KayakReviews 321

I work as a concierge and marketer at Hotel Maison De Ville. This review is from a business perspective- They are the best, if not one of the best to deal with.

I have had nothing but headaches dealing with other hotel search engines, whether it was incorrect information or having to wait 2 months just to claim our Hotel as OUR hotel in their business listing.

Through Kayak.com not only were we able to claim our hotel through a quick (but secure) sign up process, but the management screen is so simplistic that I was able to update the outdated information and have it approved with new photos in less than a week. That's a ridiculous turnaround considering that for other sites I have to wait weeks if not months for approval.

There was also an error when people were trying to book us, it didn't give our phone number and incorrectly stated we had no rooms. I sent kayak.com an email and they had it fixed in mere HOURS. I can't recommend their site highly enough.

The site recommended I buy 2 one-way tickets from different carriers instead of a single roundtrip in order to save money. I bought the first ticket, but then when I went to buy the second ticket, the original price of $141.00 quoted on Kayak.com was actually $485.00 on Delta's website. Of course I couldn't cancel the one-way ticket I had just purchased.
I fly at least twice a month, locally and internationally, and I can say this is the worst travel site I've used (in the U.S., anyway). This site simply quotes the prices I can find at other websites on my own, and it doesn't even quote them accurately!

I was a big fan of Kayak, but I want to warn everyone about a recent experience that has changed my mind. Our family lost $1000 in savings because of a Kayak alert failure.

I set up a daily alert for specific outbound and return dates. The alerts only last for 10 days at a time (highly inconvenient if you plan trips any reasonable time in advance, such as searching for a flight a month or more ahead of time - e.g. Xmas, three months in our case). I had it running (with resets) for about six weeks and saw only minor fluctuations in price. However, with my most recently reset alert, it failed to come after the seventh day (the email on the seventh one said it will expire in "three more messages" = 3 more days). It resumed again on the 10th day (last day of that cycle).

When I went to reset the alert, I did a check on Kayak's "chart" to see past price fluctuations and noticed that there was a $300+ dip very recently. After reviewing all my alerts, it became obvious that it occurred during the time frame of the missing alerts (represents over a $1000 missed savings for our family). Also, that alert on the 10th day and all subsequent email alerts from the reset now have a new format (i. E. look and feel).

Like most people, I'm pretty busy these days so did not specifically notice that the emails were missing as they hit my general email along with hundreds of others on a daily basis. I usually just give them a quick look as they come in. What's the point of having an alert if I cannot rely on it, but instead need to specially monitor if it will come and then do a manual search myself if it doesn't? It seems likely, if not evident that Kayak were sloppy and screwed up in its transition to the new format, but fat chance getting them to admit so, nor, if they do, getting any meaningful consideration for it, given their terms of service. (I have contacted them and they are "looking into it" - my paraphrase).

So now I am signed up with five other services (not just one any more)... you can bet that my next booking will be on those ones - I may still use Kayak just to search a route and validate prices, but that's about it.

I give it two stars because it is a good site to validate prices, and because I have saved money in the past with alerts, but I highly recommend you have alerts set up with multiple services because of a lack of reliability with Kayak (and my fear that other services may be just as unreliable).

We placed reservations for the weekend in McGregor, IA and when we got to McGregor we found out that the hotel did not exist. We spent alot of time on hold to talk to an agent to get this situation resolved with no results. Then we had to cancel the reservation at a loss of one night that should have been spent on a night in McGregor, Iowa. We had to try to find a room with the events going on in the surrounding towns. We also tried to email them and got a response of a non-human was responding to our email. I do not recommend this site (Kayak-Travelocity) to anyone.

Horrible! I will never use this "Search" engine again. The android application was buggy and booked me through "getaroom.com" horrible as well, bottom feeders. Wrong day, wrong month. Called and was told too bad. Kayak allows these scamming third parties to be listed through their site, they know they are bad but continue to list them. Do not trust kayak or any of the "search" results. Go through the hotel, airline, call directly. Use them as a "search only" never book through them.

Booked a hotel with Kayak based on their ads. Very disappointed as to how they represent their site as searching for the best rates. Assume thet the good reviews are employees and relatives based on my experience. The room booked through Kayak $186.67 at the hotel $140.00 Room Tax on Kayak $20.77 at the hotel $16.65 ----- $50.79 to use Kayak to book a room the website is not what they say they are, stay away. Book it yourself or at least from a site that does what they say.

