"I booked a room in this hotel in Montreal for the weekend. Right a way I have a problem in the checking-in. The receptionist checks that everything it's really do go. But he needs a credit card with visa or MasterCard for the deposit in case something gets damage. When I only brought with me a debit MasterCard, because neither the book print or the website mentions this very important notice. They can't accept money from an ATM because of the pandemic.

How I left with no options, i don't live close by where I can just go home and get other card, and I can't just handle them the deposit money.

I called for the support of zenhotels.com and they asked me to wait for and email of something.

I'm currently awaiting for 2 hours now in the common area, anxious to know if the I actually get this solve.

I definitely wouldn't like to see they trying to give me a refund of the room and hoping I wouldn't mind to sleep in the street during a pandemic or making me pay more of another room.

Update: Just got a call saying that they talked to the hotel and they didn't got a solution.

2st Update: I was left with no options. Zenhotels.com didn't resolve the issue with the hotel I booked and their newest policy. Also zenhotels.com didn't get me where to stay overnight during a pandemic.
Therefore my only two real options are, either staying in the streets during the night in a city I don't know, where I see signs saying wash your hands, use protective mask in public all the time. Or with no help, to walk around looking for a hotel or motel that can take me in for the night.

3th Update: After walking to different hotels scattered around the downtown during the night on the 3th hotel after making my case I asked the receptionist if this issue was new. Her answer was that such as the inicial hotel I book with created this new policy after COVID-19 outbreak.

4th Update: After walking to 5 different hotels all-over downtown, I finally found one that accepts the payment to be done by debit, paying the room for the night (85$+taxes) and deposit of (100$).
Needless to say I expect to be fully refunded for what I had to pay to spend the night in safety, and maybe compensated for this issue that got drag for 6 hours and I had not help or solutions what so ever during a pandemic.

Definitely the worse experience I ever had booking hotels.

The one star I rate it still seems to me pretty generous."

"Zenhotels are scammers, I cancelled my refundable booking with them on the 26th March an still have not received my refund, they won't provide any reference number and keep trying to get me off the phone.

They are making up excuses and saying because of COVID19 it takes longer for the bank to proceed the transaction. I have checked with my bank and they are fully operational just Zenhotels did not process refund.

If you are looking for a hassle free booking just avoid them.

#Zenhotels"

"Refund rip-off, same as many other users.
3 bookings, £750, cancelled in April due to Covid 19.
Promised refund in "3 to 30 days". 8 weeks so far and no refund, despite much chasing, all I get it is fob-off emails saying"it is taking some time".
I have gone down the Section 75 route to claim the money back from my CC provider.
DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY. I suspect they will not be in business for much longer."

"If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

I am writing to express my sincere disappointment with my first (and will be only) experience with Zen Hotels. Due to the Corona Virus and being a frontline healthcare worker, my employer suspended travel outside the state.

Knowing I booked my reservation with a "no refund policy", I called the hotel I was staying at and expressed my concern and request to cancel the reservation. Calling Zen Hotel, they informed they were only canceling reservations in certain countries due to the corona virus, with the US not being one. I spoke with a representative, Danil, who requested I call the hotel with my request and if they agreed, they would refund my reservation.

After calling the hotel, they were more that willing to comply with my cancellation request due to the outbreak in public health concern. They kindly requested I call ZenHotel and have them call the directly, they stated they are unable to send an email with this confirmation information, as it was booked through a third party.

After calling Danil back, he stated he was unwilling to call the hotel and would send them an email to work on it and that I would be copied in the email. After not receiving an email, I called back support and spoke with Daniel again. He said the email was sent and would follow up with the results. After voicing my concern that the hotel requested a direct call, he refused. I requested to speak with a manager, this request was refused because his manager "was away". After asking a second time to speak with a manager, he said "they are on the phone with the hotel currently". I requested again to have Danil call the hotel directly as requested by hotel staff, again receiving a refusal. Throughout the conversation, the representative was rude and unwilling to act on behalf of the customer. After calling the hotel again, they again said they need to speak with ZenHotel directly.

By choosing ZenHotel, it should be expected that the company preforms the customer service rather than the customer. This representative's unwillingness to remedy the situation and formidable demeanor was very negative and I will never seek out using ZenHotel in the future.

