Magpie The Chestnut Retreat — Hotel in Sikkim

I don’t like writing bad reviews but I had to write this to warn other travelers and bring light to the lack of customer centricity and ethics of this establishment.

I booked this property through makemytrip and was supposed to stay here today (15th May). It’s my mothers 60th bday celebration.

When I got in touch with their reservation head Alisha, she informed me that they are overbooked and cant acommodate my family. This was the first shock. Why is this hotel taking reservations that it can’t fulfill?

Secondly, I was then told by them they could put me in another hotel. The hotel was not up to the standards that I wanted so I asked them to hold off on confirmation. The hotel Alisha suggested my family moves to is a three star hotel compared to the four star hotel that I booked. The hotel was Summit Tashi resort. It’s review rating is 3.2 stars and has a lot of complaints. The property I originally booked has 4.8 stars. I told her about these problems. At that point, I neither confirmed or denied wanting the room but proceeded to call Makemytrip for resolution. After makemytrip contacted them, they are refusing to refund my booking or find me anything better. (Pelling is completely booked right now). The reason is that they didn’t hear from MMT or me earlier about the refund. This is ridiculous. This is all happening because they didn’t give me the room I booked in the first place.

There are multiple problems here that travelers should be concerned about,

1/ Their revenue management strategy is poor. They overbook and then kick out travelers who have not booked directly with them. They get a choice of who to relocate. They choose travelers who don’t book direct because they want more money

2/ They only care about their own profitability and don’t care about fixing the problems for the traveler

3/ They don’t take responsibility for overbooking and will direct you to any low review rating property under the pretense of it having the same “rate”. Rates don’t equal traveler experience and they don’t understand that

4/ both MMT and the property keep passing the buck of who should give the refund and deny the refund. There is no protection for the customer and no empathy for the kind of stress these change in plans cause

They successfully ruined my Pelling plans and my mothers bday celebration because they wanted to chase after the extra revenue that comes with direct bookings to their property. It also looks like I won’t be refunded my money so I’ll lose the INR 24000 I paid for the rooms.

Travelers and families have to pay the price because the reservations team is going after short term profit. I hope this serves a strong data point for future bookings at this hotel (esp during the...

Our recent stay at Magpie Chestnut Retreat was a superlative experience crafted by the pristine natural ambience and cordial human touch of some of the most sincere and dedicated staff at retreat. In able leadership of Mr Udeshya , every aspect of the stay is guest centric ,making you soak in the good hospitality and kind attention for a comfortable stay. We had a cottage with balcony for 4 nights ,with direct mesmerizing views of mount Kanchenjunga and the cascade of other lower mountains. The rooms are spacious and well equipped to stay warm at night. The beds are fitted with electric bed warmer and good flow of hot water in bathroom. The bounty of colorful flowers and rare birds chirping all around is delight for nature lovers and photography enthusiasts. ||The Food & Beverage section is awesome with elaborate menu and variety for breakfast and dinners. Front desk at Restaurant served by Mr Diwakar and team were always attentive to see guests find it suitable to avail a good meal. Sincere staff at the restaurant are commendable for their polite demeanor and kind gestures. Special thanks to Ms Sandhya ,who took great care to serve us warm water always at the table. She has joined the job recently but surely promising asset for Magpie Retreat. Mr Anant Subba, the master Chef is another gem and genius , who dished out elaborate spread with no repetition for the four days of our stay. The menu was delicately planned with something of every taste accommodated along with local dishes for people who would like to explore. The food was gentle in levels of spices and fresh ,made from very good quality ingredients.||You can spend good time at the resort itself or go around for walks or visit the usual tourist spots nearby. Senior citizens and elderly would also be able to manage well with little bit of support. If you would like to relax and rejuvenate in the laps of mountains , this is surely the...

I stayed from 28th January to 30th January and I paid ₹5600 per night for the cottage room, and the services were sub-par. The room was nice, the views were nice, but a hotel that places itself as a premium property and charges premium prices must also give premium services. They have a large menu but only serve a limited number of dishes, most of the things we asked for they said were “not available”. We had to ask them “then tell us what is available, we will order from those items”. What service is this? Moreover for this price you would think the breakfast buffet will be sprawling. I was laughing when they said over the intercom what items were available: Puri Sabzi, Boiled Egg, Veg Sandwich etc. that you get in a ₹1800 OYO!

[[EDIT]]: they also had a white/red sauce pasta for breakfast. When is the last time you had white sauce/red sauce pasta for breakfast? Moreover the pasta sauce was way too sweet.

Under the guise of being extremely polite that you can’t say anything to them, they give such services. I guess they tried their best but were not able to deliver. Moreover the place is so far away from the main Pelling Roundabout that if you don’t have a bike or a car at your beck-and-call you will never be able to just walk to the better restaurants if you are older. It’s a total 150m climb for a 1.2km route to the Pelling Taxi Stand. There are no stairs so you need to ascend and descend along the road. I would not recommend this place to anybody without them improving their services and only go there if you have a car at your...