DO NOT USE KAYAK! They are a scam. They will use your credit info and keep charging you for reservations you never made. My bank even called them to tell them they are committing fraud and fought to get my money back. Their call centers are fraudulent. They are not in the United States but they pretend that they are and use American names to try and fool you but none of them understand English at all. It is impossible to communicate with them. STAY AWAY!

I was directed to an airline website from kayak to purchase a flight package. I submitted my ticket purchase on the airline website and a phishing note came up from the bank that issued my card requesting security info on my credit card. It is made to look like you have to fill out the form to complete the transaction so I did (stupid me) and the total came up as the original price listed on kayak without the additional charges I incurred for my tickets so I knew I had been phished. Kayak opens a new tab when they send you to the airline site. I would close down the kayak tab at that point or better yet, not use kayak.

I am a very pissed off customer booking with kayak has been the worst experience and I will NEVER BOOK HERE AGAIN I proceeded to call kayak to ask if a room at the Hilton could be RESERVED for september 1st for my fiancés birthday I clearly asked the lady NOT ONCE BUT THREE TIMES that I did not want to book it right now because I was waiting till payday and also asked her if there was a deposit needed upon arriving and she finally said that you had to pay the complete
Money right then and there after she had taken down ALL
Our information and I said no that is not what I want so I will NOT be booking this. She said is that all I can help you with I said yes and she said ok and hung up soon enough 225 dollars are taken out of my fiancés account. This is money we pay our bills with. I called your customer service and asked to talk to a supervisor and she said a manger is the highest position... Very unprofessional. No corporate number nothing. She said there's nothing we can do. Not even compensate for the inconvenience. I will be taking legal action. It is ridiculous that there isn't a corporate number I could reach either. I will NEVER recomend it to any of my friends or family ever again

DO NOT BOOK HOTEL ROOMS THROUGH KAYAK! We booked a room in Laughlin Nevada for one night and "upgraded" to the "Deluxe Tower" which is adults only and non-smoking. The room we were given was a dump - looked out over the trash cans, not in the Deluxe Tower and, it was a smoking room. We marched back down to the front desk where we were told that the rooms booked on a 3rd party site were not guaranteed and there was nothing they could (or would) do about it. We left and went to a Hilton 20 miles down the road. Guess it could have been worse. We could have booked and paid for a penthouse suite and ended up with this dumpy room...

I have used kayak.com several times to find great deals on flights and never had any problems. I used them a couple of weekends ago to book a hotel for my grandmother-in-law's funeral, and the experience was terrible. When we arrived at the hotel (which as a side note was terrible too), I showed the hotel my printed confirmation from kayak. It showed that we were booked in a standard double room. It said nothing about being smoking on the confirmation sheet. The hotel said that since a 3rd party had booked the room, they could not make any changes and that this very incident had happened several times before. They refused to book us in a non-smoking room, because those rooms were more expensive. They told me that the only way anything could change would be if I called kayak and had them change it. Fast forward to over an hour on the phone and over an hour waiting for a return call (which never came). Kayak refused to fix the problem and told me it was my fault for booking incorrectly. Even the fine print says it is a smoking or non-smoking room based on availability. There was a non-smoking room available! The people at kayak were rude and refused to do anything to fix the problem and denied that it was wrong that it never said it was a smoking room. Another important side note here... other rooms on the website CLEARLY were marked smoking rooms/suits. So, wouldn't any normal person assume if it didn't say anything it would be non-smoking? Anyway, we were late for family gatherings related to the funeral, so I left it with them by saying I would be sure to tell everyone I know what a sham this whole thing was, and NOT to use their services in the future. Oh, and I had to pay the upcharge for a non-smoking room.

I used them twice to book a hotel. Twice the hotel did not have a clue about a reservation when I showed up and each time it took about an hour to reach somebody at kayak.com (in India) and to get a confirmation.
A company that contiunuously manages to $#*! up my travel is not going to get any business from me any more and as an executive in a rather large organization, I will make sure that kayak.com will get banned from the list of approved travel agancies.