Complaint Review: Hotels.com

I am writing to complain about hotels.com.

I went to their website to make a reservation on March 29, 2005 for the weekend of April 29, 2005. I booked online for a hotel in Banff, Canada, the confirmation was sent to my email address along with a detailed description of my reservation (name, guest name, credit card number, reservation number).

My boyfriend and I had arrived in Banff at the hotel on April 29 as expected, to find out that the person at the front desk could not find our reservation. I handed him the detailed description of the reservation that they sent to me that I had printed off (because I somehow knew this was going to happen). He looked for the reservation under my name, my credit card number, the confirmation number on the sheet, just about everything under the sun you could think of. Almost. The person at the counter told me that they could not find the reservation, and that they were having a few problems with their website and may have not received the reservation (even though it had been booked a month ago!). The couple waiting behind us also had made reservations under hotels.com and had to move to a different hotel because they too had no reservation there. They advised me that I would have to pay for another room since they did not have my reservation, and call hotels.com for my refund since they had not received the reservation. Since I would otherwise have to sleep in the car, I handed over my credit card to pay for a second room. On the last day of the weekend(May 1, 2005), I reached the number for hotels.com and was asked to dial into the phone my credit card number. I did so. A woman came on and asked for my name and postal code, to which I gave her so she could pull up my reservation without problems.

I explained the situation to her, then was put on hold. Just then my cell phone had cut off. I called the number again, to find myself talking to a different representative. I gave her my name and postal code, and she stated that she did not have the reservation under that name, which was obviously impossible since the last representative had pulled this up no problem. I told the woman that I was very upset and that she should not need any more information since the last representative pulled it up just fine. She then raised her voice and was being very ignorant and rude with me. This is where I started to get VERY upset. She demanded to know the name it was ACTUALLY under, which obviously confused me!!! Apparently this woman had thought that the reservation was under my boyfriends name (I have no idea how she came about this), and sure enough after giving his name, she continued on to ask what the problem was with the reservation. I explained to her that the problem was that there was NO reservation, and told her the story.

She said that this was impossible and that the hotel had received this reservation and that it was already debited. I tried to ask questions and explain the situation further but this ignorant representative was constantly talking over me and raising her voice to me. At this point I got more upset and starting using language that I cannot even mention. I stated that I would like to talk to her manager, but she quickly struck back saying that there was no manager working (which I know is impossible from my previous call center experience!!!!), then asked to speak to her supervisor then, but conveniently, there was no supervisor working either. No one working to help with escalated calls and problems that these people were most obviously not trained to handle. I asked if there was someone that would be able to get this sorted out and call me the next morning, and this was not possible either. I hung up. I then called the hotel we had stayed at and asked a woman there if she could help me with this situation. She called me back later that evening and explained that they had the reservation under my boyfriends name and therefore could not pull it up when we arrived there (so now pulling up by credit card number, reservation/confirmation number, etc is impossible???).

Well, I said I didn't care how it happened, and that I wanted either the hotel or the website to refund me because It is obviously ridiculous to pay twice for one room. She put research into the situation and called me back once again. She advised me that the website would be immediately refunding me since I made a separate walk-in reservation with the hotel. That was all. I thought. I waited 5 days and had not yet seen this "immediate refund" to my account. This time I called the website to see if maybe the refund was delayed. This time I was connected to a male representative. I explained the entire situation to him, he put me on hold to look at the notes on my file. He returned to our conversation and explained, "I'm very sorry, there must be some confusion, hotels.com was not supposed to refund you, you are supposed to be refunded by the hotel".

Well this was news to me!!!! The woman at the hotel assured me that I would receive refund from the website! I called the woman back at the hotel, she said that that was impossible, she had just been on the phone with Cherie from the website the day before and they had arranged for the website to refund me. She assured me that she would contact Cherie and get back to me. Well, Cherie at hotels.com had denied ANY representative there stating that I was wrong about the refund. SO NOW IM A LYER?!?!?! Well, since the 2 of them had spoken once again on the phone, I assumed that they would be refunded me then. I have checked my bank account every morning and afternoon this week, and still have not yet received refund. Today's date is May 11, 2005, 10 days after returning from the trip and this confusion is still not resolved.

Lauren
edmonton, Alberta
Canada