This outbreak is a very concerning public health issue and I'm concerned this company is not willing to act on the behalf of the customer. Since the hotel was approving of the cancellation, I'm concerned about the integrity of this company. From this experience, I would avoid this company at all costs."

"SCAM, avoid unless you like being stranded and out of pocket. I wouldn’t be surprised if the positive reviews on here are fake.
I booked a hotel through this “business”, turned up to check in and was told that zenhotels had sold my booking to another company just days before the check in date (when I booked weeks in advance), not passing on my contact details. The second company then tried to make the reservation but there was no longer any room in the hotel. However as they didn’t hate my contact details they couldn’t even tell me! So I turned up to find that I was stranded, in London, late at night and as a young woman. Zenhotels was absolutely awful dealing with arranging alternative accommodation, hours later I decided to give up on them and book somewhere else. The only place with room was charging £150. I didn’t even ask for this to be reimbursed, just a refund of my original booking and STILL haven’t been refunded from 26TH NOVEMBER. They have also ignored my emails.i will be taking this to court and asking for a full reimbursement of the £150 if they do not refund my booking. DO NOT USE ZEN HOTELS."

"I booked a hotel outside the Miami airport through Zen Hotels. I had a confirmation from Zen Hotels and they confirmed again a few days before we left. Unfortunately, when we got the hotel they had no record of our reservation. I called Zen Hotels and they promptly answered and confirmed that I did have a reservation. They said they would call the hotel and get back to me. They called back after 5-10 minutes and apologized that there was an issue with my reservation. They said they would call the hotel to book a room now. This was disappointing because I had pre-paid for the room and knew that the hotel was overbooked so booking a room now was not going to be an option. After I informed them that the hotel was overbooked (which they would know if they had called the hotel like they said they would), they asked if I wanted them to find me an alternative. I said yes so they said they would call me back. I ended up calling over 30 hotels and found that everything was overbooked. Zen Hotels called back a couple of times but ultimately could not find me a hotel either. They said they would refund my money for the pre-paid hotel that they did not book plus and additional $50 dollars. Hopefully I see that money some time. Ultimately, Zen Hotels was responsive but they failed in their primary promise of providing a reservation that I pre-paid for. I would not recommend using them."

"Zenhotels dishonest bait and switch policy is beyond disappointing. Zenhotels is a dishonest, untrustworthy company.I didnt go to the hotel. I cancelled my reservation within 24 hours as Zenhotels said I was entitled to do. They then switched the allowed time to 12 hours. They also said they would let me know about a refund within 2 days and DIDNT GET BACK TO ME NOR DID THEY REFUND MY CANCELLATION. Beware of this fraud.
Sincerely, Carrie Wroot"

"

tl;dr: Zenhotels booked an unknown boutique hotel instead of the original one included in my reservation and refused to correct the situation with the original hotel. Don't trust google or a fancy looking website, this a small company is based out of Cyprus.

Longer Story:
I had a terrible experience with this company. My wife and I had originally booked a hotel in downtown Madrid (Hotel Preciados Preciados Street, 37) as part of an anniversary vacation with my wife. After a long flight from the US, we arrived early in the morning to drop off our bags and do an early check in if they had availability. After handing the associated paperwork and confirmation number, the Hotel could not locate my reservation. The hotel staff were kind enough to try and contact ZenHotels to try to resolve the matter. But after several minutes, they were still on the phone with ZenHotels and were finally told that ZenHotels would have to work with Expedia to resolve the issue and told us they would call back "shortly". Keep in mind, we had just traveled several hours to a different country and were without cell service waiting in the lobby with our bags and were dependent on ZenHotels to call the hotel back at an unspecified time. We continued to wait in the small hotel lobby for a phone call that came nearly an hour later.

A representative named, Gilyana Titarenko called me back and told me ZenHotels had made a mistake and booked a smaller boutique hotel across the street (The First One Boutique Hotel at Calle de Preciados, 44) and have arranged that we can stay at the mistakenly booked place instead of our original hotel. I was willing to consider the compromise, but I needed to review the new hotel to determine if it would be satisfactory. We had very little time to make this decision and weren't in a great position waiting in a hotel lobby borrowing Wifi. Sadly, after looking at the reviews online, there were only 9 reviews on google total vs. the nearly 800 positive reviews that we had researched for Hotel Preciados well ahead of time. ZenHotels tried to convince us that they were basically the same hotel, but they clearly had different reviews. After telling Gilyana that we were not going to consider the new hotel, they responded back with offer to upgrade free-of-charge, but even at that point, my confidence in this company handling the hotel arrangements were too low for me to continue.

In order to rectify the situation, I had requested if we could book the original hotel and for them to honor the original price that we had reserved. We had checked with the Hotel Preciados staff and there was availability and the price difference was less than 50 euros. I was told this was not possible and asked to speak with a ZenHotels manager and was told by Gilyana that managers do not typically speak directly with customers and that I would have to write a letter. What??? In what world would that be a viable option?

I've run into situations like these before with sites like Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline, and when they have messed up this badly, they're typically very accomodating to "make it right." Not this time.

At the end of hours trying to resolve my issue, I gave up and just requested a full refund. But, even that was hard to get as I was originally told it wouldn't be possible. But after threats to contact my credit card company they finally stated that they'd give me a full refund.

I still have not received a refund yet (was told it would be between 3-30 days?), but after requesting in writing the guarantee for a refund I received the following note:

We are pleased to inform that we have managed to cancel your booking #XXXXXX successfully free of charge. You will receive a full refund of your payment within 3 - 30 working days depending on your bank to the same card that you used for payment.

For any other assistance, do not hesitate to contact us.

Really hoping that the refund comes through soon, or I will be contacting my credit card company."

"Thank you very much. Very reasonable price and great deal
just spent 1 minute and get done."

"Cancelled my booking and didn't give me a refund. Finally gave me a voucher - instead of a refund (for cancelling on me on the day I was supposed to check-in!) And when I went to use it they only let me use half of the value of it. I complained to customer service and they said to cancel the booking (which voids the voucher!) Shocking! I hate this company and will never use them again. Whatvreipnof merchants. Hideous! Got nothing for my money and no refund"

"First call the hotel and ask for a room!
Don’t pay!!!!you never get money back "

"I have made a reservation through Zen Hotel a month prior to my reservation date for Ramada.
When I arrived at the hotel, the front desk informed me that the reservation never came through and the hotel was fully booked at the date.
I spent 4-5 hours on the phone back and forth with their Reservation Specialists but they only had offered me a room at Super 8 Motel which the quality of the room was terrible and was not even close to the standards of the Ramada hotel room I have booked. Since it was peak season, even Super 8 cost was high and ZenHotel refused to compensate the differences as obviously they have reserved the room on the last minute.
I had to wait outside on a rainy day with my family for 4~5 hours and was frustrated and disappointed about the quality of the reservation made by ZenHotels. Even through their "calculations," the differences is not even compensated in my bank account, which is obviously not the correct compensation.
Additionally, it took 1 and 1/2 hours just to check-in at Super8 because the Reservation Specialist kept making mistakes and even the front desk manager was frustrated at how unprofessional their Specialist was.
Also, they have been ignoring my emails and my demands for the rightful compensation (emailed them 3 times) and have not gotten a follow-up reply.
I am very disappointed at ZenHotels and how unprofessional their service was and does not make sense to just strand their customers on the streets for 4~5 hours on a rainy day (I have mentioned to quicken to process but kept on arguing how it was not their fault(????)).
I do not recommend anyone to use their service and I would rather pay a bit more to use a more secure and liable reservation site.
Worst service I have ever experienced and do not recommend anyone to use this site."

"I was planning the trip for my parents (they are not very good at using the Internet stuff but they want to travel too!) and it was super easy. I made a booking in 10 minutes, called zh's support to confirm my booking and that was it. Two steps and you can just relax. No problems during the trip so I cannot say much more."

"I would recommend getting the Care Package. They took care of everything before I arrived and I even got a room with premium view of the ocean. Thanks ZEN!"

"Hi. Want to leave a positive review in favor ZenHotels. I like your site and your wonderful support, which values the reputation of the site and helps in all matters and problems! I loved the room I rented for my family on vacation!"