Protea Hotels
Reviews and Complaints

I made a booking at the Protea Balalika in Sandton for a trip in October, because of the special rate the deposit was the full bill of $1976.57. The booking was done through Booking.com and was fine until I discovered the charge was processed twice on my card. The hotel did not pick this up or know until I informed them - both charges processed on 27 June.

I advised the hotel and was told they would reverse the charge but did so $105.08 short, I queried this and was told by Maria Costa and her revenue manager Ohad Cohen on 11 July the shortfall was due to the exchange rate and it was my fault so my problem.
I would never have done this intentionally but the arrogance and lack of respect from these people make me want to warn people away from this hotel group

I'm Clarence Azuelo with confirmation number [protected] staying in Protea Hotel by Marriott Johannesburg Parktonian All-Suite.We took a red bus city tour April 20, 2017, around 1745H we arrived in constitution hill then we called the hotel 1810H using the number of guard of constitutional hill because we didn't yet purchase a sim card here in Johannesburg, one staff a female answered my call she said "the shuttle will pick you up there after 5 minutes after the driver will take some client in the Rosebank", after that around 1830H still no one fetch us, and we kept calling the hotel no one answer, one Uber driver had client in that area we are being saved and arrived in the hotel safe around 1900H. We came in the manager, delivered our complaints, were not satisfied their explanations and how the manager managed our bad situation, Johannesburg is not a safe area for us, we counting on that time on the hotel service, if no Uber driver came there what will happen to us? if no guards with us? This is alarming situation regarding with your service and for the safety of your client.

I would like to ask a refund regarding this issue, i wanted to check out and checked in other hotel but we cant its a waste of money and time for us and also for our safety.

I hope you will take actions in this issue ASAP!

Regards,
Clarence Azuelo
Client

We are staying at the King George Protea Hotel in George. We are dissapointed in the standard of this four star hotel room - see following instances;

1. Room fridge - empty.
2. Hairdryer - doesn't blow heat. Requested a replacement- second hairdryer same problem.
3. The bedroom walls are stained and dirty.
4. Toilet - dirty
5. Towels threadbare and thin
6. Lamp shades broken and stained.
7. Carpets - stained and dirty.
8. Electrical cables exposed and untidy.

I have taken photos of these complaints and am happy to share them if necessary.

Regards,
Louise Garnett

[protected]@gmail.com

Checked in Thursday 23rd, after booking a week prior via bookings.com
Did not have our booked room available, had given it to other guests.
Moved to another room, where reported tv not working.
Next day moved to another room. Linen on bedding ripped/torn.
Requested room to be serviced before 12pm, every day - this did not happen, until further complaining.
Whilst here another guest had personal belongings stolen out of their room, police were called, and on the premises. 25th February 2017.
Menu extremely limited and exorbitantly priced.
90% of food on menu was "Out of Stock"
Gym "not available" as being used for "other purposes"
Tennis courts in disrepair. Tap behind tennis court running, does not switch off.

Would not put this hotel at more than one star.

On The 14th of February(valentine's day) I booked early check in at one of your Resort Hotel so I could go for game tour. This was agreed by reservation. I was also told the amount I paid included free Valentine dinner and breakfast.

1. Unfortunately when we went for Dinner, we were directed to the common Dinning room were even after asking if that was the venue for Valentine Dinner, waiters said yes. After eating the ordinary Buffer, we were charged. That is when all surfaced that we were not registered as Valentine couple. They had to remove the charge and apologized vehemently that is why I reserve the name.

2. From there today on 15th I proceeded to Hazy view branch were I requested early check in due to fatigue after 4.5hr drive and business. The officer confirmed after my emphasis that he will reserve the room earlier.

Unfortunately on arrival around 1306hrs, the room was prepared by 1415hrs while we stayed in the until my wife slept. there was no communication at all to House keeping.

My request now/suggestion is please try to introduce voice recording so that communication can be retrieved or traced. There seem to be reluctance on telephone conversations on your staff. Please consider this option. I am a loyal prokard member.

When we arrived at Protea Hotel Umhlanga, there were two receptionist one was on the phone and the other was counting money. She asked the one alady who was on the phone to assist us. Then she just asked us our surname not even greeting us. When I asked her why she can't greet us first? She didn't even bother to even apologise. I feel that her attitude towards us was racially motivated because the white lady who was behind us she greeted her. I spoke to the manager but I'm not sure if my complain will be attended to.

