Hotels.com
reviews and complaints

I had a similar problem with a room booked through priceline.com. We booked a room, flight and car rental to Texas. The very same afternoon, I got a call from my son stating all visiting, schools etc. were canceled due to the number of Swine flu cases in the area. I immediately called to cancel and was given a runaround by both the priceline and the hotel. Each blamed the other for not allowing the cancellation. The only one that didn't give me a hard time was the car rental. I finally got the refund to my card but only after many phone calls and many hours of arguments. Never again, call direct from now on.

I booked on hotels.com a room for $109.00, just for the heck of it, I called the hotel to find out what they would charge me directly. I found out their regular rate is $99.00. I called hotels.com to request a refund for the difference. Manuel in customer service told me "we don't refund like that." Then he told me that if I cancelled with hotels.com the hotel would still charge me. So I called the hotel and guess what...they said that if I cancelled with hotels.com and rebooked with them I would not be charged. Hotels.com is a scam and their price match policy is utter nonsense. Please don't waste your money.

I booked over the phone via hotels.com quoting me $115.49 all taxes inclusive. When I got to the hotel they were charging customers $90+taxex - a few dollars cheaper. I later got my credit card bill and found out I was charged $147.46! I called hotels.com and asked for the call recording and they said they are unable to provide it to me. I am filing a complaint against these idiots as they are unable to prove that I had accepted to pay $147.46. HOTELS.COM SUCKS AND THEY ARE LIARS.

I also booked a hotel with hotels.com .. I did not mean make the reservations thru them, except when I dialed the hotel number on the hotels web site the number connected with hotels.com. I made the reservation. A few days later, and well before the 48 hr check in timeframe I had to cancel my reservation for my Marine son was injured in Afghanistan and this changed all our plans. I called the hotel to cancel, called hotels.com looking for refund which they charged 100% immediately to my visa. I called four times, I begin this process on July 3rd, it is not July 28th - I have had to have my financial institution become involved to dispute the charge - I about to submit a claim with the Attorney General's office, (this route has helped me in the past concerning unfair business practices). Don't use hotels.com. Should you be automatically routed to them, hang up, try the hotel again, book directly with the hotel. There are no deals and only huge aggrevation with hotels.com

As a hotel employee, do not book through 3rd parties... If you book through the hotel directly you will get the most accurate information, and all information would be provided to you by an employee of that hotel. 3rd Parties get commission when booking reservations, so of course they will promise you the world. When you arrive at the hotel your stuck to deal with whatever situation the 3rd party puts you in. Don't pay someone to do a job you can do easily...

I went to San Antonio a couple of weeks ago for my kids' Spring Break. We drove from Dallas to San Antonio and stayed near Sea Wold. I made my reservations through Hotels.com for a room with two queen size beds. When I got there past midnight, with two kids, 9 and 10 (the 9-year-old being special needs) very tired I found out the only room available was with one king size bed. The hotel was full and there was nothing they could do for me since I didn't book through the hotel and unsed Hotels.com instead. I called Hotels.com and explained that not only I reserved a room with two queen beds, I also asked them to note that one of my kids was special needs and I needed specifically what I paid for, two beds. They couldn't do absolutely anything! Not even find me another hotel because everything was sold out since it was spring break. ALL I ASKED WAS WHAT I PAID FOR!

Fortunately the hotel front desk attendant was wonderful, even though she didn't have any more rooms she found us a roll away bed and did everything she could to help us out. She explained that whenever someone books a room using a "third party" like Hotels.com, they only have to honor the fact that "a room" was booked, not necessarily the type of room. They didn't have to garantee a two queen bed room, they'd only do that if I would've booked directly through the hotel chain (in this case Holliday Inn). In addition, the hotels don't give points to the hotel chain "rewards program" because it wasn't book through them.

Lesson learned, DO NOT USE HOTELS.COM and be very careful when using a third party to book anything in order to save money...you get what you pay for (and in my case I didn't even get that!). And don't forget to always ask questions!

