I've never used that company but have booked through Med Hotels, Alpha Rooms and Lowcost Beds, all of which have been quite OK. 72 hours does seem to be cutting it a bit fine, as it doesn't give you much time to sort things out if there is a problem. Unless someone who has used them can give you some reassurance I would be a bit wary.

I've used Octopus Travel and Alpha Rooms and have never had a problem. They email you your travel voucher and confirmation within 24 hours of booking, sometimes within an hour. I'd be nervous booking through a company if they only confirm things 72 hours before you travel. Imagine if they contacted you to say they can't honour your booking 3 days before your flight leaves. I'd be quite nervous booking with these if thats their terms personally. I'd much rather book with somene who confirms things when you book to be on the safe side.

Just my opinion,

Darren

i know,when we booked a hotel,through expedia,the hotel only recieved our details,a couple of days,before we arrived,even though we booked 8 months in advance.
our room was confirmed,at the time of booking,but i know,our personal details,wasn't on the hotels data,as i phoned them up,to upgrade the room,& they told me,to phone up,a couple of days beforehand,as we were not on the system yet,this was about 10 days,prior to arrival.
everything was fine,no problem,so if this is what you mean,then i wouldn't worry,but maybe it would be better,to use a site,that people have used & were happy with.
tracy

I previously posted about this company shortly after booking a hotel through them and just wanted to know if anyone had any experiences - good or bad - as I was a little concerned that they only provide the customer details to the hotel 72 hours before the date of arrival.

Well, having just returned from my 'jollies' I can reassure anyone with similar concerns that they are unfounded. There were absolutely no problems, my details had been lodged with reception and the whole 'booking in' process went like clockwork - in fact, it probably took us less time than when we have previously gone through a Tour Operator!

Thanks to those of you who originally responded to my initial concerns - you managed to allay some of my early fears. Happy holidays!

I used this company last year at that time called FindSpainRooms. I booked a hotel Barcelona. Confirmed and an email sent to me. I always like to have a telephone no and email address for the hotel I have booked. Initially they told me they didn't have this as they were a call centre. This was on a Sunday but on Monday I got the info I needed.

Called the hotel and they had a booking in my name. I have booked the same hotel with them for 1 night in October 2 rooms for single occupancy. Again I have confirmed the booking with the hotel and put in request for a specific sort of room.

To date no problems and I am not concerned about using this company. Their rate for the hotel was better than any of the others.

Sue

Had a very bad experience with Roomsnet. This happend to us in Ibiza 2 weeks ago when we arrived we were told that our room had not been paid, even though the booking had been paid in full and we had a printed voucher to say so.

They were totally useless in trying to sort it out. It ruined the first 4 days of our holiday and we also had to pay again. We thank the hotel for their patience whilst we tried to sort it out. Roomsnet emergency support were no support at all !!!. It cost us a load of money in phone calls. They tried to blame the agent in Spain, the middleman, for not paying the hotel. We did get a refund.

This has also happend to a friend of ours in April and another in August. The story is "your room has been cancelled" the day before arrival or "your room has not been paid for" . I am aware that many others have had the very same problem.

Up until this year we have not had a problem with Roomsnet but be rest assured we will never use them again
Mark

I found this snippit from another site :

EDIT: Sorry, but for copyright reasons, material from other websites may not be reproduced.
David HT Mod

PLEASE BEWARE OF THIS COMPANY!.....I booked accommodation through them in December for August this year only to find that on arrival the accommodation had been cancelled as they had not paid the agent. There is no help on there 24hr help line or any other phone number, the only way of communication is via email and then every reply is from a different person. There registered office in London does not exsist. I am still fighting for a £443 refund. I email them everyday demanding action and the reply is always the same..."due to technical problems" or "your details have been passed to our finance dept".....yeah! right. PLEASE BE VERY CAREFUL BEFORE YOU PART WITH YOUR MONEY WITH THIS "COMPANY"

I booked with Roomsnet way back last October 08 for an apartment in Benidorm, for 8th sept to 17th, paid the deposit, then the balance in July09, picked the key up from an office in Benidorm and paid my 100euro deposit, 4 hours later the girl from the office calls to the apt and tells me I have to pay for the room up front as they had not recd payment, not only that, they were asking for £100 more than my booking cost, like the previous poster mark-dubia, it was useless trying to sort it out, had many replies from different people, they have also promised me a refund, but I'm not holding my breath, I have also done some research on the web since I came home on Thurs, seems that there are many people in dispute with them, apparently trading standards are investigating

We have now received a full refund from Roomsnet. It does seem thought hat most of the problems are with bookings in Spain. According to Roomsnet they have had issue with their Spanish agents, but then they could just be saying that. Roomsnet did also refund our overseas call charges. In this current financial climate it is difficult to ascertain as to whether it is Roomsnet having problems or if it is genuinely the agents that they use in mainland Spain.

