Hotels.com
Reviews and Complaints

I just had a similar experience. Booked for 5 nights at Montien Hotel, Bangkok and the price was Baht17, 324.95. Later, saw the same thing on HotelTravel.com for Baht12, 856.10. Called Hotels.com to claim on their price guarantee and the guy went to HotelTravel.com site. He filled a similar booking and in fact came up with a even lower price of Baht 9k+ . He however stated that there was a statement at the bottom of that site that stated the currency of billing is USD. Based on this statement, he claimed that their price guarantee requires everything to be similar and therefore they could not honour a claim. I tried to reason that billing currency does not mean that this site is offering a lower rate. He insisted that their guarantee condition requires everything to be the same. I read their terms and conditions and replied that their terms just said the itinerary must be the same and since billing currency does not affect itinerary, it is not relevant. He insisted the condition is applicable and the competition's booking price is not exactly similar for the guarantee to apply. I replied that this is illogical. He even went to the extent to state that in business it is very common to have things that appear illogical. This reservation organisation is really a scam.

I tried to reserve a room in Las Vegas. The website offered a rate. When paying for the rate, it went up more then double. I did not complete the reservation and called them up. I spoke with a agent and he confirmed the price on the website. He told me that he confirmed with price gaurantee department and that I had to pay the higher price, then they would turn around and credit the price difference back. I bought it. They didnt credit me back, and customer service told me there were no notes in the booking and they couldnt verify the lower rate on their own website. They said they would honor nothing due to not being able to verify anything. Total rude broken english losers

A three night hotel stay was not booked to my account. I contacted customer service and was promised, in email, that my account would be corrected within 48 hours. Well, 384 hours and counting, and two emails later, my account has not been corrected. They have had ample time to make this right and no longer respond to me. In reading others' comments it appears that they just don't care about the customer.

Irrespective of whether Hotels.com satisfied their terms and conditions in this instance, I agree with the complainant, this company has the worst customer service I have ever experienced. When trying to resolve an issue we were passed around various people for over two hours I was even hung up on once. This company is not worth using if you value being treated like a human being.

Looking at what their price match guarantee is, http://service.hotels.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5652/session/L3NpZC8xQVJ5d0hqaw%3D%3D/sno/0 I'd say they satisfied what they said they'd do by canceling your reservation for free so you can book with someone else.

I received an email to thank me for registering with Hotel Club, when in fact I had done no such thing. After some searching, I found a phone number and called them to remove the account. After a being on hold I was first told they could not cancel my account at all. I asked for a supervisor who said they said they were unable to remove it, but that they would 'lock it'. They could not provide any answer to my question how they got my email in the first instance. While - in fairness - they did send an email confirming the account was locked, they did no ask for any information to confirm that I was. I am totally underwhelmed by their protection of privacy and would not trust this site with personal information - it has a real smell of scam associated with it.

They cancelled my hotel and charged full amount of booking + cancellation charges also, its total scam.

Hotels.com is a tricky website. I put in certain dates and during the search, the dates defaulted to the wrong dates. I immediately called the hotel which I booked. However, I failed to cancel within the 2 hour limit at the website. I am being charged for their mistake. They will not refund my $241. I asked to speak to a supervisor and the person argued with me and refused to give the phone to the supervisor. They are thieves!

On June 8, 2011 we made a reservation through Hotels.com for check in on September 10, 2011 (3 months away). The Cancellation policy states: "Cancellations or changes made before 4:00PM on September 9, 2011 are subject to a hotel fee equal to the first night's rate plus taxes and fees." we understood this to mean that cancellations prior to September 9 would give us our full refund (standard refund policy for hotel reservations), and starting September 9, 2011 (12am) the one day charge would be in effect. We ended up cancelling our reservation prior to September 9, and we were billed $194 (one night fee). We spoke to Hotels.com customer service and we were told that this was the actual Hotel Policy. We then called the hotel, and learned this was untrue. It is Hotels.com that charges the one night fee for cancellation of reservations. We disputed this charge with our Credit Card company (American Express). They were informed by Hotels.com that when customers make reservations and authorize the charge to their credit cards, they are agreeing to the terms and conditions.