What a total disappointment dealing with hotels.com.
with a double booking that was made, the effort to rectify the booking was just TAXING. I was told when I made the booking that an e-mail will follow with booking confirmation. Never received it. Called again to make sure about the e-mail address they have, again, didn't get the mail. I called this morning to check why my employees were referred to syringa lodge in botswana. Apparently a double booking was made at cresta bosele. So my employees where reffered to Syringa lodge. Now the actual transaction with hotels.com for the booking at Cresta bosele and Hotels.com is void. How can Cresta Bosele ask me a much higher rate that what Syringa Lodge is charging? They are not my agent and therefore can not decide what to charge me. I tried to explain this to the operator but he kept on interrupting me when trying to explain details from my side. With this very frustrating call the operator warned me about using profanities when I said what the ****...please listen to recorded call. Called on the [protected] line as their toll free number does not work. The operator let me hold for several minutes to speak to a supervisor. After 30 minutes on this call from a cellphone no service. Appalling service. I will never use hotels.com if I have to nor will I ever recommend hotels.com...but I ques you have so many clients that you probably do not care about my complaint.

I recently made a reservation with Hotels.com and never received a confirmation. After several days I rebooked and several days before my arrival the hotel contacted me inquiring on the double booking. Every effort to cancel the double booking was impossible. I wasted hours on the phone with the most inept costumer service I have ever experienced! I am still fighting with my credit card company on the charge and expect a bad outcome even though there was many attempts before hand to correct the matter. I will NEVER use this company again and think they are lairs and cheats. They demonstrated they have no interest in truly helping anyone but themselves.

Still struggling to get my price match honoured. They agreed to honour it 2 months ago but never refunded the money. Now they say they have no record of the discussion. Liars and cheats

We made a reservation almost "TWO WEEKS" ago and got a confirmation that we did have a hotel in New Orleans. We got to our hotel only to find out that it has been overbooked for a month.. Hotels.com hung up on us after we called them to try to get another room. We ended up driving to another town to find a room and had to wait again to get a refund. The customer service was horrible.. I will never use their service again and do not recommend them. Two flipping weeks! and they could not tell us that the hotel was overbooked. They suck!

I had the same experience. I tried and tried to get them to honor their price match guarantee in December 2010 and they just ignored me - I will never use them again

I wish that I had read the original comments before using hotel.com for a recent reservation I made for a one-day stay to move my daughter into her dorm for college. I had to change the reservation (move it up by one day) and they wanted to first charge me a cancellation fee. When I explained that I didn't want to cancel my stay but needed to change the day to one day later, the representative told me that that could not be done because it was a nonrefundable reservation. The first customer representative was very rude, saying "well YOU made the reservation." I asked to speak to another representative. By the way, I don't understand why folks that get paid to provide customer service can't provide it in a competent, professional, and friendly manner. Why is it necessary to have an attitude with customers? After all, doesn't the customer indirectly pay their salaries? With so many unemployed folks out there, I am sure that there are plenty of educated and experienced customer service professionals that would be glad to have a job.

Anyway, after having to go through another set of the same phone prompts, I spoke to a gentleman, who was a bit more professional, but had the same attitude that somehow he was doing me a favor.

I will NEVER utilize hotels.com again and will tell all my colleagues and friends to search elsewhere.

I run my own business, just a small time businessman as i would say, and towards this particular incident we can particularly see a consumer/customer who just want to get the best of the services/promos being offered by a company.Well maybe that is pretty much understandable due to the current crisis.But still we just have to consider that a bussiness does not run on " praises - it does run on prices. " people or consumers regardless of what they get still has something to say, there is never nor nothing in history - human history or marketing history mentions or records a product that has no negative feedback. Maybe what we need in this situation is not a change of company but a change of insight or attitude towards the company and workers/employees as well. I guess who doesn't need a job nowadays.We can't just throw a penny anymore without feeling sorry for the loss.

Recently I hade made reservations at a hotel through Hotels.com. Everything seemed right till we reached the hotel. I had booked for a non-smoking room because my wife is asthmatic. When we reached the hotel the clerk at the check in counter told us that there were only smoking rooms available because they had to do some remodeling and that they had notified Hotels.com about it and asked them to notify all the customers who had booking with them. I was really annoyed because hotels.com told us nothing about this. I called up Hotel.com to cancel my reservation and that I wanted my money refunded. When the supervisor came on the line he told me that the money will not be and cannot be refunded because they had already paid the hotel he did not give me a chance to speak he just hung up on me. When I asked the hotel if they were paid they said that they did not receive any such payment and this is not a new thing with Hotels.com. I was really ripped off and could do nothing about it. I will never use hotels.com to again and make sure that no one I know does because they are not gonna leave any one and surely fool everyone that believes in them.

