I feel bad having to write this as I've used Priceline for a long time and have had nothing but good experiences. So we plan a trip to Knott's Berry Farm and I offer to get the hotel because of such good experiences with Priceline. I went online to book a hotel as advertised on their page - NOT Name Your Own Price - and twice I get an error message saying "your transaction cannot be completed at this time."
I figure it's a computer glitch on their site so I call them - the reservations were for the next day. I get an agent - book 3 rooms for me and my friends and get the confirmation number for each room.
The next day one of my friends gets there first and says there is no reservation but the hotel will give us rooms at the same price but we have to pay him direct. This sounds fishy to me so I get on the phone with Priceline - the first time I get disconnected after 10 minutes on hold. I call back... Give them all the info and all they say is "yes, your reservation are confirmed" - Uh, tell that to the hotel please! So we go round and round for abut 10 minutes... By now I've arrived at the hotel and am at the front desk. Now Priceline transfers me to Customer Relations which takes 20 minutes on hold.
According to the hotel he got two cancellations from Priceline - which I figure is the two error messages I got while trying to book online - but no confirmation of the one I'm holding in my hand.
I ask Priceline to talk to the hotel manager and hand him my cell phone - they talk for ten minutes. He hands the phone back to me and Priceline says "we did not make a mistake" - Ok, I don't care who made the mistake just fix it! Now all my friends are standing in the lobby - I get put on hold again for another 10 minutes.
Now Priceline says they will give me a refund in 5 to 10 days! Wait a minute! That's 200 bucks! And I still have to pay for the rooms here because the hotel won't honor your booking!
We argue for another ten minutes - I ask for a supervisor - "we can't do that" I'm told.
Basically, I'm out $200 until they decide to process the refund - what I don't understand is why they couldn't just make it right with the hotel...
Priceline says my offer was rejected twice hence the two "cancellations" - I never made an offer! It was a simple booking and if there were no rooms why did their agent send me confirmations for 3 rooms?
Now I realize that every business will make mistakes but it's how they handle them that makes the difference. To be so stubborn about what was maybe $20 worth of revenue seems ludicrous to me!
We missed our dinner reservations waiting the 1 hour and 20 minutes I spent on the phone with Priceline - we had to curtail spending on our trip because I was down $200 and was so embarrassed with my friends as they had to then use their credit cards.
Plus after that it was one of the worst hotels I've ever stayed at and Priceline shouldn't even have it on their list!
Sadly, Priceline has done nothing to make it right because they feel they've done nothing wrong. I have no way of knowing what happened - all I know is that I gave Priceline $200 and got nothing except a ruined evening. Even if they had said right away they'd refund my money or make the hotel honor the confirmation it would have been OK but to put a customer through an hour of wrangling seems ridiculous.
They could have maintained my bragging about them if they'd only had decent customer service. Even if they had someone call me back later and apologize and offer a free night sometime or something - but instead I'm left with a bad experience - the only problem I ever had and it was a nightmare. Not sure I'm up to ever trying Priceline again after I've seen how they handle problems.
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