I’ve taken a considerable amount of flak for pointing out the obvious fact that the rate you’re quoted when you’re booking a trip should be the price you actually pay. My industry critics foolishly insist that’s not how it works — not when you’re dealing with a “highly dynamic” pricing system.
I’m not going to debate the misguided airline apologists here, except to point out yet another obvious fact: Bait-and-switch isn’t limited to air fares.
Consider what happened when Stacey Blakemore booked a $29 suite at the Days Inn and Suites in Auburn, Ala., through Travelocity, but ended up being charged $180 a night.
When I arrived at the hotel, they informed me that the room had been canceled. First, the desk clerk tried to tell me that I canceled the room. When I assured her that I had not, she said Travelocity had canceled it. When I told her that I had contacted Travelocity recently to confirm the room and that I had a confirmation code from Travelocity, she finally admitted that the hotel had canceled my room per the owner’s request.
The owner simply did not want to honor the rate because it was a busy weekend and he or she felt that the hotel could rent the room for more. No one ever contacted me to warn me that my room had been canceled.
Blakemore phoned Travelocity, which tried to persuade the Days Inn to honor the original rate. The hotel refused. And there were no other hotel rooms available in town.
A hotel representative told me there were two rooms left, and that I could book either one of them for $180 per night. Each room had two double beds. So, instead of the suite for $28.99 per night, I was offered a room with two double beds for $180 per night. I felt I had no choice but to book the room.
Days Inn refused to refund the difference between the original rate and the new rate after Blakemore contacted it at the corporate level. What ensued, as far as I can tell, was a blame game — with Days Inn trying to fault Travelocity for the problems, and Travelocity unable to negotiate an acceptable settlement.
Blakemore, for her part, was furious.
I feel this was a bait-and-switch. The hotel advertised a rate of $28.99 on multiple Web sites. The hotel allowed the room to be booked. Then, just days before my scheduled arrival, the hotel canceled my reservation and no one notified me.
I contacted Travelocity, and it refunded the difference between the original rate and the new rate.
Lesson learned? Don’t just phone your online travel agent to confirm a hotel reservation. Call the hotel directly.
And one more thing: Airlines aren’t the only ones that play the bait-and-switch game.
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“The owner simply did not want to honor the rate because it was a busy weekend and he or she felt that the hotel could rent the room for more. No one ever contacted me to warn me that my room had been canceled.”
Hmm. This screams out for small claims court. This is more than a breach of contract it is a tort, It is also probably an unfair trade practice in most states – so if this days inn was in a state with such a law, you can also get attorneys fees and triple damages and perhaps punitive damages for such an act by an innkeeper.
We as consumers really need to hold these peoples feet to the fire – if the facts are as stated above then making him pay, say, three times the different plus a $1000 in attorneys fees seems like a little justice . . . too bad in small claims you can’t get punitive damages.
I thought small claims court. but she was travelling to this place, which means she would have to travel back for the court date, which means it would probably be not worth it. that is, unless she could find a proxy to stand in for her at court.
Its funny how armchair lawyers talk about ‘breach of contract’ and other legal terms without having any clue what the relationship between travelocity is. I worked audit at more than a few hotels, here’s the deal.
The hotel has a contract with Travelocity, it states that the hotel will hold X rooms for them at a contracted rate of X, until a certain date. The hotel can ‘black out’ rooms on busy weekends or release this hold with appropriate notice to Travelocity.
Until a confirmation is provided by the hotel for a booking made through Travelocity (You book with them, they then book with the hotel) your reservation with the hotel doesn’t exist.
Often (and I mean -very- often) Travelocity will push a hotel for additional rooms to be added ‘off block’, which means they’re asking for rooms above and beyond their contracted allotment. Its very possible that you booked with travelocity, and they had exceeded their block and had to ‘request’ the additional room and it was denied. This is even more possible the closer you booked to the date you travelled. Regardless of whether Travelocity screwed up and couldn’t “get you a room” or the hotel was being stupid and didn’t confirm the room, or the hotel was being a bunch of bastards and cancelled a reservation ‘after’ it was confirmed, the hotel is under no obligation to provide you the room.
That said, their contract isn’t with you, they didn’t advertise a room at X, travelocity did and that’s why when there was a problem, Travelocity stepped up and coverred you. You’ll likely never know who screwed up your reservation, but talking about it in terms of a relationship you feel you had or a contract you feel you had with the hotel is misleading, the hotel owes ‘you’ nothing.
(Not that I’m defending the hotel, this has come up for me personally in hotels, and in every instance we defended our location by shifting rooms, or in an extreme, finding the customer a room at another nearby location, or even a more expensive hotel in the city at our own cost, just to please our customer and promote good will.)
I’ve never seen a room advertised on Travelocity or Expedia that I couldn’t find for the same price on the hotel chain’s direct site. I’ve always felt safer booking direct with the hotel. This is why.
“Its funny how armchair lawyers talk about ‘breach of contract’ and other legal terms without having any clue what the relationship between travelocity is.”
Hey, at least most of us actually read the article.
