Planning a last minute trip 3 hours away to see family, my husband found a room at Holiday Inn Oceanfront on Cocoa Beach for us to stay in that night so I booked the room through Cheaptickets.com and we were so excited.
After booking it I immediately noticed that I booked the write date just the wrong month, instead of May 14 I had booked June 14. So I had booked the hotel one month away and on a Tuesday. What I think happened was my husband put the 14th in but not May so the default date on the website was one month away from the present date, so we were searching for the availability of hotels a month away from the actual date we wished to reserve.
Instead of packing our car I immediately got on the phone and tried to CHANGE the reservation. I was told by the rude and antagonistic staff at cheaptickets that there were no supervisors to talk to on the weekends and even though the reservation had been booked in error the only thing I could do was show up on Tuesday June 14, or cancel and forefit the cost of one nights stay.
Mackenzie at Holiday Inn told me they would except my cancellation since it was a month in advance but Cheaptickets.com wouldn't go for that because they wouldn't get paid. Of course Cheaptickets.com maintains that it's the hotels policy to forfeit one nights stay, not theirs.
All we wanted to do was change it to a more realistic date. We were willing to pay extra to book a weekend, even considered adding a night. Why would Holiday Inn blow off a customer who wishes to spend money at their establishment?
We took the trip anyway and found a room at the Double Tree the "old fashioned way". Under the circumstances we had a fantastic weekend and spent a good bit of money at Double Tree, but when we got home we still had this problem to deal with.
On Monday I kept getting the run around, I talked to people who could care less about me spending almost $150 and getting nothing for it. One man I talked to with Lodging.com (cheapticket.com customer service center) actually told me what he recommended to OTHERS was that they give the reservation to friends or family.
I got caught in this trap trying to spend a weekend at the beach with my family, while pumping money into the economy. I will never use any online ticket broker again, I wasn't trying to get anything cheap, I just thought this was the easiest way to reserve a hotel. These companies buy up all the reservations, when you call the hotel directly they are booked. I will find a way to get around this scam so I can enjoy the beach with my family but it won't be at any Holiday Inn.
I thought Holiday Inn had plenty of time (one month) to re-book that room, but neither company would budge. I guess there is enough other suckers out there to give them business because they didn't work very hard to keep mine. Cheaptickets.com actually has a place on their website for CHANGES IN ITINERARY. What a joke, you can't make changes. Beware, these reservations are set in stone!
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