The exact same thing happened to me, only I did not catch it early enough. I did not cross-check with the hotel itself and trusted that hotels.com did process my refund accordingly. I checked back on the refund status after one billing cycle because it has not appeared on my statement only to find that the refund never went through. My refund cannot be honored even if the mistake was on their part for being negligent. It was my first and last experience with them.

The hotel lied to you. When you book through Hotels.com or Expedia.com, they charge your credit card whatever the agreed on price is, then, they take out their fees. When the reservation reaches the hotel there is a preloaded credit card for the hotel to charge. The amount preloaded is what is left after the fees are paid. Hotels have the option to charge the credit card the day the guest checks in or when they check out, regardless of when it is done, they have been paid because there is a reservation there, under your name, with a credit card to pay for the room. Expedia won't refund you because the hotel won't refund or cancel the room. I highly recommend anyone to not use those websites, not only are you putting your credit card along with all of your info out there, you can probably get just as good a rate if you call the hotel directly or go to the hotel website and book that way. Most hotels participate in a buy now and save 15% on standard rooms, but be absolutely sure of your trip, as these are also non cancellable and no refund, but like I said if you are 100% sure of your trip, that is the way to go, just be sure you call the hotel and ask for a receipt after the charge has been made, they can mail or email from most properties. At least you won't be paying someone else to make a reservation for you!

Hotels.com promises the lowest rate and discounts but charged me $100 more than the hotel would have charged. They refused to match the price because I had already checked in. This site is a total scam! Makes the hotel look bad too... I was expecting a much nicer place because it was so expensive! Avoid these guys at all costs.

I have booked several night through hotels.com in order to get the free night but after the 9th night they decided not to give me credit. I have booked hotesl three time throught them but they did not give me credit. I tired to call to the customer service. Someone in Phillipine answere the phone and tried to tell me that night I booked was not throught hotesl.com. Once I told them that I have reservation confirmation and credit card bill they hung up on me. Same experience was repeated by three different operator. I came to the conclusion it was official policy to hang up if you do not have answers.

Whoever you are I believe you have book your reservation online. Ian is an affiliate of Hotels.com a nd most reservation done online are Ian accounts. I also believe you have book the reservation yourself without checking all the details. Default currency of the website is in USD so you have to switch it to Euro. It is easy to pass judgement to other people but sometimes we just have to think and investigate before we assume anything.`

I booked a room through their website and because of plan changes I had to cancel the room.
The policy said if I cancel after 12PM, there will be a penalty of one night's stay. I was only one hour late, and my booking was only for one night. I called them and was trying to explain, but they took absolutely no consideration or whatsoever. So basically once they get the money, you are never gonna get it back.

They claimed that they do not charge any penalty, but the hotel would. However, from talking with the hotel people, seems like they are going to split the penalty money. I would never use their service again.

My first experience with hotels.com was wonderful. The hotel had my reservation, and there were no problems. My second experience was another story. I booked a hotel stay through the hotels.com website. My credit card was charged the full amount, and I received an itinerary number and proof of payment. On the day of check-in, I called the hotel, but they had no record of my reservation. The reservationist told me to call hotels.com and have them fax my reservation. I called hotels.com, and the gentleman told me that this was the hotel's fault, and I would have to wait until check-in to call back to have my reservation re-faxed. I called back to speak to another agent. This agent put me on hold, and after waiting 10 minutes, my call was disconnected. I called back again, and demanded to speak to a supervisor. I was put on hold, and then the agent came back on the line and told me her supervisor was on another call and could not talk with me. The agent agreed to fax the reservation to my hotel. This call took 41 minutes (cell phone minutes) before everything was wrapped up. I now wish I had paid a bit more and reserved directly through the hotel. I wasted a bunch of time, and started off my vacation in a foul mood. Not worth it.

