Feb 06, 2019 03:01 PM
3437 Views
Harrowing experience with an irresponsible staff at Gateway Rooms - a shabby hotel opposite Perambur Railway Station in Chennai. We wanted to stay near Kolathur in Chennai and this seemed to look like a decent hotel to stay. about 4 km from Kolathur. We made an advance booking through Yatra.com(redirected by Trivago) and got confirmation for a Delux a/c room with free Wifi and complimentary breakfast for a family of three(2 adults and 1 child).
After waking up at 3:30 am to take the early morning train to Chennai, we traveled 6 hours to reach Chennai and then struggled to get a cab(no systematic service is available for an app or pre-paid taxis at Chennai Central). We reached Gateway Rooms at Perambur from Chennai Central on Friday, 25th January around 12:30 pm.
It was a shoddy looking hotel with an uncourteous man at the front office. I gave him my booking voucher; he checked his system and told me in Tamil that there was no such reservation. Even after giving him the hotel confirmation number and explaining to him in broken Tamil(as he would not understand any other language), he blatantly refused to acknowledge the reservation that was made paying the full amount for 2 nights/3 days. His reasoning was that Yatra has booked and given a confirmation, but it is not reflecting on his reservation system and he has no intimation. We called Yatra.com customer care and got a chance to speak to one executive after half an hour of failed attempts. The Yatra executive confirmed the booking and the hotel staff refused to acknowledge. We were in a fix. When the Yatra executive told him to check his email, he said he doesn't check emails and no bookings are done through emails for Gateway Rooms. He also informed us that the Delux room that we booked through Yatra has been allotted to someone else and there is only one Delux room in that hotel. When we insisted on checking the email, he logged in and the Yatra booking confirmation voucher was there in his Inbox.
These guys do not check their email and run a hotel business! We then went around to check the other rooms and they were very dingy and untidy with no ventilation. Maybe God didn't want us to stay in this hotel. So, we explained the whole episode to Yatra customer care executive and told him to cancel the booking with a full refund as the fault wasn't ours. They escalated the matter and sent us an email that refund will be given, which is yet to be credited into our account.
This hotel is not for the dignified. They better get some responsible people to manage the front office and reservations who can understand and speak at-least English or Hindi apart from their local native language. I would never recommend anyone to stay or even visit this hotel.
