SINGAPORE: It was a deal too good to be true – a deluxe room at the 5-star Marina Bay Sands (MBS) hotel for S$62.70 a night.
Joel Tan Jun Rong, 25, made a booking for the room at the hotel on Nov 28, intending to stay there with friends from the US for a week from Mar 31 to Apr 7 next year. He received a confirmation shortly after booking the room on the hotel’s website, reflecting a total price of just S$516.70, including taxes.
While the price of the room was even cheaper than many budget accommodation options in Singapore, Mr Tan said he assumed it was a promotion as he made the booking on Cyber Monday.
A week later, however, the hotel emailed him to say that there had been an error on its online booking page. It would not be able to proceed with the reservation at the rate he booked at.
If he agreed to pay the full price of S$450 per night, he could keep the reservation. As a “gesture of good will”, the hotel offered him S$100 off the final bill if he took this option. But if he failed to confirm the booking at the new price within seven days, his reservation would be considered cancelled and no charges would be made to his credit card.
Speaking to Channel NewsAsia on Tuesday (Dec 6), the project manager at a Web design firm said he intended to take the case to the Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE).
“I believe that the booking confirmation constitutes a contract between the hotel and the client,” he explained. “Even if it’s a mistake, MBS should own up to the mistake and honour the prices.”
Mr Tan said he had called MBS and told them he intended to dispute their failure to honour the booking price, but the hotel’s management had remained firm in its stance.
“I think it’s not right, consumers’ rights are being affected. For a big organisation to make a mistake and not honour the prices, I think it’s a bit ridiculous.”
WRONG RATES PROMOTED ONLINE BY DEAL SITES
Mr Tan was not the only one affected by the erroneous pricing on MBS’ website. On Tuesday, several people left one-star reviews on the hotel’s Facebook page, complaining of their bookings not being honoured at the wrongly stated room rate.
One of them, Mr Michael Zhong, said he waited several days after confirmation of the room reservation to book his flight tickets from Germany to Singapore. “You would expect that a non-refundable booking would not be touched after seven days. And if this really was an ‘erroneous fare’, you would expect a cancellation after 1-2 days, but not after a week,” he wrote in the review.
“Now I’m sitting on my non-refundable plane tickets to Singapore … Not to mention that we had to take days off from work to plan the trip.”
In a post on the page, a Facebook user Pendi shared a screenshot of the same email from MBS that Mr Tan received.
At least some of the customers affected knew that the room price was a mistake, with at least three online sites advertising the rate as a “mis-price”.
On holiday deal site Holiday Pirates, for example, a post on Nov 28 provided detailed instructions on how to take advantage of the special price for Mar 31 to Apr 7, the exact dates Mr Tan booked.
“This rate should be treated as an error price. These type of prices are extremely rare and we highly recommend you to ALWAYS wait until your reservation is confirmed before booking any additional products / flights for your holiday,” the website says in a disclaimer.
Likewise, Fly4Free, another site promoting the deal, noted the possibility of the hotel cancelling reservations due to the pricing error and advised potential holiday-goers to wait until their reservations were confirmed before booking any additional products for their vacations.
More than 130 comments on Holiday Pirates show that numerous people booked the room under the erroneous prices despite doubts that the hotel would honour the rate, and several posters expressed their disappointment after receiving the email from MBS revoking their reservations at the prices booked.
MBS INVESTIGATING SOURCE OF INCORRECT RATES
Responding to Channel NewsAsia’s queries, an MBS spokesperson pointed out that the hotel’s booking terms included a clause regarding incorrectly posted rates: “In the event you complete a booking based on a rate that has been incorrectly posted, the Hotel reserves the right to correct the rate or cancel the reservation at its discretion, and will contact you directly in order to do so.”
The spokesperson also clarified that the hotel had not cancelled the guests’ reservations, but had contacted the affected guests to extend the lowest rate available for their stays as well as a S$100 credit towards their final bill for their inconvenience.
“We are investigating the source of the incorrect rates,” the spokesperson added.
CASE also told Channel NewsAsia that if there was a genuine mistake in the posting of the pricing, the hotel would be likely to dispute the validity of the contract, if any.
As consumers had received confirmations of their bookings, CASE said they could attempt to negotiate with the hotel for an amicable resolution
“As a matter of good business practice, we would encourage the hotel to work towards an amicable resolution to this matter,” the consumer watchdog said. “Consumers may seek legal advice on the matter as well.”
