hotels.com - no support with double-booking, won't refund replacement room

On_The_Ball

Hello everyone, I hope you can help me.

On the 21st of April, I booked and paid for two nights in an apartment in Tbilisi, Georgia, on hotels.com for the 4th to the 6th of May. I received confirmation with “Your booking is guaranteed” all over it. When it came to the day of check-in, I (as instructed) sent text messages to the owner, who needed further info to find my booking.

We arrived (as we’d advised) at the apartment shortly after 8pm and told the owner we were outside. He replied and said the apartment was double-booked and that it wasn’t his fault. It may not have been, but this left us on the street with our luggage with nowhere to stay.

I called hotels.com for support. I explained the situation and didn't get much help, before being cut off. The person had my phone number, but didn't bother to call me back - I obviously desperately needed help, but he clearly didn't care. We were standing on the street with nowhere to go with all our luggage, completely vulnerable. I made this abundantly clear to their staff, who clearly couldn’t care less.

I left it a few minutes to give the man a chance to call back, but he didn't bother. I then called back but got cut off. I called again, but got cut off again. So I called again and spent 60 minutes explaining the situation repeatedly and waiting on hold, never getting any closer to actually having somewhere to sleep, despite the time.

Several staff had tried and failed to speak to the apartment owner, but the last person succeeded. The owner told them that the apartments were closed from the 1st of May to the 1st of August, which was clearly a lie because he’d told me that it was double-booked. I can prove this.

By this time it was 9pm and a car had exploded just up the road from where I was stranded (and a mini-riot broke out – which made the news) and frankly I was terrified. In our desperation, and because hotels.com were unable (and unwilling) to help, we found some wifi and found the nearest available hotel on hotels.com. I suggested this to the next person I spoke to, who disappeared to book the rooms for me – needless to say, he didn’t bother (we went in the hotel and asked) – and then cut me off AGAIN. Various members of staff promised to call me back if we were cut off, but they didn’t bother. We confirmed my phone number multiple times, but they didn’t bother.

In the end (at about 22:30 and two hours of wasting time calling), in utter fear for our safety, we booked the hotel ourselves (through the hotels.com site). I never heard back from anyone at hotels.com. When we got back, I contacted Customer Services and explained everything. They refused to pay for the hotel, but said they’d contact the apartment owner and ask him to pay, then contact me within seven days – well it’s now been 11 days and nothing. I’ve got in touch but they just fob me off. Apparently I shouldn’t have done a “self-booking”, but the only thing they’ve said I should have done is to call them! I’m not sure what more I could have done. The hotel cost me £642, and I wasted £112 on phone calls. They say they “can’t” do anything about any of this as they refunded my original booking (I didn’t ask them to) and gave me a £20 voucher. If they had just helped me out, I wouldn’t have incurred any of these costs.

My problem here is not what happened with the apartment, but that hotels.com knowingly left me stranded without accommodation in a dangerous situation, lied about helping and lied about calling me back. How is my booking “guaranteed”? What do they propose I should have done?

I’m not sure what to do next. Does anyone have any advice?

Thanks a lot.

marliepanda

What was your original room booking price?

On_The_Ball

£82. I know there's quite a difference but we weren't prepared to traipse around at 22:30 trying to find somewhere - this hotel was right around the corner.

marliepanda

On_The_Ball wrote: »

£82. I know there's quite a difference but we weren't prepared to traipse around at 22:30 trying to find somewhere - this hotel was right around the corner.

OKay so the company have a duty to help with getting you alternative accomodation, however that is around 8x the price of your original booking.

Was the hotel you booked of a similar standard, or did you go from a double room in a 3* to a penthouse suite in a 5*?

On_The_Ball

They were the last two rooms in the hotel, they said.

We'd originally booked a "superior apartment", and the hotel was 4*. I'd rather have been in the apartment which looked really nice. The next closest geographically was cheaper, but not by loads, and was quite a walk away.

I appreciate that the gap was huge, but it was 22:30 and I had had enough. hotels.com had had over two hours to do something/anything but didn't. Their guy said he was going to book us the rooms and he was aware of the price, so I took that as an 'OK'. I really wasn't trying it on.

- what I mean is that I didn't feel that it was my duty to go to much effort to save hotels.com money after how much they'd messed me around, particularly at that time of night.

- We'd have been happy with anything, it just had to be nearby.

Les79

Don't want to sound mean, but the charges you incurred are ridiculous!

- £112 on Phone calls. You very clearly had a way of mitigating such costs, "we found some wifi and found the nearest available hotel on hotels.com" - more so a good idea when you were being cut off on the Phone. Also, did you not seek to have a sim card which gave you free/cheap calls in Georgia? Preparation is key.