We agreed to the terms and conditions stated "Cancellations or changes made before 4:00PM on September 9, 2011 are subject to a hotel fee equal to the first night's rate plus taxes and fees." It is Hotels.com that is implementing the Policy language in an abusive manner.

I conducted a general search of online complaints against Hotels.com, and there are many other individuals who have experienced the same charges. Many customers made reservations, cancelled within minutes, and were charged!

If my charge, as one individual was $194. Then I can only imagine the total amount of revenue Hotels.com is collecting by wrongly implementing their policy language.

As a hotel employee, do not book through 3rd parties... If you book through the hotel directly you will get the most accurate information, and all information would be provided to you by an employee of that hotel. 3rd Parties get commission when booking reservations, so of course they will promise you the world. When you arrive at the hotel your stuck to deal with whatever situation the 3rd party puts you in. Don't pay someone to do a job you can do easily...

Hotels.com has nothing but bad reviews, describing the same horrible problems year after year. It is unbelievable that they remain in business. Search the internet and it is nothing but complaint after complaint, the lowest ratings, worst customer service, no reservations, no refunds, etc.
Any hotel employee will tell you, do not use hotels.com or any third party service; call the hotel yourself and safe a lot of grief and money.
DO NOT USE HOTELS.COM

DO NOT use Hotels.com for your travel arrangements! Read on...

I had to book a hotel in an area I wasn't too familiar with, because my boyfriend was in a wedding there. I thought that Hotels.com would be the perfect solution, since they list different hotels with all of their prices. I thought wrong.

After booking a hotel room with them for the weekend, I received a confirmation email with my confirmation number in it. Assuming all was well, I prepared for my trip. Thank God I woke up the morning of our trip (We were supposed to check in later that night.) and decided to call the hotel to confirm, just because I didn't want to have any problems. The hotel had never heard of me and hence, did not have my reservation. Keep in mind, at this point my bank card was already charged for this reservation by Hotels.com.

I called Hotels.com immediately and demanded to know why the hotel did not know about my reservation. The person I spoke with, while very nice, gave me some excuse about how she couldn't get a hold of the person at her company that I had dealt with before, and so we couldn't find out what went wrong.

Ultimately, she booked me another reservation at another hotel in the area of the wedding. She explained that she needed to "cancel" my first reservation in her system and that I would be refunded for that within 30 days. She then charged me for the second reservation on my same bank card. That in itself was ridiculous, but I needed a hotel for that same night, and I didn't have time to argue. I told her that I couldn't have any problems with this 2nd reservation, because I needed a hotel for a wedding for the weekend. She said that she would personally call the hotel of the 2nd reservation and make sure that the reservation was there. She kept me on hold for 10 minutes, but upon returning to my call, she assured me that the hotel was booked and gave me a new confirmation number for this reservation.

I shouldn't have believed her, but I really didn't think that Hotels.com could screw up a second time. Don't you know, that night I arrived at the new hotel that had been booked that morning for me, and they did not have my reservation! Thank God the people at the hotel were some of the nicest people I had ever met, and after I told them how Hotels.com had never booked my first reservation, the hotel took it upon themselves to call Hotels.com for me and work it out directly with them. They gave us their last vacant room for the weekend. I don't know what I would've done if they had been booked.

The following Monday, upon returning home, I called Hotels.com and demanded to speak with a manager, because I wanted someone to explain to me why I had 2 confirmation numbers and 2 charges on my bank card, and no reservations! They refused to let me speak to a manager, and the agent I spoke with basically blew me off after I told him what had happened. They had no explanation for their faults, and I got no where with them after being on the phone for an hour.

All in all, I expected more from a company as well-known as Hotels.com, but it just goes to show you that some of the larger companies really don't care about their customers at all. My advice: DO NOT use Hotels.com for your travel arrangements. And if for some reason you are forced to use them, make sure that you call your hotel to confirm way in advance.

