There is no guarantee if the Hotel/Apartment that you book actually exists in reality!!
This is what happened to us, we made a booking on Laterooms.com for a Hotel for three days in Rome for February. We reached Rome and the address given to us on the web site and the booking confirmation that was sent as a confirmation. Surprise Surprise...there was no Hotel at that address! We called up late rooms only for them to read out their terms and conditions to us stating of course that they did not hold any responsibility for this, it is the Hotel's responsibility! When we told them that we can't contact the Hotel on the phone number provided, they said that they will also try to contact them. After ten minutes they confirmed that they can't get hold of them either!
THIS IS LATE ROOMS FOR YOU...we had to then pay twice the price for another hotel and late rooms did NOTHING for us, can you imagine? I am even thinking if I should go to press with this.
Even the next day, when I called them up from Rome, after being on hold for half and hour, they told me that they still can't get hold of the Hotel. After arguing with them for ages, I was told that the best thing they can do for me is to remove the Hotel from the website. I do not know how that was supposed to help me, but, the customer services supervisor seemed to think so. Ultimately after being harassed for hours, I gave up and booked my own hotel in Rome without using late rooms!!!!
So my advice to you.......USE LATEROOMS.COM AT YOUR OWN RISK, as they are experts in quoting you TERMS & CONDITIONS every second when you hae a problem thousands of miles from home!

As a satisfied Laterooms customer, I can say that that I have never had any problems with them.
I have never had to pay Laterooms for a hotel, they take card details to secure the room with the hotel, I know they don't (or haven't) taken payment from me.
Have you contacted Laterooms since you arrived back? What happened?

We (LateRooms) would like to take this opportunity to defend ourselves against the above customer's comments.

A booking was indeed made for this customer for the Sleeping Beauty Apartments in Rome for the 22nd February 2007. The claim made by the customer that there was no such accommodation in Rome is false and the fact that we have sent many other LateRooms customers to these apartments is testament to this. We have investigated this properties booking history and have no record of previous problems. Our Italian team liaise with members of staff at the Sleeping Beauty Apartments regularly.

The problems experienced by this customer arose due to incorrect information being provided at the time of making their booking. A reservation was made for an apartment that slept four people, as requested by the customer. The Sleeping Beauty Apartments then contacted the customer prior to their arrival to confirm their arrival time, at which point the customer informed the apartments that actually there were not four guests as stated in their booking confirmation but six people (four adults and two children). Sleeping Beauty then had to advise the guest that they could not accommodate six guests as they had only made a booking for four. The customer was of the opinion that because two of the guests were children and would be sleeping in the same bed as the parents, they didn't count towards the apartments occupancy numbers. Unfortunately, we have been advised by the apartments that this is not the case due to insurance reasons.

LateRooms customer service team tried to find alternative accommodation for the customer which could sleep four adults and two children, but they were made aware that they would have to pay any additional costs incurred in finding an upgrade. LateRooms had plenty of alternative accommodation to sleep four people at the same / similar cost but the change in the number in the party meant that the customer would have to pay more.

We firmly believe that neither we, nor Sleeping Beauty Apartments are responsible for this unfortunate situation, which would not have occured if the customer had been accurate about the number of people travelling in their party at the time of booking the accommodation. The information on LateRooms for the Sleeping Beauty Apartments clearly states that an apartment can sleep a maximum of four people. Our team did everything that they could to help this customer but unfortunately nothing could satisfy or appease them.

We would like to apologise for the problems this customer experienced in Rome, but feel that this discriminating review is not representative of the excellent customer service offered by LateRooms. We have thousands of satisfied and loyal customers who use LateRooms regularly but there will always be instances where events are outside of our control. Under these circumstances we do everything in our power to assist our customers, and when we are at fault take full responsibility.

It just goes to show you cant trust anyone these days - at least one of these two contradicting posts are hiding some or part of the truth.

All I can say is I have used Laterooms a few times, both in and outside the UK, and each time I have been happy with the result.

Fiamold aka Dave

---

Dave

P.S. I feel obliged to point out, I am speaking from experience and my own personal views above - I am not an advisor, nor an expert.

Same here. I've used them a couple of times as well for small hotels in London and have found them to be efficient and up to the job.

Not for me to judge who is right and who is wrong, but it certainly won't put me off using them again.

I've never used Laterooms but I'd be willing to now!!