I had a similar experience recently with their customer service and will never ever use them again. I really do think that hotels.com should review their policies and procedures and take a serious look at how they train (or don't train) their workers. It's fine for a business to run its operation in a way that gives a price break to customers, but with a steady reputation of bad service, eventually, the cost factor doesn't matter as much.
Are they encouraged to just pass the customer off to another representative but not before making them go through the same set of tedious prompts, perhaps hoping that they will just give up?

C'mon. You have to agree that you want them to break their rules for you because you goofed up. Seems like a silly complaint.

Well, unfortunatley that is the price for holding the room. The hotel holds the room for you and could have booked it.

We recently booked a trip with hotels.com and today when I checked the prices, they ran a sale on the same Vacation package..Every year, my husband and I go to the Caribbean and book through Discountallinclusive or Expedia. We called Hotels.com to see if they would honor their sale, and deduct the money off the balance of what we owed. They said NO!not their policy unless it was within 24 hours of booking...We will NEVER book through them again we have gotten discountallinclusive.com and Expedia.com to honor their sale prices always, and anything they can do to bring us back, they will, we would have went through them again this year, only we were going to a resort that they did not book through...Very disappointed, and I am telling all my friends what a crappy travel site they really are...TRAVELERS...BEWARE>>>>

Hotels.com is terrible. They ran my credit card with in moments of booking the wrong hotel online. I called the customer service right away to explain it was an accident. They just told me to bad and are charging me for a 4 night stay when i am not even going. Their service reps are idiots i got no satisfaction from them they basically steel your money. There website even has a link that says flexible booking can cancel or change your plans at anytime. Their website is deceitful and confusing. Don't use them you are better off calling the hotel yourself. You will save time and money.

Used hotels.com for the first and last time. Agent misrepresented the property and company did not own it and would not credit me for the one night stay when after arriving at the location, fearing for my safety I called them and said it was unacceptable, that it was more like a Hotel 8 than a Hilton property( which the agent told me it was, ) and I would not have left my vehicle overnight in the parking lot for fear I would find it up on cinder blocks in the morning. No area to drop off luggage, no door or bell man only one staff member behind the desk, and the smell when you walked in the front door was of stagnant air mixed with body odor and food. Anyone I saw while in the parking lot looked as if this was their temporary home vs. an out of town stay. The hotels.com agent also told me there should be a business services area for me to print out documents etc., -there wasn't that or even a lobby area-he totally just wanted to make his commission, (which he confided in me that he worked on.) Bottom line don't do business with hotels.com!

I and my dear friend decided together for the vacation as it was long time we had not planned an outing together and we also decided to take our beloved along with us, to avoid any confusion and problems during the vacation we decided to do the reservation prior. We made reservations for two nights/two rooms for four adults at the Queen & Crescent hotel in New Orleans, for $199 a night per room no lowest price here, and when we arrived, the hotel informed us that hotels.com had never attempted to reserve the rooms. After being on hold for 1/2 hour, hotels.com confirmed this, and then offered us another room in a town 20 miles away or a refund. We chose the refund and it took a week to receive the money back. We were stuck in New Orleans at 10 pm on a Friday night w/o a room, thankfully we found something, but that had to come out of the money that we had been hoping to spend on our vacation. The folks at hotels.com were rude, obnoxious and completely and totally unapologetic. Never, ever use their service, other than to search for names of local hotels and then call the hotel yourself.

I made a resevervation with hotels.com. The very next day I wanted just to apply the same money I had a orginally spent with them and transfer my reservations with a different hotel. These people kept insiting that I give them my credit card number and when I got transfered to customer service they kept hanging up on me. Then I checked my banking account online and discovered that they had charged me two times on my creit card which was a grand total of $523.00. So I contacted my bank and my bank helped me get my money back. I will never ever in my life deal with hotels.com. They are like a roach motel, you can check in, but you cant check out. They are theives

On 2 occasions I found that hotels.com listed a hotel as permitting pets and didn't say the hotel charged anything for pets, but, after I made my reservation and paid the charge, hotels.com then disclosed that the hotel would be imposing on me an additional charge for a pet (and didn't tell me the amount). It is fraudulent to hide mandatory charges from the consumer until after the consumer has paid. I enforced my right to the stated accommodations at the stated price by not disclosing to the hotel the presence of a pet in my room.

