Sep 14, 2019 05:43 AM
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I am here to share the worst experience of life we faced trying to stay at Windflower. In spite of the overrated hype created by this so-called “Elite” hospitality group, the ground reality this is finally a group of white collared thugs who have zero ethics and integrity. Right from their front office manager to their General Manager of Reservations, all are shameless liars, who keep changing their word every day after making false commitments.
We have been staying at various resorts & five stars properties and most of them utmost take 50% advance, but never a whole 100% advance for stay as well as food.
Well, what happens if you trust a hotel group with your hard-earned money going by its so-called “brand value” and pay 100% advance? Please read below to learn for yourself.
Even though a steep price of Rs. 65, 000, we had booked 2 rooms at Windflower Pondicherry for 3 nights in Nov last year, hoping to have a great family holiday.
Unfortunately, there was a prediction that Cyclone Gaja will hit Pondicherry & TN on 16th Nov, which was the prior day of our check-in. Entire Pondicherry was put on red alert, people were advised not to venture near the sea and public holidays announced. Almost all the major newspapers carried this news on 15th & 16th Nov, the weather office had predicted heavy downpour & thunderstorms for next 3 days. As we had to travel from Bangalore on the 16th Nov, there was a clear risk for us to travel with women & children to a place that has been put on red alert by the local government and no prudent person would go for a vacation at beach resort at such a time. Also, some of the roads en route to Pondicherry were blocked because of fallen trees. Soon after we called the Windflower’s Bangalore reservations office on the same day and informed one Ms. Mayuri in advance about the cancellation and our inability to make the trip.
Ms. Mayuri initially agreed for a full refund, but later told that there is a mandatory 10% retention after our call was transferred to her manager one Mr. Nixon. Since we couldn’t convince him we agreed for the 10% deduction. However, to our utter shock, the next day both Ms. Mayuri & Mr. Nixon changed their commitment stating that we had never informed them about the cancellation and as such, they will have a 100% retention of the booking amount. This was the second change in stand, that came as a rude shock to us! When reminded about their commitment and requested for the refund, they continue to lie stating we had not informed them of cancellation the previous day. Mr. Nixon even told that “you are not going to die if you travel during cyclone”.
Subsequently, we contacted their GM - Reservations Mr. Rajesh T(ph – 9900613333) and appraised him about the situation. He then agreed to provide us a stay of 3 nights at same property on any alternate days of our choice before March 2019(except New year eve). When we called him after 2 days with our alternate dates, once again to our utter surprise and dismay we found that even this commitment of the so-called "General Manager" of Reservations was broken when Mr. Rajesh stated that he can only offer a 50% discount on our next stay. When we tried to remind him of his own commitment, Mr. Rajesh lied saying no such thing was told, even after we sent him the recording of his own commitment. This was the third change in stand! When we said we will take legal action, Mr. Rajesh threatened he had strong political connections and started avoiding us
We then had to follow up with dozens of calls and emails to get back our own hard-earned money. Even connecting to their MD didn’t help, because he was no different from the rest of his company and blatantly lied saying that no such commitments were made by his staff.
Finally, as the Hindi saying goes “laaton ke bhoot baato se nahi mante”, the fear of Police and legal action is what forced these buffoons to finally budge. We warned them that if they didn’t refund our money after the basic 10% deduction as originally agreed by their staff all the way from receptionist Mayuri to their GM-Reservations Rajesh T, we will indeed file a cheating & harassment case with the Police. Finally, they budged and we got our hard-earned money back. Well, this was after a torturous wait and harassment spanning over 4 months.
I then realized that Windflower has been doing this with multiple customers, there have been cases of genuine customers who couldn’t make it to a reservation because they met with an accident or some one was hospitalized. Appears Windflower makes a good chunk of its money just by way of this atrocious “100% Advance” scandal!