Persevere is all I can say. Keep us informed

Like others i have experienced difficulties with Roomsnet.com,roomsbooked, rooms paid for in full, checked confirmation with hotel, booking cancelled by agent in Barcelona, Costavision as he has not been paid. I have informed the police today 22.09.09 as had no response from Roomsnet.com.
The company was formed in Colombo,Sri Lanka and has a Lawyer as there lead director. I have also informed the Times Travel section as they are still taking bookings and asking for payment.
BE WARNED DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY Finally i have advised the Revenue and Customs investigation unit as well as Consumer Focus (trading Standards office )

I used this company earlier this year for a holiday for 26 people to the Costa Del Sol in June, a nightmare to begin with but all came good in the end thankfully.

Having done lots of research I booked us into the hotel of our choice through Xscapewithus and paid a deposit, however they went bust prior to us taking the holiday, my CC company refunded my deposit only this week but at least I got that back. I then had to start to trawl around to book the hotel with someone else and the best price came via RoomsNet. I succesfully re-booked with them and paid in full 8 weeks before travel. 3 days before our arrival date I received a nonchalant email from Roomsnet to advise that the hotel was overbooked and our party of 26 had been "bumped" from the hotel and they were offering us an alternative in another resort

I was dismayed and very upset, if your organising a holiday for 2 then the odds are that you'll be able to find something else pretty easily but not when you need 13 rooms ! I spent that evening emailing Roomsnet back & forth to advise I wasn't taking the alternative hotel and I then gave them 2 other hotels that we'd be happy to stay in in our original resort. They did say that if we'd take their hotel up that they'd stand the cost of upgrading us from B&B to HB.....not really the point as we were only there for 4 days and intended to eat out....plus the reviews for this hotel were pretty poor.

I cc'd the Sri Lankan owner of Roomsnet on all my emails and eventually (following evening) I received a phone call offering us one of the hotels I'd suggested. All back on track then....so I thought. Until the night before travel I received another phone call early evening to say that hotel couldn't now accommodate us

Finally, we were sorted out and our second choice hotel was available, we'd looked at this place originally but it was £70pp more than where we eventually decided on and despite the new hotel being a higher star property with a better location, to apologise for the inconvenience Roomsnet stood the 26 x £70 difference themselves, they explained it was all down to issues with their Spanish supplier. You can imagine until we actually checked in and were accepted my nerves were jangling. But to be fair all good in the end, I just could have done without the hassle and the stress so close to the holiday.

I noticed they've upgraded their website recently, prior to that it was a very amateur set up and certainly made me think twice about using them. The new website is better and whilst Roomsnet are certainly not the cheapest room consolidator they do occasionally have some good deals on certain properties. I would use them again.....but with caution and the price would have to be pretty outstanding

I booked (and paid!) with roomsnet on 2nd May for a one-night stay at a hotel in Ibiza on 11th September. On arrival at the hotel I was told that the booking had been cancelled by the Spanish agent in August, due to non-payment by roomsnet. Calls to the emergency 24/7 number in the UK produced no response, either on the night or subsequently. We had to pay the hotel the posted rate (128 euros) for our night's stay. The website has(had?) a "Chat live with an agent" facility, but that just cost me 3 euros in an internet cafe while being told for 45 minutes!) that I was number one in the queue and would be attended to momentarily. I sent an email on the 13th September threatening to post a truthful and accurate account of my experiences to date, and received a response two days later giving a highly dubious story about a fault with a payment server and subsequent difficulties in identifying which hotel had been paid and which remained unpaid. On our return home I found an answerphone message dated Friday 25th September from a representative of Roomsnet, apologising for the problems and promising a refund inj three weeks. The three weeks expires today, and guess what? As at 2.45 p.m., my credit card account, which I've just accessed online, shows no refund from Roomsnet. Hence this post. This will be re-posted everywhere I can think of.

