Terrible service from Redtag.ca

[madryn_m]

My husband is in the Canadian Military, and is currently on deployment in Sudan. I was able to coordinate my vacation to match up with his leave, and we planned a trip to Ireland and Scotland. I booked our Scotland hotel through an online Mississauga based company called redtag.ca. I received a confirmation number, an outline of how I'd be charged, and two days after getting the confirmation, my credit card was charged in full.

I contacted the hotel directly a few days before my trip to confirm that I was getting a double bed instead of two twin beds, and the day I left, was told by the hotel that I didn't have a reservation with them. I emailed redtag.ca to get them to figure out what happened and get me a new booking, and never heard anything from them. I spent five days on my vacation emailing them several times a day, never hearing anything back from them.

Luckily, the day before we were supposed to check in, my husband managed to find us a hotel, but we ended up spending more on the room than we wanted to, since it was on about 18 hours notice.

When I got back to Canada, I called redtag.ca to find out what happened and to get a refund. After being on hold for twenty minutes and explaining the situation to a representative, I was put through to Laura at customer service. She informed me that since it was a hotel only booking, it was contracted out to an American company called Travel Now, and that my problem was with them. She was at least helpful in contacting them to sort it out. Travel Now is also claiming that they put through the request and that the problem is with the hotel. After three hours on the phone, I finally got someone to assure me that my credit card would be refunded.

I was never offered any compensation for the extra money I ended up spending on the hotel that we had to find ourselves, or for being ignored for five days. After thinking about it, I emailed Laura, the customer service rep, and said that I felt that my time effort and stress about the situation would very easily be appeased by a gift card for their company, since my husband and I do a lot of travelling, and plan on visiting friends when he gets home.

Instead of being compensated, I ended up with a form letter email stating a complaint number. This was two weeks ago. I have twice emailed the address that sent me the complaint file number, and have never heard anything, and on top of that, my credit card has never been reimbursed.

So, I called Laura at customer service today to ask who was handing my file and how it was proceeding, and to ask where my refund was, and was basically told that since my booking was supposed to be with their third party provider, my issue was with them and to take it up with them. So, I had to call a 1 800 number in the US and get a rep to go through my file all over again only to be reassured that my money would merely be refunded. Once again, no one offered me any compensation.

I'm so angry and frustrated I don't know what to do. I'm giving it until next week to see if my credit card is refunded, but Laura kept telling me that it would take a few weeks for my complaint to be processed. I think that they think they can just ignore me and I'll go away.

I don't really like playing the victim, but this was more than the average vacation for my husband and me. I hadn't seen him in five months, and as you can imagine, the work he is doing in Sudan is quite stressful. This trip was very important for the both of us, and we spent five days of it stressing about being homeless and ignored by a company we trusted. Redtag.ca is supposed to be a Canadian company, and there is absolutely no indication on their website that I would actually be dealing with a US company. Laura even had the gall today to say that this isn't the first time she's received complaints about Travel Now, yet still not much of an offer of apology or compensation.

[Natalka]

Aw, that's too bad you had problems.

Some reviews of the co. - others have had problems
On BBB site (scroll down)
http://www.bbb.org/kitchener/busines...uga-on-1133538

http://www.flyfromcanada.com/problems-with-redtag.html

[Poirot]

That's terrible.Hope you get your money back soon.I think it's better to deal with a travel agent.My Mum and Dad have gone on trips to Scotland and one to Europe part of the trips have been bus tours and part of trips visiting relatives.They have had no problems dealing with a travel agent.If you do have problems at least you can get the travel agent on the phone or see them in person.

[DaveP]

I'll know not to deal with this company in the future.

[EuropeanPenguin]

Call your credit card company and tell them this was an unauthorized payment since you did not get the service you paid for... they should credit you the amount . Best of luck.

[Sally888]

DID you ever get refunded?

[nathanr]

(I know, I'm replying to an old thread - did you ever get refunded??)

I've had issues with Red Tag as well. Without getting into the specifics, I took my complaint all the way up to one of the company owners (because nobody was willing to hear me out) and I was basically told to buzz off. They were very snarky and rude all the way from the CSR to the "co-owner". They are not willing to put forth that extra effort for good customer service. Even a BBB report accomplished nothing, the supervisor I previously spoke with answered it (I would have preferred a neutral party within the company to answer those things).

They seem to have no empathy or understanding for the customer. (The former isn't a requirement but the latter helps).

IMO sometimes it's not worth dealing with human beings, so mostly I reserve everything online myself. That's what I've learned from that experience - I don't trust travel agencies to do anything right.

[madryn_m]

I eventually was sent a voucher for $50 for hotels.com (again, not actually the site I used). I never ended up using it because it was set up so that I had to pay for my hotel first, and then send in the voucher to them with all the details of my trip on the hopes that it was with one of their "approved" hotels. Just absolutely, gobsmackingly terrible service.