To all my fellow inmates here, STAY AWAY FROM HOTELS.COM. AS FAR AWAY AS POSSIBLE.

Me and 9 other high school buddies planned a trip up to blue mt as some of you may know. We booked our reservation through hotels.com and thank god for bad weather and my friend howdy calling to see if there was a late registration fee. When he called the resort said that they had no record of us making a reservation with them and they had been booked since early October. After 2hours on the phone with hotels.com, being hung up on 6 times and going off on them and letting them have it between 3 of us we finally were able to have them relocate us to a different hotel 3 miles away from the resort. They upgraded us to a 1300 sq foot condo that was literally twice the original price we were paying and they said they would cover the additional fee's.

After what we had been through we called the new hotel to make sure we had our reservation... only to find out they had taken those condo's out of their contract with hotels.com (owned by expedia.com) months ago. So this place is also booked and no open rooms, we call back and i let them have it... i won't say what i said over the phone on here to spare you all thinking im a complete mad man and a loose cannon when i get pissed but they ended up refunding us our money PLUS the additional prices THEY were going to pay. So we basically made 1600 out of the entire thing but we all would have sacrificed that to go on this trip.

In the end we ended up going to a local ski resort... but in michigan.

Never again will i even THINK about using hotels.com or anything owned by exepedia.com.. the customer service was TERRIBLE and they are NOT on top of anything they are doing or have any clue on what they are doing. They not only said they booked us for the correct hotel (when they really booked us for a day's inn in oklahoma city... couldn't even get the right COUNTRY) but they booked us for a room that wasn't even in their contract anymore.

i advise EVERYONE to either spend the extra cash to go directly through the hotel/resort themselves or find a more reliable source to book your reservations through.
[Reply]

I totally agree. We stopped using them 2 years ago when we had a bad experience at a major upscale chain. They were in the heart of a city and a wondering drunk used his key from the night before (or found an employees access key) and the door opened to the little blocking thing (like a chain). My wife call the cops and the desk quickly while I got ready to nail the guy. Luckily this was in one of the 19 states that my ccp is not valid or who knows.

Anyway the chain treated us to breakfast the next day but as far as refund it was up to Hotel.com as they don't pay on an individual nightly rate but a bulk buy rate with us grouped in to thousands of others. The manager said he wished we had booked through them (at the same rate) and he could refund.

Hotel.com did nothing for us. Just kept form lettering us to death.

Now we might look at the pricing but always book directly.
[Reply]

Just don't stay at a Days Inn.:-):-)
[Reply]

Ive used hotels.com on a few occasions with no ill result. I use expedia ALL the time! But for booking through either site, a major drawback is that you get charged for your stall all UP FRONT.

What i have done in the past is to find a rate on either site, and call the hotel directly. They usually, not always, will offer you the online rate.

I did this in Rome a few years ago and saved about $600 on a three-night stay
[Reply]

I have limited experience with either (and in their .ca forms), but the experience was ok. I had some problems with expedia with a car rental, but they made everything good when I whined enough (I ended up with a better deal).
From what I have read, I guess I would advise calling directly to the properties to confirm bookings far enough in advance to deal with any problems there may be.
[Reply]

they are lucky we weren't up there yet. i would have stolen my friends car to drive down there and only gods knows the things i would have done to that entire building... 2hrs on the phone with THE WORST customer service i've ever dealt with had really gotten under my skin by that point. I feel like they said they could book us at that hotel and they said they did, then when they realize they couldn't they booked us at a day's inn in... oklahoma??? then when they realized that we realized they f*cked up they told us they had booked us at another hotel when they knew they weren't allowed to due to the changed contract.

I don't think a big company like that would not update their contracts on their computer... i highly doubt they went months without updating their computers.

I feel like they kept giving us the run around.
[Reply]

I will admit, when I had to do my whining, their customer service sucked. Essentially I just outlasted the idiots who knew nothing until I got someone who could actually help (and could speak real English).
[Reply]

At least they eventually gave you the cash + some back. You might want to make a post at The Consumerist as well. The like stories like this.
[Reply]

I'm afraid to say it but I have tried just about every service out there,,,and the best one I have used is Hotwire. Now, granted you don't get to know the place you are staying until you purchase but if you purchase at the very least a 3 star hotel you will be safe. I have had some incredible hotels at the 3.5 and 4 star levels and have stayed in some incredible hotels for like $59. Atlanta Westin,,,$59a night,,,,Houston Intercontinental Downtown,,$50 a night,,,,,,El Paso at $45 a night. Fort Worth 4 Star Hotel was $60 a night. My wife and I travel a lot and Hotwire consistantly beats all of them at least 90% of the time. As long as you try and book with a month you should do well but we have booked within a weeks time and still get some great deals. We did on our last trip to New Orleans for 4 nights in a 4 star boutique hotel 2 blocks from Bourbon St. for $246 including tax and everything,,,w/free parking across the street at the Casino.
[Reply]

or a Sleep Inn:-)
[Reply]

Sorry to hear about your troubles. Thanks for letting us know. I used them a number of years ago with good results but it sounds like thing may have taken a turn for the worse.

- Rob
[Reply]

I stay at Hampton Inns Exclusively, and only book through them.

No one else has the facilities, customer service, and friendly staff.
[Reply]

thanks for the heads up
[Reply]

I've never used anything other than priceline.com when booking hotels. I generally get rooms for 1/3 to 1/2 of the web rate and have NEVER had an issue in 8+ years.
[Reply]

To date, all my experiences through hotel.com have been positive when booking rooms for business travel in California. On other occasions when it appears that the rooms through hotel.com have all been booked, I've then contacted the hotel directly to ascertain they do indeed have available rooms to rent.
[Reply]

well they had really booked us for a day's inn in Oklahoma when we really wanted ontario. So in their systems it was all good, in reality the resort had been booked since october. They even sent us conformation emails saying we were booked at the resort... thank god our friend called the hotel before we left.
[Reply]