I made two separate room reservations on the phone with hotels.com for two rooms in the Days Inn Newburgh Stewart Intl hotel. The rooms were for emergency shelter due to a blizzard and power outage. Hotels.com guaranteed that there would be rooms available but the fee would be non refundable. I arrived at the hotel and they stated there were no vacancies. I provided the Hotels.com confirmation numbers to the clerk. She stated that there was a problem with Hotels.com satellite and none of their reservations had reached the hotel, and they were unable to accommodate any of hotels.com reservations. I called Hotels.com and explained the situation to them. They put me on hold for one hour. After SIX attempts of calling to get a refund, I am told by every agent answering the phone that the rooms were booked on a no refund policy. After explaining each time to each agent that no rooms were available or provided, I am put on hold while they contact the hotel. They return to tell me that I am right about no rooms available, and they say that they will cancel the reservations, but it will take up to 30 days to get a refund. They then say I will receive a confirmation email that the process has started within 15 minutes. I never receive the email, and when I call back the process is started all over again with the same results. Two times they never returned from hold. It took me 5 minutes on the phone to make the reservation, have my money withdrawn, and receive an email with confirmation numbers. I have spent nearly 5 hours on the phone trying to get my money back for services promised and never received. To top this off, I specifically asked Hotels.com when making the reservations if they were sure I would have rooms available due to the current crisis. I was assured that Hotels.com has a block of rooms reserved at the hotel and not to worry because they have to have the rooms available.
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