I made a reservation on hotels.com for a friend who was visiting from another country when his credit card stopped working. I asked specifically if I would be able to change the credit card # later. I was told it would be no problem - I would only have to call the credit card department for which the phone number would be in the confirmation email. When my friend called to change the number, he was told that my credit card was already charged and that there is nothing I can do except get paid back by my friend or cancel the reservation and pay the cancellation fee myself. I spoke with two supervisors and was given a different phone # to call. Everyone had the same answer - too bad, there's nothing that can be done and it's my problem to straighten out. At one point I waited over 45 minutes on hold. The agent that took my reservation either didn't know what he was doing or he lied to me. All hotels.com would do is apologize and tell me there is nothing that can be done. This has cost me a couple hours of frustration and at a minimum will cost me more time trying to get my money back with a wire transfer fee of $40 or more. I will never use their service again.

I booked a room at the Harvard Square Hotel. When I got to the hotel I discovered that my room, my sheets, my towels, indeed the entire hotel was strongly scented. This is a major problem for me. I am disabled. I have asthma and serious life-threatening allergies to perfumes and scents. The hotel refused to do anything about this. Since I booked the room through Hotels.com, I had to go through them to change the booking and find another hotel. Hotels.com found me another place to stay, across the street. What I did not discover until the next day, was that Hotels.com charged me over $1000 a night for this alternative hotel. When I called to complain, they said they could give me a 10% discount but otherwise their hands were tied. They said I should talk to the hotel manager. I talked to the hotel manager at the other hotel (Charles Hotel) and the hotel manager said she could do nothing, since I'd booked the room through Hotels.com and it was a "confidential rate" and that they could do nothing for me.

I am now stuck in this overpriced and expensive room. Yes, it is scent free, so I am not getting an asthma attack, but I am paying over $1000 a night. I don't know what to do about this. I cannot afford this fee and I will dispute it when I get my credit card bill. Beyond that, I don't know what I can do. I would love any help or suggestions.

Hotels.com warning: price quoted is for one person only regardless of how many people you enter in your search.

This was my first time using hotels.com — and will definitely be my last.

I was earching for 1 room, 2 people, 6 days and found a rate atthe alexandria old town hilton for $95.20 per night. This is a fantastic price.in fact it seemed almost too good to be true. So before booking, i...

First called the hilton to make sure they had such a deal with hotels.com and that the room would not be in the basement next to the heat/air machinery or some other such place. They said they did work with hotels.com and the room would be a regular.

I then called hotels.com and spoke with a woman named "julie." I explained that my husband and I would be spending christmas with our son in alexandria. (She replied in an oh so friendly a voice "my daughter lives there, too.") I told her about finding the 1 room, 2 people, 6 days room for $95.20 a night and that I wanted to be certain there was a good room with no caveats. She assured me it would be. She told me that hotels.com bought in bulk and could thus offer cheaper rates.

Feeling reassured, I made the reservations and gave her our credit card number. She told me $600+ would be charged to the card and the my husband and I "were are all set" for our arrival"on x date. She told me a confirmation would be soon sent to my email and gave me their customer service number to call if I had any questions, then pleasantly said goodbye.

I was feeling fine — until the confirmation came through showing only 1 person in the reservation. Thinking this was just a typing mistake, I called customer service at hotels.com. I spoke with a very supercilious jerk called"amil."who told me it would be $20.00 more per night for a second person. When I said this was not what the woman at booking told me, he dismissed all that and said"go look at the web page."

I told him I did not book at the web page; that I had booked by telephone. He ignored this and repeated"go look at the web page."I went to the web page and searched on the same criteria and came up with the $95.20 rate. I told him this. He said click on the green select button and then click on green button on the next page. I did it to placate him and there in there after the subtotal was the charge $20.00 per additional person.

I told him I could see this now on the web page, but it was not mentioned when I booked by phone. I read back to him the amount"julie"said we would pay and that she had said"you and your husband"so she knew there were two of us when she quoted me the $600+ price. He said basically"too bad"the rate is 95.20 plus $20. He refused to cancel the transaction.

After demanding to speak with the supervisor (Who amil said may be too busy to speak with me!), I was finally told I could cancel and get a refund in"30 days or the next billing cycle" or go to the hotel and if we were charged the additional $20.00 per night, hotels.com would later refund it. Yeah, right. I cancelled everything.

