Hotels.com failed to notify actual hotel of booking, leaving me without a room. Refund required

[Deleted User]

Upsidedownandaround said:

Deleted_User said:

Upsidedownandaround said:

Andr0n1cus said:

Booked a hotel in the Lake District for one night using Hotels.com. Paid by debit card. Turned up at the hotel a week later to find the hotel in question had no record of the booking and no rooms available. They confirmed that they had not been notified of the booking by Hotels.com, nor received any payment from them. Furthermore, they said they had been fully booked weeks in advance, so no available room ever existed.
Tried to contact Hotels.com, who only provide a telephone number. Phone eventually answered by an agent, who then pointlessly forwarded an email confirming the booking to the hotel, whilst I was still speaking to the hotel manager. The agent then said he would have to transfer me to the Hotels.com 'Relocations Team'. Predictably, no-one from the 'Relocations Team' answered the phone and after over an hour on hold the line cut off. 
I therefore had to source another hotel myself, leaving me £150 out of pocket. 
I have notified my bank, but the money has already left my account and Hotels.com still have it. I want to pursue a refund with them, but the only means of contacting them is via a phone number that doesn't get answered. I've tried to contact them again today, but the automated phone message quoted a 3 hour wait just to speak to an agent, and as 'refunds' were not on their list of pre-recorded options, doubtless the 'agent' will only seek to fob me off to another Hotels.com department again. How can I get my money back out of these chisellers if I can't even contact them?

It sounds like the hotel is not being very truthful with you.

Hotels.com (like Booking.com also) are direct distribution platforms. The hotel is the one who sells the rooms through their platform. They put all the infromation on Hotels.com including prices and available inventory. The only way Hotels.com could have had a room available for the hotel for you to book is if the hotel put one there. Once sold they would be automatically notified of your booking at the same time you were and the money would in most cases be transferred via a virtual credit card with the booking.

Either the hotel has messed up by losing your booking or more likely they overbooked and decided to bump the customers who booked through a 3rd party firstly so they do not have to pay any commision and secondly so they can blame Hotels.com.

While it could be overbooking, there is a good chance this due to the third party site not updating their records properly or getting late data. I have seen multiple examples of this from front desk people in the US in particular on reddit where the hotel marks as no rooms and the guest then goes on the booking sites and secures themselves a room which doesn't exist, then go and complain at the desk staff that they can't check in. There is no reason for a fully booked hotel to report available rooms or sell more than their inventory. If the hotel overbooked then they should really be setup to provide a replacement room in another hotel as pretending they didn't get the booking would be pointless if hotels.com could prove they sent the booking as it would then come back to the hotel to pay up both a refund and commission.

With these sites what can happen is the hotel says they will reserve a room or rooms for Expedia or whoever, and Expedia assume that the rooms are for sale even if the hotel has subsequently sold them (a bit naughty certainly to breach their contract) as Expedia can be using data up to 3 days old. Similarly, if the hotel booking system doesn't properly integrate with the third party site, they may have to manually update the booking website who in turn, have to update their system - if they don't, someone can book a room that doesn't exist.

The person who updates the records or data on Hotels.com is the hotel. They are not like 4th party websites who buy hotel rooms through bed banks and wholesalers when a person tries to buy a hotel from them. They have a direct relationship with the hotel who places their hotel on Hotels.com. They log on to the extranet and place all their hotel details on there including price and inventory. If its not up to date it's because the hotel hasn't updated it. Usually it is because the inventory will be tied up to there own booking site. If it isn't they would receive a booking confirmation they cannot do and presumably would then contact the person or Hotels.com advising of the error.

A lot of hotels overbook. It's far easier to tell someone at reception that Hotels.com messed it up and contact them than explaining to someone we overbooked, you're the unlucky one and we will have to try and find a hotel for you elsewhere. 

As I said, I can provide plenty of examples of, admittedly anecdotal, cases of hotels where they have shut the booking and still have rooms sold through sites like Expedia (which is the parent of hotels.com). Further, you are assuming the hotel updates in real time and that Hotels.com also update in real time which they can't do without being in the connectivity agreement. A hotel that is fully booked has no real reason to make stuff available on the scrapers and pay commission if they over sell when they are not taking bookings on their site.

