Hotel Ibis Budget a Salford

The hotel is fine. Small rooms, quite far from Manchester. But it's cheap, close to the tram and the staff were friendly. It did the job. But, this is actually a review of trip.com. Whatever you do, do not book through them! I had booked a Travelodge a couple of mins from the arena, 2 months in advance, for a gig. Paid up front and was told by trip.com that it was all confirmed by the hotel. The night before I was going, I had another email from them saying that actually the hotel couldn't confirm the booking, there was now no space and I could go to this hotel instead. This cheaper hotel, a 20 min drive from the arena in Salford! I obviously dismissed that, found a few hotels close the one I'd actually booked (now much more expensive of course) and suggested those instead. Given it was their fault, I assumed they would just sort that out for me. I was very wrong. After several hours of online chat and then phonecalls, I was just repeatedly lied to (all of those other hotels are actually fully booked despite them being available on our site, etc....), never given an explanation for why they told me it was confirmed when it clearly wasn't, and eventually was given the option of cancelling the whole booking (and therefore having nowhere to stay the night before I was due to go) or just accept this hotel in a different city! I was also told I wouldn't even get the price difference between the hotels back if I accepted the transfer! After days of arguing I managed to get the difference back, plus £30 compensation (which didn't even cover the two taxis I had to get). Even that was a debacle as to get the payment, I had to click a link from an email which took me to an external, dodgy looking page where I had to enter my bank details. Absolute cowboys. Please don't book with them, even if it is cheaper than other sites!