For the past 3 years we have been staying at the Protea Saldanha Bay over the Christmas weekend. This year I am booking late but I wanted to book two family rooms on the dates 25, 26, 27, 28. I was told that the 27th is full. So i said: "then give me the 25 and 26. "Sorry sir, you have to take three nights" - So i say: " how can I take three nights if the 27th is fully booked" - "but sir, the system will not allow us to book less then three nights". If the other nights is available but not the 27th then this means that many people booked only for the 27th -WTF. Did Marriot fry your brains or are you a half wit on purpose.

To who it may concern
We had a special celebration and decided to book my wife in at the Protea Hotel Highveld in the Executive suite.
We booked in on 08/07/2016
The room was absolutely beautiful and surpassed all of our expectations.
Unfortunately there wasnt any hot water in the bathroom.
When we complained the next morning they told us that they had a problem with the geyser.
Im NOT happy because they didn't advise us on check in.
As you know this is winter and it is unacceptable to not to have a warm bath or shower.
I will apperciate it if mannagement will come back to me on this issue.
Regards
Mr P.I van der Merwe

I complained about the air-conditioning which wasn't working in my room, and i wasn't relocated nor was the problem fixed. They kept giving excuses and pretending to fix it. The a.c didn't work all night till i checked out of the hotel the following day by mid day. The manager was apologetic but that was after the fact. I kept calling the help desk and maintenance and the problem wasn't treated or solved.

I applied and paid for a prokard membership within the hour decided to phone to cancell it an reverse my payment on my credit card as I had changed my mind.
I am not able to get any help with my credit card reversal. Its been a week already.

Dear General Manager, I am appalled by the state of your hotel and the incidents that occurred at the Hotel on the morning of 22nd of November 2012. I checked into your hotel and drove to the parking are in front of the residences. There is INSUFFICIENT parking bays for the number of rooms, and as these rooms border on your conference facilities, there was minimal parking. When I checked in, your staff had not received my voucher from my company, which I mailed to them (why did they not follow up during business hours to receive the voucher?). I parked in the last bay at the end, and went to my room. Dinner, if it could be called that, was appalling. Left over salad, limp and drying, and POOR food consisting of a BONY meat stew, fried chicken and left over vegetables covered in a white flour sauce. All for R130 rand. I am appalled that you allow food like this to be served. In the morning, I stepped into the bath, which felt "Flimsy" and soft. during the shower, the bath broke, causing me to fall. Fortunately I was not injured, but I have photographic evidence of the quality of the bath where it broke. In the telephonic conversation I had with you, you had the nerve to tell me that I would not be charged for the bath, as the contractor you used had provided poor quality work before. What kind of establishment are you running here? When leaving the hotel room to check out, one of your guests had decided that as there was insufficient parking, that I had parked in the bay directly in front of his room and refused to move his car. Your staff were incapable of convincing him to move his vehicle, and after I attempted to reason with him, he told me that he wasn’t satisfied with the bay the staff had allocated to him and could wait while he slept. He was verbally aggressive and physically threatening. Only after I asked your staff to call the POLICE, did they contact you to discuss this with him. I arrived an hour late for an important meeting.

1. Your catering is appalling
2. Your reception staff are unprofessional
3. Your facilities are substandard, including poor parking allocation and poor room facilities.

I will NEVER stay at this hotel again, and will make recommendations to my very large organisation never to use your facilities. Furthermore, this WILL be submitted on social media sites to notify the public of your careless attitude and lack of respect.

I made the mistake of using the telephone in my room. I figured it couldn't be much more than a cell phone call. I made a 28 minute call, off peak and to a national landline. At standard telkom rates the call should have cost me R8. Add some infrastructure usage and a profit margin and anything up to R60 is acceptable. So I was horrified when, on checkout, I was charged R343.

The rates are not advertised in the information booklet in the room. If this was a bigger matter I'm pretty sure I could challenge it in a court of law and have it struck down as unconscionably unfair.

I complained and Protea offered me a 20% refund, or R70. When you have been charged about R300 more than you should have, R70 is little consolation. So I declined and demanded a proper refund. They never got back to me.

I was paying a premium price to stay in their hotel. I expected to be treated like a guest, not a targeted as a victim. Such underhanded skulduggery is the work of criminals, not companies who are sincere in their desire to make customers smile.

Change your ways Protea
Peter

Ive got a problem with Protea hotel that cant be resolved because they dont even mind to call me back or email me after numerous emails and phonecalls and promises they will come back to me. It seems that they just ignore me and that seems to be the level of their custumer care. Iwould never do business again with Protea hotel.

