On Oct 28 I booked a 7 day stay at Keystone Ski Resort Forest Condominiums through Hotels.com because it was cheaper than anything the resort was offering. On Nov 27 I received a promo email from Keystone Resort about discount lift tickets, meal cards etc.
To look for these deals I went to the main web page for Keystone Resort and chose the Plan a Vacation tab. Right on the first page was a listing showing what appeared to be the same room I had booked through Hotels.com for $845.80 for less. I went through the steps to create a reservation to make sure it was in fact the same type of room at the same lodging. I verified that it was the same and that Keystone was only getting $772.10 for it.
So I contacted Hotels.com to ask for the money back on the price guarantee. First I contacted them by email and their response was that they "couldn't find any deal that matched" what I had booked. So next I called them up and helped the customer service person step through the same steps that I had gone through to create the reservation. She confirmed the price was the same, then put me on hold. When she came back she said they couldn't honor the price match because the cancelation policy wasn't the same.
Smelling a rat I decided that I'd go ahead and book the room directly with Keystone because it was about $75 cheaper and Hotels.com charges a $25 cancelation fee. After booking the room directly with Keystone I got a confirmation from them which showed that it was the exact same type of room (studio condo) in the exact same building (Forest Condos) for the exact same dates and the exact same cancelation policy (no refund if not canceled 14 days prior, small cancelation fee charged).
I contacted Hotels.com to cancel the reservation and demand that they refund me ALL of my money because they had refused to honor their cancelation policy. They continued to refuse to do this. So I canceled the reservation and they kept the $25 cancelation fee.
I'm going to contact my credit card company and put a hold on the $25 fee. Then I'm going to contact the Attorney General of the state I live in, the US AG, and the Federal Trade Commission to complain about this bait and switch.
Bottom line is don't use Hotels.com because they don't honor their price guarantee. It's a bunch of BS.
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