DO NOT use Hotels.com for your travel arrangements! Read on...
I had to book a hotel in an area I wasn't too familiar with, because my boyfriend was in a wedding there. I thought that Hotels.com would be the perfect solution, since they list different hotels with all of their prices. I thought wrong.
After booking a hotel room with them for the weekend, I received a confirmation email with my confirmation number in it. Assuming all was well, I prepared for my trip. Thank God I woke up the morning of our trip (We were supposed to check in later that night.) and decided to call the hotel to confirm, just because I didn't want to have any problems. The hotel had never heard of me and hence, did not have my reservation. Keep in mind, at this point my bank card was already charged for this reservation by Hotels.com.
I called Hotels.com immediately and demanded to know why the hotel did not know about my reservation. The person I spoke with, while very nice, gave me some excuse about how she couldn't get a hold of the person at her company that I had dealt with before, and so we couldn't find out what went wrong.
Ultimately, she booked me another reservation at another hotel in the area of the wedding. She explained that she needed to "cancel" my first reservation in her system and that I would be refunded for that within 30 days. She then charged me for the second reservation on my same bank card. That in itself was ridiculous, but I needed a hotel for that same night, and I didn't have time to argue. I told her that I couldn't have any problems with this 2nd reservation, because I needed a hotel for a wedding for the weekend. She said that she would personally call the hotel of the 2nd reservation and make sure that the reservation was there. She kept me on hold for 10 minutes, but upon returning to my call, she assured me that the hotel was booked and gave me a new confirmation number for this reservation.
I shouldn't have believed her, but I really didn't think that Hotels.com could screw up a second time. Don't you know, that night I arrived at the new hotel that had been booked that morning for me, and they did not have my reservation! Thank God the people at the hotel were some of the nicest people I had ever met, and after I told them how Hotels.com had never booked my first reservation, the hotel took it upon themselves to call Hotels.com for me and work it out directly with them. They gave us their last vacant room for the weekend. I don't know what I would've done if they had been booked.
The following Monday, upon returning home, I called Hotels.com and demanded to speak with a manager, because I wanted someone to explain to me why I had 2 confirmation numbers and 2 charges on my bank card, and no reservations! They refused to let me speak to a manager, and the agent I spoke with basically blew me off after I told him what had happened. They had no explanation for their faults, and I got no where with them after being on the phone for an hour.
All in all, I expected more from a company as well-known as Hotels.com, but it just goes to show you that some of the larger companies really don't care about their customers at all. My advice: DO NOT use Hotels.com for your travel arrangements. And if for some reason you are forced to use them, make sure that you call your hotel to confirm way in advance.
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