As a hotel employee, do not book through 3rd parties... If you book through the hotel directly you will get the most accurate information, and all information would be provided to you by an employee of that hotel. 3rd Parties get commission when booking reservations, so of course they will promise you the world. When you arrive at the hotel your stuck to deal with whatever situation the 3rd party puts you in. Don't pay someone to do a job you can do easily...

As a hotel employee, do not book through 3rd parties... If you book through the hotel directly you will get the most accurate information, and all information would be provided to you by an employee of that hotel. 3rd Parties get commission when booking reservations, so of course they will promise you the world. When you arrive at the hotel your stuck to deal with whatever situation the 3rd party puts you in. Don't pay someone to do a job you can do easily...

Do you have any facts?

I agree with the complainant. Hotels.com has the worst customer service I have ever experienced. They are refusing to honour a confirmed booking that we made two months ago. We are being transferred around from department to department and have been cut off twice. Irrespective of the nature of compain, no one should ever be treated like this. Please, do not do business with this company if you value being treated like a human being. As the hotel employee above says, find your hotel using Hotels.com if you want to, but then, book through the hotel directly.

As a hotel employee, do not book through 3rd parties... If you book through the hotel directly you will get the most accurate information, and all information would be provided to you by an employee of that hotel. 3rd Parties get commission when booking reservations, so of course they will promise you the world. When you arrive at the hotel your stuck to deal with whatever situation the 3rd party puts you in. Don't pay someone to do a job you can do easily...

I looked on the website, and 85% of customers recommend the place. Looking through the reviews, the worst say that it's cheap and you get what you pay for. But for a 2-star hotel, that's still a pretty good rating. The spider is not a big deal - it's Florida, after all. Probably not something they need to put on the website.

I made a booking for 2 nights stay at the France Hotel in Amsterdam and paid for by credit card, when we arrived we were told that the booking has been cancelled, I made several emails and attempt several phone calls to a number in Turkey (+[protected]) with no responce, after reading all the other complains I feel that Book In Hotels is commiting froud in a grand scale and must be legaly stopped

i agree with us. we must do something all together. this is my mail: pastisset@mail.com . maybe we can do a comun complain in the police, and with the costumers service of spain . please¡¡¡¡ we must stop this staf¡¡ a try to get back our money

i booked a room for 3 nights in august at ibis centro, milan, italy for my 50th birthday in April 2017 using book in hotels website. Received an email 3 days before the departure saying due to financial issues book in hotes can not meet my reservations and the full amount will be credited in to my credit card account within the next 90 days. I am still waiting for the payment to come through. All the telephone lines are cancelled. If you ring the customer no [protected] you get the message that this no is not activated by the owner. there is no answer of any of my emails to them. For all who conerns we should ask our credit card to get this money back and forward them all the details. This co. should be banned completley from doing any business at all on website and person in charge should be brought to justice.

Hi Guys,
I've booked the family accommodation at the Rodeway Inn (total of 16 days and US$ 649, 93) and two days before the scheduled date I received exacly the same e-mail of "Sbrain", financial issues, refund in 10 days, bla bla bla...
We need to make more noise on that, otherwise they'll deceive more people.
Regards,
Fabio

We booked our accommodation in May for 2 days at the Corus Hyde Park Hotel in London on the 29th July we received an email stating that they had financial issues with the hotel and that our booking has been cancelled, this is 2 days before we were to fly out from Sydney. I actually phoned the hotel and our name was not registered with them. Booking hotels state that it could take up to 2 months for a refund on our credit card. I have emailed them twice with no reply as yet (now that I have read other complaints about this company it seems that we are not the only one to lose our money). We strongly advise any one NOT to use BOOK IN HOTELS for any hotel bookings.

Did she just call herself a "sucker"? lmao too funny

As a hotel employee, do not book through 3rd parties... If you book through the hotel directly you will get the most accurate information, and all information would be provided to you by an employee of that hotel. 3rd Parties get commission when booking reservations, so of course they will promise you the world. When you arrive at the hotel your stuck to deal with whatever situation the 3rd party puts you in. Don't pay someone to do a job you can do easily...

