June in the evening, i received an email from Venere.com that my reservation was canceled? I called Venere.com's customer service and they told me that my reservation was canceled and they don't know by whom. They didn't bother to offer us any alternative. Actually they ignores my emails.
It was a high season and I was incapable of ordering another room. As result, we cancelled our vacation and lost the cost of our plane tickets and tickets to the Paris Air Show at Le Bourget. I hope that my example will help others to be more cautious making their hotels reservations with Venere.com.
I recently made two bookings for Hotel Seven Days in Prague through venere.com. I used two different credit cards for each booking and received confirmations for both bookings. The next day, I received an email from the hotel, saying that my reservation is denied due to a 'technical error'. I immediately wrote venere.com asking them for an explanation and to resolve this issue. Then 24 hours later, I got an email from venere.com, telling me that both of my bookings were cancelled due to "wrong credit card details". There is nothing wrong with either of my credit card. I find it unacceptable that venere.com should use such blatantly untrue excuse to try to wriggle their way out of honoring reservations which they have already confirmed.
