Complaint Review: LastMinuteTravel.com

I booked a hotel reservation at 9pm PST for the next two nights. The hotel (actually all hotels listed for the city on their website) was coded "On Request". When I called the toll-free number the next morning before boarding my plane to find out if my reservation had been confirmed, I was told that the reservation still hadn't been confirmed but they would call me in an hour. I explained that in an hour I'd be in the air for the next six hours. When I landed, I got the message that they found out that there were no rooms available at the hotel. I called their toll-free number again to find out what they were going to do for me. I was told that all hotels listed for my city for the next two days on their website were "On Request" and that "On Request" meant that a room couldn't be guaranteed and that sometimes it takes up to 48 hours to find out. (I was also told that I had made my reservation the same day but it only looked so to them because my 9pm PST is their midnite EST however the e-mail of my reservation which I received from them was correctly dated and time-stamped PST) So they didn't do anything for me. I had to book a room at more than 2x the original room's price via a local last-minute hotel room broker in the city. He was able to confirm the room in 5 minutes with me on one phone line and the hotel on the other even though it was already 5pm.

Cynthia
Redondo Beach, California
U.S.A.