Now begins the struggle to get the money refunded to our charge card. I will contact our bank tomorrow and alert them to this bait and switch experience and see if they can get a prompt refund for us. I will also place a complaint with the better business bureau in my home state and in virginia.

I strongly suggest that every one else who has such an experience with hotels.com do the same.

I spoke with a man last night and booked a room for May 7 - May 11. He read the confirmation back to me before we hung up and everything was good. He gave me my confirmation number. I asked him to also send me an email so I could have a hard copy of what we discussed. When I received the confirmation through email it was wrong. It was for May 7 - May 9 for $137. My total bill was for $237. The confirmation number was also different. I called and spoke with a girl this time and she said I had 2 reservations. One for May 7 - May 9 and another one for May 8 - May 11. The room that I originally booked was 2 beds with a kitchen. When I called and spoke with the girl she said those rooms didn't have a kitchen. The only room with a kitchen in this hotel was with a king size bed. I asked for over an hour to speak with a manager and they were always busy. I can imagine why with the ignorance I dealt with. I called back today because I never received a confirmation from the girl "fixing" everything and to my surprise ... she screwed up also. When I called and spoke with yet another guy he told me my phone # and address were not matching the reservation. I asked again to speak with a manager. When he came back of course the managers were all busy. He decided he could help me. The ignorant girl who helped me the night before put in an address and phone number for someone in Florida. I made them stay on the line with me until I got the confirmation showing the right dates. I'm still worried that when I get there someone else will have my room and the credits they are suppose to be giving me on my credit will never show up. Oh...they did offer me a $100 gift card for all my trouble. The only catch is that it is to be used as a rebate on a future booking at hotels.com. Are they freaking kidding me. I told the girl that I would sleep in a tent on the side of a road before I would book with their company ever again. I also assured them that word of mouth is everything in a business and I would never speak highly of them. BEWARE...my mom even booked a hotel and they got her address wrong also. How hard is it to get it wrong when you repeat it several times and they read it back to you. Something just isn't right with this company. Book through someone else if you don't want a headache.

Hotels.com is a rip-off, DO NOT USE!, When I went to get quotes from the hotel, they told us a rate of 64.99, we called hotels.com to get a cheaper rate. They quoted us 60.00 flat rate + tax, so I accepted that rate and setup my reservations. I booked the room for 3 days, which should have been around 65.00 per night which figures to be 195.00 for the three nights. On last day of my stay, when I checked my account they had withdrew 235.00. They charged me instead of 60.00 per night 71.65 per night (which is more than the state tax required). I also notice they charged an additional charge of 19.74 for an extra guest, (but it was only for two people which is the rate they gave me of 60.00 for the two of us). I then called customer service to discuss this and they told me it was a charge of tax and service charge that the hotel charged,and those charges didn't have anything to do with them. When I went to discuss it with the hotel, they said they couldn't discuss the bill because I went thru hotels.com that I would have to take that up with them. After the run-around, I called hotels.com back and they said once again that Extended Stay America had charged tax and service charge. So I didnt get anything resolved with them after going back and forth from the hotel to hotels.com, so I will never ever use them again, the prices that the hotel gives you in the end will be a better price. I don't put any of the blame on "Extended Stay America" because I didn't go thru them but thru hotels.com. My stay at the room was good, I didn't have any problems with the stay, except that I had to pay 5.00 more to use their internet and the tv only went to channel 30 which was more news channels, so I had to go rent movies, other than that the stay was good.

Booked a stay during "double point" credits. Customer disservice would only say doesn't apply, no, can't do. Beware of this consolidator - very, very poor and prices through them are usually higher than going direct.

that is the issue, that most people does not even know what hotel they want to book, therfore, a database like hotels.com, expedia, orbitz, or someone else comes in handy, but people usually think that this companies are hotel owners, and they are not... this fact is explecit on the terms and conditions... so you sad people that has been "mistreated" and have gone trough "pain" by booking trough a third party booking service, you can call better bussiness, tell your grand mother, write a letter to the senate, or even the whitehouse, united nations, or whoever you think might need your vote for something, and you will not get anything else than one "slap right in the face", with exception of your grandma, she might give you two...