Harry Keane

Roomsnet International Special Announcement

Roomsnet International wishes to announce to all our valued members that the problems which led to certain bookings being canceled by some suppliers last year have been resolved. We would like to reassure all our members that all current and future bookings are completely secure and guaranteed. We deeply regret the inconvenience caused to some of our members last year. We have resolved over 96% of the cancellations that were disrupted in 2009 due to circumstances beyond our control arising as a result of the severe economic downturn experienced worldwide and are working with our suppliers and credit card companies to resolve the outstanding cases expeditiously.

We are continuously improving the Roomsnet.com site, features and member services based on your feedback and would like to thank all our members for their long standing support and look forward to serving you again in the future.

I wrote formally to my credit card issuer and supplied documentation to prove that RoomsNet had not honoured my booking. After a very short time they credited my account with the amount I had paid. In the meantime, all I got from RoomsNet was a series of emails asking me to supply my credit card details again so they could look into my case and process a refund - there was no way I was going to give them that! Like a number of others, I reported the issue to Trading Standards and posted to a number of forums.

I would never use them again, despite their recent post. Once bitten, twice shy!

I had a similar experience in September 2009, where I and my girlfriend booked a holiday through Roomsnet in Spain. The offer was extremely great, 7nights full board in a 4 star hotel at a fantastic price.

When we got to the hotel, we had the shock of our lives when the receptionist informed us that the booking had been cancelled due to Roomsnet not paying the agent in Spain. We tried calling their help and support lines, emailing them etc but did not manage to get through to them. Luckily the hotel had a room but we had to pay directly and at a higher price that what we initially bargained for.

We contacted our credit card issuer immediately and spent the first day of our so called holiday searching on forums and finally found an email address on a forum that we used to get in contact with Roomsnet and got a response a day after. Through their response they asked for the details so that verify things. Since we had informed our our bank of the case, we provided them with the booking details only and told them that through the booking they will have everything they need in order to refund us our money. We received a reply from them about 24hrs after every time we sent an email, each time from a different person but at least we got a reply. Each time they informed us that we will be refunded as they were dealing with the case and apologised for the inconvenience. It was not what we wanted, we wanted our hard earned cash back. Finally after the fourth day they informed us that they will refund the money within the next following 15days so we decided to enjoy the holiday and wait.

What may have really helped us was the management of the hotel, as we asked them if they could write a letter of proof of what the situation was should the bank need it. The hotel management was more than happy to do so and provided us with a proof on their letterhead signed by the manager of the hotel. As soon as we returned from the holiday we provided the bank where our credit card was issued with all the evidence and proof and email contacts and the bank advised us to wait and give them a chance to refund us.

On the 15th day we got in touch with Roomsnet again and we received a reply informing us that it may take up to another 15days. We were obviously not happy with the situation so we insisted with them that the money was of a big issue to us and we couldn't wait for another 15days and we would have to take action with the bank. But we did this not in a threatening way, but in a manner that we needed the money immediately and the bank was ready to refund the money and take action themselves. We also scanned and sent them the proof we were supplying the bank, including the letter from the hotel explaining our case. We once again received a reply, this time within a few hours that our money will be refunded within the following 2 days, so we personally decided to wait. The next day we received a notification from Roomsnet that they have 'given priority to our case' and successfully refunded the money. We checked our account and indeed they did refund the money.

Apparently they have been refunding everyone who have experienced this horror, but after some time. Luckily we got our money back after 24days but I think it was mainly due to the letter we got from the hotel an idea that somehow came to me at that time and it's a good job it did.

I really wish I could have confidence in using Roomsnet again, after all I had booked with them the previous year (2008) and had no problems whatsoever. This could have been a dull period for them and from what I've been reading they seem to now be back on track. Hopefully I will see positive comments about them so that I can build up the confidence again to book a deal through them once more.

A tip I now give anyone is the following:
The most important thing is to look up the online company before booking a holiday to make sure they are what they say they are and to make sure no one is complaining about the. Make sure they accept CREDIT CARD or even better PAYPAL. Also with thanks to the experience we had, we have now opened a special safe account just for online purchases using credit card that protects us against fraud or identity theft. Find out if your bank can offer this and if they do it is good advice to go that one extra step to protect yourself.

I hoped I helped.