TLDR: Property refused to provide room to my elderly parents and forced them to look for alternate accommodation at 10 pm on a winter night. This, after full payment made in advance as directed and confirming the booking through phone, email and text messages.
I booked this hotel for my parent's one night stay in Jan'19 at Bhopal. I was flying in to Bhopal and they were planning to receive me at airport before continuing our trip. Even though the reviews were already quite bad for this hotel, I chose to book it because of its location very close to Bhopal airport.
I booked one room at this hotel through one of the major travel sites. As per process, my booking was confirmed but I needed to make a pre-payment and this was directly handled by the property. Once I received the email prompting for advance payment, I made the payment and received confirmation through mail and text. The confirmation messaged also included a phone number as point of contact to property. My father called this number to confirm the booking and informed about their arrival time before starting their travel. They ensured him that booking is confirmed and acknowledged receipt of full payment.
My parents reached the hotel after a 6 hours drive at around 9 pm on Jan 25’ 2019. Upon arriving, the hotel refused to give them a room saying that we had no booking at the hotel. The front desk officer behaved in the most unprofessional and rude manner specially considering that he was dealing with elderly guests. My father showed him the email for booking and payment confirmation. The front desk still refused to accept that payment has been made. My father called the contact person with whom he spoke earlier and he again confirmed that payment is made and that he will look into the matter, but nothing happened. After one hour of struggle, and even after offered to make the payment again, the hotel informed that there is no room available. My father suspected that they have fully booked the place for some wedding function and that’s why turning away guests who have prior bookings. Finally we gave up and booked another hotel at 10 pm in the night.
I have made many online hotel reservations over the years in both India and abroad and this was, by far, one of the worst and most unprofessional travel experience I have had. All thanks to the mismanagement and horrible customer service practices at Capital O 2642 Golden Lakes Hotel.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC