08.04.2013

Beware Bauma hotel reservations

We have heard that a US based travel company that mailed Bauma exhibitors offering to book hotel rooms for them, may be scam.

The company iTravel of Las Vegas, Nevada emailed exhibiting companies last year offering availability and reasonable rates – by Bauma standards - for hotels such as the Hilton.
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If you booked with this company you may want to check wiht the hotel

We know of at least one company that booked with them, paying in advance for a large block of rooms for the duration of the show. Everything seemed fine, even when the booking was amended. They transferred the funds aroud six months ago and had no problem corresponding with iTravel or getting responses. However when attempting to gain the final hard copy reservation forms last week they received the following email:

“Hello xxxxxx,
I deeply apologize for the difficulties that have arisen these last few days with the bookings for your block at the Hilton Hotel Munich Germany. Our vendor just informed us that the hotel has demanded full payment for their block and refuses to back down on the issue. This would be fine if the block only consisted of those companies who booked with iTravel and paid upfront in full; however, the block is extremely larger than that and as a result, would require an additional payment of just over $500,000 USD. Since the hotel is refusing to back down and our vendor can not pay the entire balance upfront the hotel is releasing the rooms back into their inventory for general sale. At this time we encourage you to contact the hotel directly to secure your room block and we will begin the process of procuring your refund for the monies entrusted to us.”

“Once again, we sincerely apologize for the huge inconvenience this is causing your company and we will be here to assist you in any way necessary. Below is the contact number for the hotel in order for you to secure your reservations directly.”

We have checked the company website and it looks professional and it has continued to correspond with company- so it might be that they do in fact get their money back? The fact is though that had they not double checked with the hotel, they would have arrived in Munich next week and found that they had no rooms!

iTravel never volunteered the information.

If you have booked through iTravel we would strongly suggest that you double check your reservation before travelling.