Q: I recently booked a hotel room through Travelocity for an eight-day business trip. I ended up having to stay only five nights. When I checked out of the hotel, I was surprised to find that the price I was being charged was $30 less a night than Travelocity’s.
I was happy. I invoiced my customer and was reimbursed for five nights at the lower rate.
Then my credit card charged me twice — once for the hotel and then once for Travelocity. I could not reach the customer support area on Travelocity’s Web site (the link went nowhere). When I called Travelocity, I was put on hold for anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours. In the end I contacted the hotel, which credited me for five nights.
But Travelocity was still charging me for three nights that I didn’t use. I got on the phone again and spent what seemed like forever on hold. I was told that I would get a refund, but after more than two months, they have yet to credit me.
No organization can be this incompetent. I think they feel that since they have lost you as a customer anyway, they might as well keep the money they promised to refund you.
I have given up on ever getting my money back.
– Patty Rosenberg
Newport, Ore.
A: Don’t give up! Remember, travel companies are quick to take your money and slow to return it. After communicating with Travelocity on your behalf, I believe the agency (while dreadfully slow) had no intention of pocketing your money.
As best I can tell, here’s what happened.
You did, in fact, give Travelocity your credit-card number, but your rate appears to have been nonrefundable. Any time you give a hotel or agency your credit-card number to “guarantee” a reservation, odds are you’ll be billed.
When you checked out early, the hotel generated a new bill at a different rate. But no one reminded you that your original reservation was nonrefundable — or bothered to tell Travelocity that the hotel had billed you separately.
So who’s to blame for this mess?
Travelocity shouldn’t have put you on hold for hours at a time and sent you a link to nowhere. It dragged its feet with a refund, which is irritating. If we paid companies like Travelocity at the same speed they paid us, then they would declare bankruptcy in short order.
Your hotel screwed up, too. It shouldn’t have charged you again, although it was awfully nice to reduce the rate by $30 a night. Kind of makes you wonder how much of a “deal” those Travelocity rooms are, doesn’t it?
You should have paid attention to the terms of your hotel reservation. When you saw the new rate, you should have asked to speak with a manager in order to prevent a possible double-billing.
If my understanding of this case is correct, you weren’t entitled to a refund on the remaining three nights. But after all that you endured, Travelocity agreed to refund your card $383.07 for the nights you didn’t use.
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I recently reserved a room through Travelocity and was surprised to see the charge on my credit card bill for last month, when my reservation is for later this month. I have never had a charge for a hotel room processed before I actually stayed there. Now, it turns out that I am not going to stay over, and when I tried to cancel my reservation (several days in advance of the date), I was told by the hotel reservation representative that they could not cancel it, and I would have to cancel through Travelocity. When I called Travelocity, I was told that the charge was non-refundable. Travelocity tells me that it is the hotel’s policy, but the hotel has no such policy; they allow cancellation up to one day in advance with no charge. It does state on the Travelocity website that reservations may have cancellation fees equal to one night’s charge, but I have never had a hotel charge to cancel a reservation more than 24 hours in advance. I assumed that if I cancelled more than 24 hours in advance there would be no charge. Now, I will never use Travelocity again, nor will I stay in a Crowne Plaza or any other IHG hotel if I can avoid it.