Travelocity ruined my vacation to San Antonio. I had booked a two night stay at a comfort inn in San Antonio. I was trying to save money and get a moderate priced hotel that would be pretty close to the river walk. I booked the hotel, gave them my credit card number and was charged $176.29. After booking I printed off directions from the airport and printed the confirmation page. The page only had a confirmation number with no address of my hotel (which I found odd) so I wrote the hotel address on the paper. I fly to San Antonio, get my rental car, and follow the directions I had printed off that took me right to the hotel. I get to the Comfort inn and they have no record of my reservation. The ladies there are very nice and try many different things to figure out the error. After over an hour of standing and waiting, they finally reach traveloscity, who tell them my reservation was made at a days inn. I know this is not the case just for the fact that when i pull up to the hotel, I note to my girlfriend that " this is the place, looks just like the picture". Realizing my hands are tied, I try to make the best of it and drive another 10 miles out of the way to the days inn. While drving I call travelocity. After many minutes of trying to get a real person from their difficult automated system, a man comes on who I can barely understand due to his broken english. He explains to me that they show me at a days inn for two nights. I tell him to cancel that since they had messed up my reservation. He said they could cancel the 2nd night, but he had contacted days inn and they would not allow him to cancel the first night on such short notice. He said they would refund me $ 70.50 but I would have to still pay $105.70 to stay at the days inn that night. He wanted me to fax him a copy of my printout from travelocity, but I explained to him it only had a confirmation number, not to mention Im in a strange city with no means to easily find a fax machine. I am not happy, but have already wasted 3 hours of my vacation so my girlfriend and I decide to make the best of it and stay at the days inn for that night and find a different hotel much closer to the riverwalk the second night. We arrive at the days inn and go to check in. There we are informed that traveocity has cancelled us for both nights. We are confused, but think well maybe travelocity decided to make it right by taking responsibility for their mistake. I ask the Days inn employee if there would be any hidden charges. She told me they charge a $25.00 cancellation fee and thats it. I ask her to give me some sort of reciept showing they cancellation but she informed me Travelocity would have that. So I leave still not happy about wasting all this time and having to pay $25.00 for a mistake I did not make. We head closer to our original hotel and drive from place to place to find a room for the night, but it is a holiday weekend and it takes us a couple more hours to find one. We are exhausted. Our flight got in around 1 in the afternoon and we open the door to our hotel room around 8 at night. A total waste of our vacation time. We finish out trip, come home, and I think I better check my checking account just in case. Sure enough, they still have $105.79 of my money. I make 3 calls. Each time I get a different person, all with broken english, and none with the will to try and fix what their company has done. I ask for a supervisor who always tells me to send in my complaint and they will take a look at it. We all know this is another term for " youre screwed! And we dont care about your business" I am still trying to get my money back.
To add to this the second night my girlfriend and book a reservation to the Hyatt on the riverwalk. We booked in the day before on hotels.com for a $95.00 per night rate. We are just staying one night. The hotel was great, but when we get home, hotels.com has charged her sloe to $250.00. She investigates and they tell her that the hotels.com site was given with a British exchange rate price. She fought it, and has got them to refund her money. My advice, be cautious of all of these online travel companies. It sounds like since they dont have to deal with you in person, they try to steal and rob you for every dime.
Mike
Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
U.S.A.
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