DOZENS of complaints have been made about a major online hotel booking firm after room reservations were cancelled without explanation or never made in the first place.

Irish people using the popular roomsnet.com service have said that on arrival abroad, they turned up at hotels with vouchers only to find their bookings no longer existed.

The National Consumer Agency said six complaints had already been received through its call centre. A spokeswoman said: "What we would say to people is that if they have a problem and have booked through a credit card then there should be no difficulty in obtaining a refund."

The National Consumer Agency said that because the company was based in England, it had passed on its concerns to the European Consumer Centre, which has received dozens of complaints.

One holidaymaker who spoke to the Sunday Tribune said that he and his family had arrived in Portugal only to find their booking had been cancelled without explanation.

He said: "We have used roomsnet.com for several years and have never had any problem. This time, we arrived and the hotel manager told us he could not find our booking.

"We had the voucher and he said that perhaps there had been a mistake. It turned out that final payment had been made on 10 July and that the room had been cancelled by email on 13 July.

"It was absolutely outrageous and we were fortunate in that there were rooms available in the hotel and we had enough of a credit limit on our card to pay for the rooms again."

The Sunday Tribune attempted to make contact with roomsnet.com via email and by telephone but no response was received.

The European Consumer Centre said any people planning to travel abroad who had concerns should contact their hotel directly to ensure their reservation had been made.