I had a similar problem with a room booked through priceline.com. We booked a room, flight and car rental to Texas. The very same afternoon, I got a call from my son stating all visiting, schools etc. were canceled due to the number of Swine flu cases in the area. I immediately called to cancel and was given a runaround by both the priceline and the hotel. Each blamed the other for not allowing the cancellation. The only one that didn't give me a hard time was the car rental. I finally got the refund to my card but only after many phone calls and many hours of arguments. Never again, call direct from now on.

I booked on hotels.com a room for $109.00, just for the heck of it, I called the hotel to find out what they would charge me directly. I found out their regular rate is $99.00. I called hotels.com to request a refund for the difference. Manuel in customer service told me "we don't refund like that." Then he told me that if I cancelled with hotels.com the hotel would still charge me. So I called the hotel and guess what...they said that if I cancelled with hotels.com and rebooked with them I would not be charged. Hotels.com is a scam and their price match policy is utter nonsense. Please don't waste your money.

I booked over the phone via hotels.com quoting me $115.49 all taxes inclusive. When I got to the hotel they were charging customers $90+taxex - a few dollars cheaper. I later got my credit card bill and found out I was charged $147.46! I called hotels.com and asked for the call recording and they said they are unable to provide it to me. I am filing a complaint against these idiots as they are unable to prove that I had accepted to pay $147.46. HOTELS.COM SUCKS AND THEY ARE LIARS.

I also booked a hotel with hotels.com .. I did not mean make the reservations thru them, except when I dialed the hotel number on the hotels web site the number connected with hotels.com. I made the reservation. A few days later, and well before the 48 hr check in timeframe I had to cancel my reservation for my Marine son was injured in Afghanistan and this changed all our plans. I called the hotel to cancel, called hotels.com looking for refund which they charged 100% immediately to my visa. I called four times, I begin this process on July 3rd, it is not July 28th - I have had to have my financial institution become involved to dispute the charge - I about to submit a claim with the Attorney General's office, (this route has helped me in the past concerning unfair business practices). Don't use hotels.com. Should you be automatically routed to them, hang up, try the hotel again, book directly with the hotel. There are no deals and only huge aggrevation with hotels.com

As a hotel employee, do not book through 3rd parties... If you book through the hotel directly you will get the most accurate information, and all information would be provided to you by an employee of that hotel. 3rd Parties get commission when booking reservations, so of course they will promise you the world. When you arrive at the hotel your stuck to deal with whatever situation the 3rd party puts you in. Don't pay someone to do a job you can do easily...

I went to San Antonio a couple of weeks ago for my kids' Spring Break. We drove from Dallas to San Antonio and stayed near Sea Wold. I made my reservations through Hotels.com for a room with two queen size beds. When I got there past midnight, with two kids, 9 and 10 (the 9-year-old being special needs) very tired I found out the only room available was with one king size bed. The hotel was full and there was nothing they could do for me since I didn't book through the hotel and unsed Hotels.com instead. I called Hotels.com and explained that not only I reserved a room with two queen beds, I also asked them to note that one of my kids was special needs and I needed specifically what I paid for, two beds. They couldn't do absolutely anything! Not even find me another hotel because everything was sold out since it was spring break. ALL I ASKED WAS WHAT I PAID FOR!

Fortunately the hotel front desk attendant was wonderful, even though she didn't have any more rooms she found us a roll away bed and did everything she could to help us out. She explained that whenever someone books a room using a "third party" like Hotels.com, they only have to honor the fact that "a room" was booked, not necessarily the type of room. They didn't have to garantee a two queen bed room, they'd only do that if I would've booked directly through the hotel chain (in this case Holliday Inn). In addition, the hotels don't give points to the hotel chain "rewards program" because it wasn't book through them.

Lesson learned, DO NOT USE HOTELS.COM and be very careful when using a third party to book anything in order to save money...you get what you pay for (and in my case I didn't even get that!). And don't forget to always ask questions!