On the end of june the consultant of Prokard phone me and say to that my new Prokard is been printed and she want my address where she must send it to. Then she was looking for my credit card num so i say to her that am not intrested to renew my card because i don't use it a lot. She turns around and say to me that it is been finish printed by head office so i must take it. I ask her the question that who was giving them permission to print a card on my name. I ask her to give head office num but she refuse to give it. All what she was hammering on is that i must take the card. So i was getting a little upset because she try to force me now to take the card if i don't want it and i put the phone down. I recivied my credit card statement and they was taking a amount of R1250.00 from my card on the 4 July 2011. I phone them them send emails till someone with the name of Lenette from the George branch phone me back. No she turns around and say to me that if i get the card i must send it back and then they will replace my money. But till today didn't recieved the card. I don't even know if they send it because if they can take somebodys money from her credit card without her permission they can say they send the card but never did. And i must just loose that money. I don't know what to do anymore hope you can help.

Booking made on internet and rate quoted R904 pnight. Booking confirmation received with rate reduced to R750 pnight. Colleague referred to lodge also received lower rate. On check-in told rate was R904 - requested review and assured would be done. On trying to settle bill was informed that R904 was not negotiable - bookings were run like airline (big demand, high rate vs low demand, low rate) therefore two week difference in time of booking could result in different rate for same facility. Eventually granted limited discount which was unacceptable. When document produced confirming lower rate, was told that I had discovered a loophole in the system and was abusing this. I as the customer was made the culprit for an obviously incompetent action on the part of the hotel. The manager's (Debby) attitude was aggressive and totally uncalled for - a simple admission and acceptance of the hotel's error was all that was required. The principle of running a hotel like an airline is somewhat strange to say the least.

I am very furious by the treatment i received from one of Prokards staff member for Protea Hotel who refuses to refund my R270 that i paid into thier account for the Prokard Gold membership which i have cancelled. Everytime i call Trevor Theys at thier Randburg offices his colleagues answer the his phone andgive me lousy excuses that he is not in the offices or busy on another line otherwise you will hear people laughing at the background and whispering. I have decided to cancel this application as a result and have requested my money back. What irritated me was the fact that he deducted money from my account and only to find that there were insufficient funds, why did he do that without my concern. I specifically told Trevor that i would deposit the remaining amount into Protea Hotels account once i've sorted my financial problems. having a gold membership with them wasnt much a priority to me but instead he deduts money from my account that's not even there.He then called me to tell me he received the copy of the deposit slip which he had requested and thereafter hang up the phone in my ear which i found very uprofessional. I want my money back!

I was contacted by a call centre agent promoting the prokard via telephone conversation. I was told how this product will work and that it would take between 7 - 10 working days for my card to be hand delivered to my office via courier. I have made 17 phone calls to different people with the durations of the calls between seconds and up to 25 minutes at times. I have to this day still not received anything and no one seems to know what is going on with the systems. After my first call to find out when I could expect my card, as was told that there was issues with the local post offices etc, but I was told that the card would be hand delivered. Weird and a bunch of nonsense. The very day I accepted this, there was a mount of R 1 090.00 on the 23rd of September 2009. Now, to this day, long after the delivery times I was given over the phone, I still have not received anything. Althoug this was a verbal agreement, which is binding, prokard is in breach of contract. I expect a refund to my credit card by no later 29 October 2009 please. I have a colleague in my office by die name of Aletta Botha, who sits with the exact same problem. Her account was debited on the 28th?

My 2008 prokard expired at end of August and I applied for a renewal card of which I was billed the full amount. Since then I never heard from proteaprokard and every time I phone to enquire about my renewal card, I am told that it has been posted but there is nothing in my mail box. Last time when I phoned the prokard division they told me that payment does not reflect on their system but all the previous enquiries I made the consultants did not have a problem about payment, they said they did see my payment and the card has been dispatched but I did not receive it. I am very disappointed with the way protea handles this issue.

I had a Procard, and went to their Protea Hotel in Saldana, and did NOT get the discount as advertised. After complaining I got no satisfaction and I tore the card up, This was probably 6 years ago. The problem is I still get phoned 3 to 4 times per year, in an attempt to try sell me a new card, I have complained, spoken to managers, been promised to be taken off the list, but the sales girls still phone.

Protea hotel wanderers was chosen to host a client, proof of payment was fprwarded, the client wished to pay but the receptionsit insisted it was paid for, a month later I'm contacted with the hassle of sending proof and the humiliation of asking they payer a month later and the humiliation of the hotel pestering the client. now it was the hotels job to tell him on checking out where they insisted that no further payment must be made. Not to mention that a hair was found in his and his partners food, ASK your manager he wil verify this. I will never ever use or recommend this hotel again. kindly forward whatever amount it is you say is owing to you as i've said in the email and NEVER EVER CONTACT again.