My husband and I decided that we would take a short 3 hour trip, just a mini vacation for 2 days, and we wanted to make sure we were getting a nice hotel with a pool so we could take the kids swimming.
Since we did not know of any hotels in the area we wanted to go to that had pools we decided to use a online reservation service. We quickly found a very nice hotel for a reasonable price ($67.50 a night) and booked it for the two nights we wanted. We had no problems with this and it went quickly.
I got immediate confirmation stating the date of arrival and departure and check in and out times and total cost and all appeared to be correct. However, the next morning I received another confirmation for the room and when I read this confirmation the dates we were to stay were changed.
That is where the problems began, you see we had only booked the room the night before we were going to travel (since it was a short notice trip) and according to the second confirmation I received we should have stayed at that hotel the same night I booked it. So I immediatly called hotels.com and told them of the error and the customer service woman proceeded to tell me I was blind and stupid because the information that she had for the reservation said the previous night and they dont make mistakes and there was no way I had a confirmation that said the nights I actually wanted.
Tired of being insulted and getting no help I hung up and called the hotel directly. I told them of the error and they said that it was no problem and booked the room for the correct night.
I thought for sure I would be paying a lot more than I originally had thought but find out that the room I reserved with the hotel itself was actually $67.00 a night. The woman at the hotel told me that I would need to call hotels.com and cancel the reservation with them and make sure that they did not charge me. I did this and was told that they had no control over me being charged.
Their position was that my reservation was made and it wasnt their fault that it was for a night I wasn’t going to be there. They then informed me that it was up to the hotel if they were going to bill me for it or not and even if they didnt it would take several days before my money would be refunded ( she said if I was going to get a refund I should see it by my next credit card statement).
I was also told that they had to verify that I indeed had not stayed at that hotel and that would take several days as well. A word of advice: If you want to use an online booking service don’t use Hotels.com and call and check on room prices directly with the hotel before you book it online and verify your dates after booking don’t wait for a confirmation.