Coming onto these forums and posting a measured, apologetic, and considered explanation of what happened in this instance is to be admired, and indicates that a similarly considered and measured approach would be taken with all who deal with the company, whether in positive or adverse situations.

I didn't know who Laterooms were before I read this thread, now I do, and would use them - great piece of PR! Lots of companies would have just tried to get the thread pulled.

All credit to Laterooms, I say, for standing up and being counted!!

Cat

i was surprised by how quickly they found it and responded - pure chance, or ulterior motive? Discuss.

Dave

---

Dave

P.S. I feel obliged to point out, I am speaking from experience and my own personal views above - I am not an advisor, nor an expert.

Probably alerted by the originator of the thread, I would say.

Cat

Fiamold:i was surprised by how quickly they found it and responded - pure chance, or ulterior motive? Discuss.

Dave

or how I did from a google alert?

Good point!

Cat

nei:or how I did from a google alert?

A google alert??

Dave

---

Dave

P.S. I feel obliged to point out, I am speaking from experience and my own personal views above - I am not an advisor, nor an expert.

Sad to say that this is not an isolated incident. I am currently considering how best to pursue a complaint against Laterooms for accepting (and confirming) a booking of mine for a hotel that had been closed for many months.

This led to me incurring some consequential losses - nothing major, but it is a shame that they will put us both to more costs and hassle rather than cough up the small amount of D&I compensation that would be justified in the circumstances.

They did initially try to argue that they were not responsible for the data held on their site - arguments about this aside, they did however confirm the booking to me, which is something I understand that they could be held responsible for.

You buy a ticket from the box office or over the phone to watch a movie at the cinema. The movie is not to your standards. What do you do? Exactly. I and many of my friends have used Laterooms and have no complaints. If i did i would take it up with the hotel management. Read the terms of use it may help. If a booking is confirmed and the hotel when you arrive dont like what they see and refuse entry some establishments have the right to refuse entry without reason who do you blame?Also please post full details and facts. I think the guys at laterooms do a wonderful job and provide an excellent service. (in my opinion)

I can completely understand what you must have gone through. Last year when we went to Rome, we were given a booking confirmation for an appartment by the most horrible internet site "LATEROOMS.COM", once we reached Rome, there was no sign of that appartment! when we asked some businesses around that area, they had not even heard of a similar name to what late rooms had given us the booking confirmation of! we didn't really bother too much with late roms, as when we did try and call them they put us on hold for quite a while (I did not want to waste even more time & money as were in Rome only for two days). We just booked a Hotel around that area, fortunately for us we had reached rome in the morning, otherewise I can't even imagine what could have happened if we had reached Rome late in the night and got stuck by trusting LATE ROOMS!!! What we were concerned about was our credit card, but, we thought we will deal with it once we were back in UK (we did write an email to late rooms explaining our plight that day, as we did not want to be charged). The response we got from them was quite shocking, they wrote to us as if they were doing a favour to us by not letting the appartment charge our credit card as we had not CANCELLED on time!!!! No apologies ..nothing!
What I would say is that ...yes, use this site at your own risk!!!!! And as it is very obvious.....late rooms spends more time going through such websites (as obvious from thier prompt response!) where they know that there will be complaints against them! Maybe they should utilise this time correcting the mistakes they have made by doind something for the customer...I doubt it very much if they have wasted even a second by contacting this poor customer and doing something for him/her!!!!!

Exactly! I have used late rooms this year and I must say their customer sevice is disgusting! I went to check in a Hotel in Glasgow, booked through Late Rooms.com, but,surprise surprise, the hotel did not have the booking, when we showed them our email confirmation, then they blamed Late rooms for not sending them the confirmation through. the worst thing was that they were fully booked, so could not give us a room. The hotel staff was helpful though and found us another hotel (although far away from where we wanted to be). But, when we came back home and complained to a useless supervisor of late rooms customer services, late rooms did not take ANY responsibility for this and yes...as some of you have written, started reading out the terms and conditions!

NEVER AGAIN!

I must point out that some of these comments written in favour of late rooms sound as if late rooms has got its own team to make fake money supermarket IDs and bombard this forum with favourable comments for late rooms (only a few sound genuine, the rest certainly sound as if they are coming from laterooms.com itself!!!)

And I agree that laterooms.com maybe should concentrate on dealing with the poor customer complaint (originator of the thread) rather then spending time on defending themselves! Have they bothered to contact this customer after he/she arrived back in England??? I am sure the answer is NO!