Upsidedownandaround

Deleted_User said:

Upsidedownandaround said:

Deleted_User said:

Upsidedownandaround said:

Andr0n1cus said:

Booked a hotel in the Lake District for one night using Hotels.com. Paid by debit card. Turned up at the hotel a week later to find the hotel in question had no record of the booking and no rooms available. They confirmed that they had not been notified of the booking by Hotels.com, nor received any payment from them. Furthermore, they said they had been fully booked weeks in advance, so no available room ever existed.
Tried to contact Hotels.com, who only provide a telephone number. Phone eventually answered by an agent, who then pointlessly forwarded an email confirming the booking to the hotel, whilst I was still speaking to the hotel manager. The agent then said he would have to transfer me to the Hotels.com 'Relocations Team'. Predictably, no-one from the 'Relocations Team' answered the phone and after over an hour on hold the line cut off. 
I therefore had to source another hotel myself, leaving me £150 out of pocket. 
I have notified my bank, but the money has already left my account and Hotels.com still have it. I want to pursue a refund with them, but the only means of contacting them is via a phone number that doesn't get answered. I've tried to contact them again today, but the automated phone message quoted a 3 hour wait just to speak to an agent, and as 'refunds' were not on their list of pre-recorded options, doubtless the 'agent' will only seek to fob me off to another Hotels.com department again. How can I get my money back out of these chisellers if I can't even contact them?

It sounds like the hotel is not being very truthful with you.

Hotels.com (like Booking.com also) are direct distribution platforms. The hotel is the one who sells the rooms through their platform. They put all the infromation on Hotels.com including prices and available inventory. The only way Hotels.com could have had a room available for the hotel for you to book is if the hotel put one there. Once sold they would be automatically notified of your booking at the same time you were and the money would in most cases be transferred via a virtual credit card with the booking.

Either the hotel has messed up by losing your booking or more likely they overbooked and decided to bump the customers who booked through a 3rd party firstly so they do not have to pay any commision and secondly so they can blame Hotels.com.

While it could be overbooking, there is a good chance this due to the third party site not updating their records properly or getting late data. I have seen multiple examples of this from front desk people in the US in particular on reddit where the hotel marks as no rooms and the guest then goes on the booking sites and secures themselves a room which doesn't exist, then go and complain at the desk staff that they can't check in. There is no reason for a fully booked hotel to report available rooms or sell more than their inventory. If the hotel overbooked then they should really be setup to provide a replacement room in another hotel as pretending they didn't get the booking would be pointless if hotels.com could prove they sent the booking as it would then come back to the hotel to pay up both a refund and commission.

With these sites what can happen is the hotel says they will reserve a room or rooms for Expedia or whoever, and Expedia assume that the rooms are for sale even if the hotel has subsequently sold them (a bit naughty certainly to breach their contract) as Expedia can be using data up to 3 days old. Similarly, if the hotel booking system doesn't properly integrate with the third party site, they may have to manually update the booking website who in turn, have to update their system - if they don't, someone can book a room that doesn't exist.

The person who updates the records or data on Hotels.com is the hotel. They are not like 4th party websites who buy hotel rooms through bed banks and wholesalers when a person tries to buy a hotel from them. They have a direct relationship with the hotel who places their hotel on Hotels.com. They log on to the extranet and place all their hotel details on there including price and inventory. If its not up to date it's because the hotel hasn't updated it. Usually it is because the inventory will be tied up to there own booking site. If it isn't they would receive a booking confirmation they cannot do and presumably would then contact the person or Hotels.com advising of the error.

A lot of hotels overbook. It's far easier to tell someone at reception that Hotels.com messed it up and contact them than explaining to someone we overbooked, you're the unlucky one and we will have to try and find a hotel for you elsewhere. 

As I said, I can provide plenty of examples of, admittedly anecdotal, cases of hotels where they have shut the booking and still have rooms sold through sites like Expedia (which is the parent of hotels.com). Further, you are assuming the hotel updates in real time and that Hotels.com also update in real time which they can't do without being in the connectivity agreement. A hotel that is fully booked has no real reason to make stuff available on the scrapers and pay commission if they over sell when they are not taking bookings on their site.

I'm not assuming anything. This is how hotels.com works. They are not scrapers. Hotels.com and sites like Booking.com have agreements with hotels whereby the hotels agree to be advertised on their platform via a direct distribution extranet platform where they are the only ones who can control what rooms are available. If the inventory is not up to date it's because the hotel hasn't updated it as they are the only ones who can say a room is available.

They are compltely different from other OTA's who use screen scraper technology. Most hotel OTA's use bed banks or wholesalers to source a hotel after a person books but this is different from direct distribution.

Your last sentence makes no sense. A lot of hotels over book that is a given.

When a hotel is overbooked and Mr A turns up having paid £100 a night direct with the hotel and received confirmation from the hotel and Mr B turns up having paid £100 a night via Hotels.com and having received confirmation from them who do you think they will give the room to?

The hotel has the choice to give the room to the person who booked with them and get the full £100  without commision and avoid having someone complaining in reception and getting bad reviews about them overbooking the hotel and having to find them a new hotel.

Or they give the room to the person who booked with Hotels.com getting £85 after commision. Instead they can tell the customer who doesn't know how Hotels.com operates they never received their booking and to call Hotels.com because they messed up and instead no bad review, no complaning in reception and a thread on a forum that never even mentions the hotels name.