Bob
Orlando,#2Consumer Suggestion
Thu, May 29, 2003
Sorry to hear of your ordeal but Hotels.com may not be to blame. You were caught up in hotel terminology and poor inventory control. I have managed hotels for over 20 years and dealt with hotels.com ever since they were a tiny company called hotel reservations network. When hotels.com deals with hotels, the hotel offers a specific number of room each night. The hotel is then locked into that number of rooms. It is very rare that a hotel would call hotels.com and try to take back some of the rooms. My guess is here is what happened to you. Lets say the hotel you went to offered hotels.com 25 rooms. They might have done this quite some time ago. So hotels.com has 25 rooms they can sell. The hotel you are going to is getting busy and is going to fill all the rooms and eventually does sell them all. BUT. Hotels.com did not sell all the 25 that the hotel said they could have. So technically, hotels.com is right when they say they show rooms available. What happened is that as the hotel filled up, they neglected to call hotels.com and try to take back the rooms. Basically the hotel either made a decision to sell through the rooms that they gave to hotels.com(because the hotel could get a higher rate) OR they were not watching what they were doing and oversold the hotel. Based on my past experience, if this is what happened, the hotel is at fault. Even if the hotel was sold out and wanted to take the rooms back from hotels.com, Hotels.com could have denied their request due to the terms of the contract. It is the hotel that overbooked, not hotels.com. The hotel should have found you another room and paid for any difference in price. Good luck