Hotels.com and Avid Hotels review: Cancellation of hotel reservation without notification

I made a hotel reservation with hotels.com on July 1, 2022 for a one night stay at an Avid hotel in Richmond, VA on July 30, 2022, for 2 rooms, 4 people in each room. The reservation was made with a pay at the hotel rate, which requires a credit card to hold the reservation, but the card would not be charged until hotel check-in on the day I arrive at the hotel. Without my consent, the Avid Hotel attempted to charge my credit card on file on July 25, 2022 and it was declined. I was never contacted by anyone from the Avid Hotel or hotels.com to notify me. Unaware of what occurred, I contact the hotel earlier in the day on July 30 to request that the 2 rooms be close to one another because I had 4 teenage girls on this trip. The Avid Hotel representative stated that my reservation had been cancelled because I had a "pay in advance rate" for the hotel rooms and when they attempted to charge my card, it was declined. I explained to him that that was in error and had documentation from my hotels.com confirmation email to show that I had a "pay at the hotel rate" reservation. At this point, he continued to state that hotels.com must have made the error and I needed to take it up with them. I asked if I could reserve 2 rooms with 2 queen size beds at this time, but he said they only had rooms with king size beds available and there was nothing more he could do to assist me, and this was unacceptable for what I required. Fortunately, after a frantic search, I was able to reserve the 2 rooms I needed at another hotel with 2 queen size beds in each room, but I did not use hotels.com, nor will I ever us them again because they falsely advertised room rates and it caused quite an inconvenience as I had to travel an extra 30 miles to get to the hotel I successfully reserved at the last minute. Additionally, hotels.co, has sent me 2 emails to rate how my stay was at the Avid Hotel. Very disappointed customer.