Cleartrip cancels bookings for no reason

I booked a hotel in Bangalore with the “Pay at Hotel” option on Cleartrip last Sunday for Thursday and Friday.

I got one text message saying that I needed to send them some code to confirm 2 days after I had already done a mobile verification code thingy and it said it was confirmed. I tried to reply, but that failed twice, so I assumed it was fine.

Now, I’m leaving in 48hrs, and this is the mail I get:

Hi Jacob,We tried a lot to get in touch with you whole day on Mon, 9 Jun 2014. Unfortunately, we did not get any response from you.
As a result, as per the Cleartrip [email protected] policy, we had to cancel your booking for 2 nights at ……., Bangalore….
We’re really sorry about this..

Um… isn’t a booking in the book? You tried “A lot to get in touch… whole day?”

This is rediculous. What’s the point of having a booking on the site if you will just cancel it. What if I was away on vacation? You guys suck.

Originally published at http://www.jacobsingh.name on June 10, 2014.