Woman pays for room in Kyoto on Agoda, nearly left stranded as hotel has no record of her booking

It is one of travellers' worst fears.

A woman booked a hotel room in Kyoto using the travel platform Agoda, but when she was in Japan, she was surprised to learn that the hotel had no record of her booking.

Stomper Yuen said she was nearly left stranded with no place to stay and has been trying to get a refund from Agoda.

She had made the booking on Oct 4, paying $529.12 for two nights at the Double Tree by Hilton Kyoto Higashiyama from Oct 30 to Nov 1.

Before going to Kyoto, the Stomper was in Tokyo.

On Oct 29, she wanted to send her luggage to Kyoto and found out the hotel had not received her booking from Agoda.

"The hotel refused to take the luggage transfer since I do not have a record there," said the Stomper.

"The hotel staff at Double Tree used my Agoda booking reference number, my email address and handphone number to match a record with their system and could not find a matching record.

"I tried to contact Agoda immediately, but their live chat was not functioning."

So she made another booking at the same hotel using Booking.com to get her luggage transferred there.

View more screenshots of her chat with the hotel in the gallery.

"I contacted Agoda again. I explained to them the scenario and I asked them for free cancellation," said the Stomper.

"They told me that their hotel partner had ensured them that the booking was valid.

"When I reached Double Tree in Kyoto on Oct 30, the front desk confirmed that they had zero records of the Agoda booking. Therefore, I proceeded to pay for the booking made under Booking.com using my credit card."

She kept contacting Agoda and on Nov 1, was informed the hotel refused to do a refund.

"I tried to explain to them the whole situation again and expressed my unhappiness that I have to bear responsibility for a mistake that was not made by me. They refused to acknowledge their mistake and proceeded to berate me for miscommunicating with the hotel," said the Stomper.

"When they told me the booking reference to which the hotel informed them of the stay, I realised that it was the booking that I made under Booking.com. I explained to them again. They told me that this was also under them and both the original booking with Agoda and the new booking with Booking.com belonged to the same booking.

"I was very irritated by then because both bookings were made by me. Obviously, they belonged to the same person.

"In fact, through the conversation with Agoda, I realised that they kept claiming that the Booking.com booking belonged to them. They did not mention anything about the original one with Agoda.

"They refused to refund me as a result because the hotel did not acknowledge the missing booking. I do not fault the hotel. It is Agoda's problem.

"All I wanted was responsibility and accountability from Agoda, not persistently trying to make me look like a clown."

View more screenshots of her chat with Agoda in the gallery.

Stomp has contacted Agoda for more info.

Both Agoda and Booking.com are subsidiaries of Booking Holdings.

Update on Nov 22:

After the article was published, the Stomper received her refund.