It all comes down to game-day economics. Auburn isn’t a big place. (I’m from Alabama.) It does, however, boast a large, Division I university that has a big fan base. I suspect Stacey was there on a big football weekend. Maybe homecoming, maybe another big game. The hotel manager /owner was seeing dollar signs and just knew he could get a bigger fish on the line. If she goes again, I’d advise staying in Opelika. Or Tuskegee. Not large places either, but perhaps more likely to have honest hotel proprietors.
The owner and hotel can tap dance around the issue all they want. She booked a room with their establishment and they chose not to honor the price. Penalizing her for booking through Travelocity isn’t right or honest. And if I know SEC football fans (and I do), that hotel manager may be looking for another job, and quickly. He/she may find doing business that way in a town as small as Auburn isn’t the way to make a profit. Word travels.
Re: …”the hotel is under no obligation to provide you the room.” While this may be technically true, they are under an obligation to tell you (or to tell Travelocity) that they canceled your reservation. That is really the issue here. It seems that Travelocity has a lot of communication screwups and that’s why I’m reluctant to use them.
In addition, just because you “can” do something or have the right do do it (e.g., cancel a customer’s room) doesn’t mean that you should do it, or that it makes good business sense. Alienating customers is never a good idea. Hopefully, this is not a corporate-wide policy at Days Inn.
I agree that it’s crucial to confirm directly with the hotel when you book through a third party. I always do this when I book through Priceline or Hotwire and so far my reservations have been honored.
It is funny, that even users of this blog get into the details of who is responsible. As far as Stacey is concerned, it is irrelevant who is responsible. What’s relevant is, is that *both* travelocity and the hotel dropped the ball here. Both are in the business of selling hotel rooms. Both need each other. The hotel leverages (I like using fashion words) its risk by using travelocity and travelocity can not exist without the hotel. So when the ball gets dropped *both* need to behave responsible, and fix the problem for *their* customer. Only *after* the problem gets fixed for the customer, they need to take it up with each other.
Because now, they have both lost a customer.
I’m not sure why everyone is saying Travelocity “dropped the ball”. It seems to me that they (a) tried to negotiate with the hotel at the time of the incident (b) followed up with the hotel and customer to find a solution and (c) paid up when negotiations failed with the hotel. The customer isn’t out money, and Travelocity sounds like they provided decent service to rectify the problem. The story clearly says she was told Days Inn cancelled the room “as per owner request”. So, it couldn’t be a denied off-block booking by Travelocity, because in that case there would have been no booking to cancel.
@ Christopher: Travelocity dropped the ball because their customer did not get the room she booked.
Travelocity cleaned up the mess, and that is nice of them. But they would not have had to clean up the mess if the customer would just have got the room she booked.
“Its funny how armchair lawyers talk about ‘breach of contract’ and other legal terms without having any clue what the relationship between travelocity is. I worked audit at more than a few hotels, here’s the deal…
Regardless of whether Travelocity screwed up and couldn’t “get you a room” or the hotel was being stupid and didn’t confirm the room, or the hotel was being a bunch of bastards and cancelled a reservation ‘after’ it was confirmed, the hotel is under no obligation to provide you the room.”
It’s funny how someone who doesn’t know the law either, makes up legal stuff, too. I’ll go for it. You’re most likely wrong. There are more than one way to pursue this. It could very well be breach of contract, I recommend you research the term privity.
Second, it could well be a tort and there may be a third cause of action under state law under the state’s deceptive trade practices act.
BTW, I am a lawyer.
If the aggrieved traveler would like to seek a middle ground between a lawsuit and dropping the matter, I would suggest filing a complaint with the state’s Attorney General. They have a Consumer Affairs division whose job it is to look into precisely this sort of thing.
That said, I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for something to happen. Unless it’s found to be part of a pattern of behavior, the AG would be likely to look at the hotel’s actions, the fact the complainant was reimbursed by Travelocity, and decide no harm, no foul.
It’s funny how Kirzen has no clue as to who I recommended suing. Who ever talked about making a claim against Travelocity? Thats a pretty big leap – especially since most travel companies have an arbitration clause. The facts presented state that the HOTEL, i.e., Days Inn, canceled the reservation. In order for a res to be canceled, it has to exist in the first place. Thus, I think the first issue with proving that one existed has been cured. Thus, while Kirzen;s expose might be interesting at some academic level to determine who made a deal with whom, it is not helpful here. The hotel HAD a reservation. The hotel canceled it. Who did it notify?
Now if the hotel did notify Travelocity that it was not going to honor the rate and Travelocity did nothing to even notify the customer, then Travelocity bears the liability for the difference in rate. Kirzen is 100% correct about how the business operates. But that does nothing for the customer standing at the hotel’s check-in desk. Keep in mind that travelocity is not your customer – no matter what you may think.
IT’S NOT TRAVELOCITY’S FAULT!
I work in a hotel and I deal with these types of contracts regularly. When you book through an OTA (i.e. Travelocity), the contract is between you and them. The hotel also has its own contract with the OTA.
