Q: I recently booked a one-night stay at the Grand Hyatt Hotel New York through Expedia on behalf of a manager in my company. My credit card was charged for $789. Within an hour of finishing the transaction online, I phoned the Hyatt to confirm the booking, but was told they didn’t have any reservation from Expedia and that the hotel was in fact sold out on that day.
When I called Expedia, a customer service representative said he was sending a fax to the hotel and that he would call the hotel to confirm the room reservation. He then placed me on hold. After a lengthy wait, an agent came back on the line and promised there was a room for my manager.
But when my manager tried to check in, there was no room. The hotel had received no fax from Expedia. The hotel clerk called Expedia but never resolved the issue, because Expedia put him on hold for too long. My manager was unable to get a hotel room and had to sleep in the airport that night.
I’d like to get my money back, but Expedia is telling me that they have to contact the Hyatt before they can issue a refund. I don’t understand this. Can you please help me?
– Janice Japa, St. Louis
A: If Expedia confirmed your reservation, your colleague should have had a room. The least the online agency can do now is to apologize and refund your money immediately.
Your experience raises a question that has plagued travelers since the first computerized booking: What’s a reservation worth?
In your case, not a whole lot. The “confirmation” you received from Expedia turned out to be an empty promise for a room at the Hyatt. And what’s worse, the agency took its time returning your money — even after your manager had to bunk down at the airport.
The unfortunate truth is that a confirmation isn’t really a confirmation these days. It’s more of an agreement in principle to provide you with an airline ticket, cruise berth, hotel room or rental car. If a better offer comes along — or if the company just forgets to follow through on your reservation — then you’re sleeping in a terminal.
I think you handled this grievance pretty well. Calling the hotel was an excellent idea, and so was following up with Expedia. But you should have contacted Hyatt again after getting off the phone with Expedia to make sure your manager was in the hotel’s reservations system.
I asked Expedia to take another look at your case. Its records show that when you called, the online agency had an indication that the hotel would not, in fact, honor your reservation (the booking was made on short notice and there was severe weather in New York on that day.) The agent should have tried to find you a room at a different hotel.
“Instead, the agent simply re-sent the original reservation to the hotel,” said Expedia spokeswoman Katie Deines.
Expedia apologized for the error, refunded the $789 and credited your account with $400 in vouchers.
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
So, Expedia took your money and failed to get you a room. I can understand screw-ups like this when occupancy is tight, but the fact that they just said, oh, well, I’m going home for the night knowing that they had a customer without any recourse or a room, seems a little cold. Do you still have a job? A very understanding manager, thats for sure.
Then your manager took a cab [?] from one of the NY airports to the hotel, did not have a room, and then took a cab BACK to the airport? In New York? The hotel room capital of the world? This person could not find a hotel room ANYWHERE in NY? A suite at the Waldorf? Something somewhere? If s/he found a suite I would think that Expedia would have been on the hook for it Heck, I bet the Jamaica Inn outside JFK had a room, even though no one would ever want to stay there.
Why would someone go into the city, an having a screw-up on their hotel, go BACK to the airport and sleep in the chairs? Why am I having a problem with this? I am just confused.
I had a similar experience when I booked a room at America’s Best Value Inn and Suites through hotels.com in the Chicago area for 3 nights. When I tried to check-in, the hotel did not have my reservation. I called hotels.com to resolve this issue. The customer service representative said that she will check with the hotel and put me on hold. She did not return even after 45 minutes and I had to hang up the phone. I drove around for sometime to see if I could get a room somewhere else but nothing was available anywhere. I had no option but to drive back to my residence 250 miles away. The worst part of it all was I had guests with me who were visiting America for the first time and they had to endure these hardships on their vacation. I had to raise hell at hotels.com to get my money back and still they took over a month to refund my money.
I’ve had similar experiences with Expedia on more than one ocassions and will now only use them if they have a substantially lower rate than available elsewhere and I confirm with the hotel immediately. Expedia, for some unfathomable reason (given that it’s an online agency and presumably knows how to use email), relies on faxes so there is no email trail that can be checked in the event of a dispute. I’ve had reservations through Expedia at both Marriott and Wyndham hotels and been told, on arrival, that Expedia never contacted them to reserve the room. One has no way of knowing, if Expedia didn’t contact them, or if the hotel misplaced the fax and didn’t enter the guest in the system, or if the hotel got a higher rate customer in and conveniently “lost the fax.” Expedia has a faulty system and should be avoided for that reason.
The endless parade of these situations we see here and on other travel sites makes me wonder why anyone would book thrugh an online third party. They seem to be universally inflexible and generally unresponsive. If you book directly with a hotel chain or an airline your contractual (such as it is) relation is with the supplier of the service. If you book with a thrid party the supplier has no obligation to you.
Their ads are cute. It is a big business. Despite their advertised assurances I do not believe their prices are lower than what the hotel/airline offers. Some margin has to pay for those televisiion ads and the call centers. Even if they do slightly underprice their own suppliers, the risk to the traveler is too great. What price do you put on finding you have no hotel late at night or discovering your flight was cancelled days before you were to fly? What is the value of being able to change ngihts, hotels, flights, without hassle?
Why didn’t they use a travel agent? This is a corporate client and they should be using one for their business. This is a case of being penny wise and pound foolish. They are paying office employees salary and, presumibly, benefits to surf the net looking for bargains! What a waste of manpower. A travel agent would have given him documentation about the reservation!
I had this experience just last week. I supposedly had a room reserved for my family and I at La Quinta in Minneapolis. When I arrived at the front desk, a half asleep staff, told me that there was no room available for my family to rest that night. He informed me that the hotel was undergoing a construction. Wait. I thought I got this confirmation via Orbirz.com to explain my business transaction to him. Little that I know he somehow figured something out while leaving me and three other customers at the front desk. For about an hour later he finally showed up with a room key to this one very ugly room (it looks like he just cleaned the room). It was the worst room at LQ ever.
The horror didn’t start until the next morning when about 15 and more people were walking around half naked in the corridor of the hotel. Singing, talking loud on their cell phones while listening to a very loud Mexican music. OMG, all occupants in that part of the hotel, except my family were illegal workers who were doing the construction for the LQ hotel.
Lesson learned. Don’t go to La Quinta. And number two don’t book your hotel room via Orbitz.com
I will not book through Expedia again either. I made a hotel reservation in the Denver area, later found a better rate on my own at a different hotel, called Expedia back a week before the reservation began to cancel, and was told there was a $25 re-booking fee, which I was never told in the original conversation w/Expedia. They also took about a week to post the credit to my credit card for over $500. I had heard on a financial news radio channel that Expedia’s earnings are sagging … and now I know why. Bottom line: check rates online, then call hotel directly.
All I can think when I read this story is that for business travel there is simply no better option than American Express Travel Services. They may cost a bit more for their services, but if you deal with them on the phone, they will take the time to find you the flights you want at the fare you want, and a hotel room at or near you destination. Amex Travel is definitely worth the added cost to me. Fortunately for me, they’re also the standard travel agent of my current employer.