Hotel San Lorenzo - Review from Robert Huth

Dear Sirs, in order to protect other tourists against bad experiences with Hotel San Lorenzo, Calle Clavel 8, 28004 Madrid, Spain, which is offered and presented by Holidaycity, I feel forced to inform about the following: In November 2004 I made a reservation for me and 7 fellows with Hotel San Lorenzo for the period 14MAY05 - 17MAY05 (4 twin bed rooms). Unfortunately, I did it without the backing of a booking agent/service directly with the reservation service of the hotel. As requested I sent my Mastercard No. and the expiry date (JAN05) to the hotel, adding that the card will be replaced in JAN05 with a new one. On that basis I received their confirmation by email. Everything was fine and we made our bookings for the flight. Late evening of the 11th of May 2005, less than 3 days before the plain would take off, Hotel San Lorenzo sent me by email the message that they had "a problem with my credit card number because it is expired" and cancelled the reservation. A wonderful situation: Responsible for 8 people, 8 flights to and from Madrid booked and completely paid, no accommodation and 2 days remaining to find another one. First, I tried to clarify the missunderstanding and answered with a describtion of the history (see above), enclosing the correspondence and the expiry date of the new credit card. Next morning I got another email of Hotel San Lorenzo confirming the cancellation, allocating the responsibility completely to me and offering 3 telephone numbers I should contact. In order to get out of the trouble my boss allowed me to leave and with the help of my friends I was lucky. We found another hotel in Madrid, which, of course, was more expensive. I claimed the difference of 384 EUR to Hotel San Lorenzo, but got no reaction so far. If you are interested I would be happy to transmit the entire correspondence. Kind regards. Robert Huth An der Schmiede 5 50259 Pulheim Germany Phone 0049-160-96232255