The hotel has control via the internet of the rates and inventory that Travelocity has available for sale and whether they were aware of the cheap rate or just weren’t paying attention they still allowed Travelocity to continue selling at that rate which resulted in a reservation being booked.
By cancelling the reservation they (the hotel) were trying to bait and switch and I’ll bet this isn’t the only person they have done this to considering that the “too good to be true” price is in more than one place.
Anyway, that leaves this person stuck in the middle because Travelocity had their money, therefore it was up to them to find comparable accomodations or refund the money depending on the booking agreement with them. Unfortunately the guest would not have any recourse against the shady motel operator because the guest made the deal with Travelocity and not the hotel directly.
By refunding the difference in price, Travelocity is actually paying that money out of pocket unless they somehow can recover that money later from the hotel, so thumbs up to them for taking care of their customer even at a loss that was beyond their control!
Since the hotel breached their agreement with Travelocity, I can only hope that Travelocity is taking some sort of action against the property. If Travelocity (and its other affiliate sites) dropped their agreement with this property imagine the amount of money they could lose by not showing up in search engines next to all their competition.
Don’t let this foul experience ruin you from booking through third parties! Here’s my advice:
1. Always shop around. If the rate is cheaper through the hotel directly book it through them. If the rate is cheaper through the internet book it online.(remember to take into consideration all the taxes and fees and look only at the total price!)
2. If you’re going to whine if you don’t get two queen beds or a suite, book it through the hotel directly. Often the reservations made through a third party are “Run-Of-House” and “Based on Availability.” You get what you pay for.
3. Read the terms & conditions. Read the terms & conditions. (Read the terms & conditions.) Often by booking online you could save money, however you could also lose money if you cancel or make a change. Many sites charge nonrefundable booking fees and may also charge fees for cancelling or making changes. 99% of the time when you book directly with the hotel you can cancel with no penalty just by providing 2-3 days notice.
I would agree that fault lies somewhere between Days Inn and Travelocity. Without knowing the exact relationships, I wouldn’t venture a legal opinion. And yes, I am an attorney.
I think though that this scenario is fundamentally different from the airlines’ yield management system per the opening lines of the article. It’s one thing to be suspicious of prices which dynamically go up and down. It’s another for the hotel owner to arbitrarily cancel a reservation. Apples and oranges at the very least.
I wonder if the hotel felt that this was one of those fat finger fares. I mean $29 for a suite does seem unreasonably low, even for a slow period. In which case, IMO it was right to cancel the reservation.
This is a COMMON problem of late with many Days Inn bookings — direct, with coupons, through the Days Inn website, or through another agency. The Days Inn name is no protection and Days Inn staff in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Indiana have told us directly “Days Inn customer service will not help you” —once you arrive with your reservation information you are at the mercy of the local hotel management.
It took three truly bad experiences, and worthless credits that were just wasted on the next reservation to learn this lesson (and all were over double the charge here for simple rooms). Give up Days Inn! Days Inn is now lumped in with the Wyndham group (Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, Ramada Worldwide, Days Inn, Super 8, Wingate by Wyndham, Baymont Inns & Suites, Howard Johnson, Travelodge, Knights Inn, and AmeriHost Inn) and their customer service is truly a sham. After a truly horrific night spent half awake in an Indianapolis Days Inn, no working coffee machine or shower and the neighbors seem to have attracted police attention we left as fast as we could followed by management threats of “future charges”.
Days Inn customer service noted they would take care of once we would mail them a “copy of our credit card bill”! Wrong. We stopped that before a bill was mailed, and a month later received a slight apology and credit noting it was our fault for not leaving immediately. We had a handicapped person with us who had to lay down for a while — once rested, we ran!
I have the last letter with a faux-credit that can be used at any of these hotels on our next trip. It lists all of the related hotels and suggests that we join WYNDHAM REWARDS and/or their resort club. We keep this as a reminder to avoid all of the hotels on their header and noted that other billing problems since 2006 had occurred in same group: Wyndham, Ramada, Knights Inn (shudder), Super 8, and Wingate. They don’t miss us, they get more than enough suckers sent over by their other booking agencies. Each of these hotels is independent now (per conversations with customer service) and has been told by the Wyndham group that they can do as they wish — and they seem to be doing just that. Most complaints will just lead to an angry call from someone telling you not to complain (or as in indiana, “you can sleep in your car next time”).
Learn from those who DO complain and book elsewhere or don’t just shut up and pay whatever the desk clerk asks for, clean your room and shut up.
Elliott – you’ve taken considerable flack from whom? If you’re quoted a rate that you don’t book, then call back and find the rate has changed, that’s one thing. If, however, you reserve a room at the price quoted it most certainly is the price you should expect to pay.
I’ve worked in and around the hotel industry since 1984 and have never known a hotelier who would claim otherwise. Perhaps there are rogue operators out there that practice business unscrupulously (and the Blakemore account, if accurate, describes a thoroughly unscrupulous practice), but to survive they would have to cater largely to a clientelle I’d not want to meet on a dark street.