- £642 hotel fee. Just to clarify but is that for the whole trip or 1 night? Because when asked what the initial hotel was priced at, you compared it to an £82 cost.... £82 * 7 night stay = £574 which is not a million miles away from the new hotel cost. BUT if you are telling us that you just paid £642 for one night (because of the way you compared the costs) then you've been well and truly mugged there!

I think you do have a case, but I don't see the resolution being a million miles away from what you have been offered already (£20 cash not voucher). Maybe:

- Full refund of the initial hotel
- £5-£10 to reflect the cost of calling them
- £10-£20 cost for taxi to new hotel


Of course, I might completely have mis-judged it but those are my observations. It might be a case of speaking to CAB/solicitor due to the large amount involved, but even then I'm not too sure under what jurisdiction hotels.com fall under + whether it is them or the third party who are liable.

hollydays

So presumably your you were aware of foreign office advice about parts of Georgia , even though not where you were.
Extraordinary conditions in mid May when there were riots

montyrebel

you booked a room with hotels.com and they messed it up, then you continued to use them to try and fix the situation? probably should have just booked straight through the hotel

On_The_Ball

Les79 -

I know! But We were in Georgia for less than 48 hours, so a SIM wasn't really needed. I anticipated making zero calls, as I always do when I'm abroad (I travel a lot and never do). We didn't book straight away as I knew I needed them to do it - I didn't want to be stuck in this situation.

That was for two rooms for two nights. It was so expensive because they were the last two rooms in a decent hotel (we didn't care about that, we just needed somewhere to go, and as it was 22:30 I think it was reasonable to not travel further). I'm a very frugal traveller (hence £82 for two nights in the two bedroom apartment), I'd never dream of spending that much money (when away with a friend, anyway) but we really didn't have many options, and hotels.com said they were booking that for us.

My annoyance is that I incurred these costs because they not once bothered to call back or book the rooms promised - they made no effort to help.

Last year I booked an equally cheap apartment in Kiev through Expedia (on an extremely busy weekend), only to find just before we arrived that it didn't exist. Expedia found us a hotel and paid over £1500 for that.

hollydays -

We were there before the planned demonstrations. Tbilisi is generally very safe.

montyrebel -

We continued to use hotels.com as we thought that would give us greater weight when recovering costs. It just seemed the right thing to do.


Thanks all for your replies.

dj1471

Hotels.com link to the EU dispute resolution service in their T&Cs, so give that a go:
http://ec.europa.eu/odr

As they're a US company your options are somewhat limited.

Les79

On_The_Ball wrote: »

Les79 -

I know! But We were in Georgia for less than 48 hours, so a SIM wasn't really needed. I anticipated making zero calls, as I always do when I'm abroad (I travel a lot and never do). We didn't book straight away as I knew I needed them to do it - I didn't want to be stuck in this situation.

Fair point. Though you do need to check the UK travel advice for even short trips. Whilst the capital is fairly safe (and their advice RE: demonstrations in the capital was potentially added AFTER your trip), this country has "Advise against all travel" locations which suggests that the government don't have a firm grip on the country.

That was for two rooms for two nights. It was so expensive because they were the last two rooms in a decent hotel (we didn't care about that, we just needed somewhere to go, and as it was 22:30 I think it was reasonable to not travel further). I'm a very frugal traveller (hence £82 for two nights in the two bedroom apartment), I'd never dream of spending that much money (when away with a friend, anyway) but we really didn't have many options, and hotels.com said they were booking that for us.

I doubt that your only option was that hotel in the middle of the capital of Georgia...

You really did need to mitigate some of the cost in the booking of alternative accommodation. It would undoubtedly have been cheaper to get a taxi across town to the nearest similarly priced hotel. I doubt very much that you wouldn't have been able to find that sort of hotel.

My annoyance is that I incurred these costs because they not once bothered to call back or book the rooms promised - they made no effort to help.

I get what you are saying, but you arguably shouldn't have incurred such high costs to begin with! It should have been a simple case of locating a nearby similarly priced hotel, paying for a taxi to it, paying for the room and then claiming:

- Reasonable hotel costs
- Taxi costs
- Potential loss of enjoyment costs

Last year I booked an equally cheap apartment in Kiev through Expedia (on an extremely busy weekend), only to find just before we arrived that it didn't exist. Expedia found us a hotel and paid over £1500 for that.

Ok.... Well I might be wrong then, but find out WHY Expedia refunded you over £1500 there (was that massively disproportionate in relation to the original hotel cost, as per this example in Georgia?) and use this against hotels.com. You may also benefit from speaking to a solicitor to ascertain why there is a discrepancy.

hollydays -

We were there before the planned demonstrations. Tbilisi is generally very safe.

Ah, so the planned demonstrations WERE mentioned prior to travel! As I advised earlier, any country which the UK Gov advises "against all travel" for at least parts of it could potentially be dodgy even in "safe" areas.

montyrebel -

We continued to use hotels.com as we thought that would give us greater weight when recovering costs. It just seemed the right thing to do.

That makes sense.