AmericInn International

I make travel arrangements for service technicians for a manufacturing company. On 6/8 I was asked to make arrangements for 2-nights at a hotel in/near Plymouth, WI for four technicians. We typically book with Holiday Inn Express; however, there wasn't a property available near the address I was given. After doing some research, I found AmericInn and thought I'd give it a try. I even went so far as to sign one of the gentleman up for their rewards program in the event we would have to use an AmericInn in the future. In doing so, I attempted to use AmericInn's website. What a debacle! I needed to make 4 reservations and sign the one technician up with AmericInn's rewards program. It took well over an hour of my time due to constant site crashes, and poor (I mean really poor) site design (I know 12 year olds who could build a better interface than what AmericInn owns and operates). About half way into the 4th reservation, the site crashed for the umpteenth timeand by that point I was so frustrated, I decided to stop attempting the impossible and revisit the reservation process the next Monday. Upon getting into work Monday, it turned out that the trip was to be cancelled in its entirety, so I decided to brave the website one last time and cancel the 3 reservations I'd received confirmations for (I also received 3 automatic responses from AmericInn on Saturday 6/9, which were the "We Look Forward to Seeing You" messages. I went ahead and cancelled the 3 reservations that I was aware of (receiving cancellation confirmations), only to find when I received my company's next American Express statement, that AmericInn had charged me for a 4th reservation because it had never been cancelled. I contacted the AmericInn office and it took almost an hour again for both the front desk lady and the manager to tell me they didn't know what happened. They didn't have any record of the 4th reservation either! They said they had to contact their "central booking office" and they'd get back to me. The manager did call me back only to explain that one of our service techs - who doesn't live in Wisconsin, by the way - did indeed stay there on the dates reserved, even though I assured him that he did not and I had physical proof. He then provided a new (4th) confirmation number which I had no record of. I explained to him the problems I'd had with their website and he had absolutely nothing to say about it and wouldn't budge on the matter. So, I disputed the charge with American Express, but it did no good becaues AmericInn had this bogus confirmation number in their favor. To make a VERY LONG story short, I can guarantee this particular company will never again book with AmericInn Hotels, and should anybody ask, will gladly offer details of the experience we had with them. In this day and age there is no excuse for the really poor website service they offer as well as their sub-par customer service. Thank God for Holiday Inn's and Hampton Inn's because considering the volume of reservations I have to make on a weekly basis, I never experience the problems I did with AmericInn.