Anna Johnson is unhappy with her Hotwire hotel room. Her problem: The site isn’t consistent with its star ratings, and now she’s stuck with a room at a property she didn’t want. Is she entitled to a refund?
STAR
The hotel Valerie Acosta booked through Hotwire.com isn’t what she expected. The site claims it’s a four-star resort, but the reviews say otherwise. How about a refund?
Debbie Vinton saw a star on her recent vacation in Los Angeles, but it isn’t the kind that you’d want an autograph from. Instead, her car rental company asked to sign a form agreeing to cover the damage for a cracked windshield “star” on her front windshield.
Before you dismiss this latest story about a hotel ratings dispute as irrelevant, consider this: Changing a hotel’s star rating by just a fraction can translate into millions of dollars of revenue to an online travel company. So every half-point counts. It certainly does to Sugi Harto, who found himself booked at the Fairfield Inn Placentia through Hotwire recently.
When Ed Boston books a two-star hotel in Flint, Mich., he expects a reliable property with minimal amenities — not the dump he ends up in. He asks his online travel agency if he can change hotels, and it says “no.” What now?
Marilyn Parver never wanted to become a YouTube star. Neither did Iesha Walker. Their path to social media celebrity didn’t involve uploading an overproduced music video, clips of dancing comedians or laughing babies. They just took their video cameras on vacation.
Elliott is consumer advocate 
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