Complaint Review: Hotwire.com

We live in the Netherlands and we booked flights for all four of us to take our son the North Dakota with Hotwire.com.

We arrived in the United States of America on the 3rd of August 2014 and stayed with family till the 5th of August, to depart to North Dakota on the 6th of August 2014.

In the evening on the 5th of August we tried to check-in for all 4 of us with Delta Airline, we were unable to check-in, we called Delta Airline and they said sorry your tickets have been cancelled by Hotwire, we asked why they could not tell us, we were told to contact Hotwire directly.

We called Hotwire only to be told that the booking had been referred to Risk Management we called the number given to us by the Customer service lady, but there was no one there to talk to.

We are talking less than 12hrs before the scheduled flights. We were in utter confusion, our son who had been anxious of starting college was now in total distress, the whole family was in confusion, words cannot express what we went through on this day, my son was crying what are we going to do he has to report to college on the 7th of August 2014.

We did not know what to do or where to start, we were all crying it was very stressful, you can just picture the whole confusion in the house on this day.

With the help of the family we were staying with we had to book four new tickets with Delta Airlines at a premium price.

We managed to travel to Jamestown North Dakota settle our son in college, but the whole experience with the cancellation of tickets has left us scarred.

Now the original tickets were from 6th August to the 10th of August, we booked a car for this date and we also booked accommodation for this date.

The New tickets we found were at a different time and a different date (6th August to 9th August) which meant we had to go via the longer route, we were meant to be in North Dakota to pick the car up for 11am, we did not arrive until evening. Our time wasted sitting around the airport during layover.

Secondly our hotel which we had already booked since 22nd of June 2014, was from 6th to 10th of August, we had to leave a day earlier. The hotel said they cannot refund the money for us leaving a day early, it is not their fault.

The hired car was also booked for 6th to 10th August 2014, they also said they cannot refund us, you can just imagine the confusion we were in to find out that our flights were cancelled, obviously, the hotel was not going to refund the money for the night we could not stay, the car hire company was  not going to refund money back for returning the car early. 

We returned from North Dakota on the 9th of August 2014, on the 11th of August, we called Hotwire again and was again put through to Risk Management and all we got was an automated message asking us to leave a message which we did.

Not being able to speak to anyone regarding the cancellation of the flights is wholly unprofessional and also very  frustrating.

We called Hotwire again on the 12th of August 2014 and on getting through to a Customer Service Assistant, I was read the same script ‘’that the account had been referred to Risk Management and I had to speak to them’’. I insisted on speaking to his supervisor and was put through to someone named Kerri who also was reading from the same script.

I explained the issue and my frustration and annoyance at the way the whole issue had been handled and she asked if the money deducted from the credit card had been refunded and she said an email would also have been sent to us informing us of the cancellation.

Firstly, I take issue with what she said because if I pay for a service and you send me a confirmation email which in it says no need to reconfirm booking with airline or Hotwire, do you expect me to be on the lookout for a refund of the money paid?

Secondly, at no time during the process were we informed that there had been a problem with the booking and that the booking had been cancelled. There was a big flaw in how this case has been dealt with, we have been mistreated and insulted by Hotwire.

Hotwire had my email address and my phone number, the flights were booked from the Netherlands, they were aware of  this all along, they could have gotten in touch with us.

Before we left the USA to return to the Netherlands we wrote a  complaint letter (to be signed for on delivery) to the Head office of Hotwire.com in San Francisco, to our amazement, the letter was returned marked  "Return to sender. Not deliverable as addressed. Unable to forward" .

This is not only unfair but also inconsiderate and unjustifiable to treat us this way. Hotwire does not want to take responsibility for their actions.

After the letter was returned, I contacted the CEO of hotwire through email, he referred the case to customer services, I gave them my number, she called me and said something along the lines of sorry when they looked at the phone number they thought is was not real, but now that she called me on it is a real number, did they actually try to call my number NO.

If the people working in customer services are not trained to be able to dial a number abroad, my email was also on the confirmation, they could have tried that.

Is this the way to treat customers, when I remember the distress and confusion we were plunged in on the 5th of August 2014, the more I feel angry and the fact that nobody is willing to listen and empathize with us on what we went through.

We had a very appalling customer service experience from Hotwire.   

I look forward to your response.