Fraudulent charge from hotel

shefmarkh

Hello,

I made a hotel booking through Expedia on a set of dates. Subsequently I changed these dates to an earlier set of dates and received a confirmation email from Expedia stating the booking was changed.

On arrival at the hotel I was informed they had never agreed to change the booking and so no rooms were available. I found another nearby hotel with a room and stayed there.

The problem is that subsequently on the day of the original booking dates my credit card has been charged for the cost of the stay on the original dates. I have contacted Expedia who say they won't refund me because they did not charge me, whilst it seems the hotel has told Expedia they don't accept the booking was changed and so they are entitled to charge me.

Who is therefore responsible to refund me? As far as I am concerned I had the confirmation the booking was changed from Expedia, so I have done nothing wrong. But it's unclear who is responsible from a legal perspective and who I should go after for the refund.

Thanks,

Mark

tightauldgit

Well that's going to be a bit of a mess to untangle. 

From what you have said Expedia are the ones at fault - you updated your booking, they confirmed it to you, but they haven't confirmed it with the hotel - but since they didn't charge you and didn't take your money they won't want to refund you

The hotel have taken your money for what was for them a legitimate booking and a no show - so they won't want to refund you if they've done nothing wrong. 

So no doubt there would be internal wrangling between the hotel and expedia on who exactly made the mistake but that's not going to help you. 

From what I see if Expedia were responsible for changing your booking then they are responsible for the problem and you should pursue them. Up to them if they then want to in turn try to recover the costs from the hotel. 

I suspect though that Expedia will use the 'we are just a middle man' line and push you to the hotel. 

That being the case it might be better to try your bank/card provider to see if they can help. Are you prepared to take it to court? Is it worth the amount? If so then possibly escalate with Expedia and try a letter before action if they still insist it's not their responsibility. 

PHK

Interesting that you describe this as fraudulent but there's nothing in what you've written to suggest fraud. 

So that we have the full picture.  When you arrived at the hotel to find the booking hadn't been changed.  What was the conversation about the original booked dates? eg knowing they hadn't received the change of dates from Expedia did you specifically say that you wanted to cancel the original dates? Did the hotel agree to this? Did they mention a cancellation fee? Etc 

Wonka_2

shefmarkh said:

On arrival at the hotel I was informed they had never agreed to change the booking and so no rooms were available. I found another nearby hotel with a room and stayed there.

Out of interest why did you find another hotel ? Did you not contact Expedia at the time to sort it out given they'd confirmed the change ?

Taking them out of the loop and finding your own replacement isn't going to make it easier to get them to take any responsibility 

tightauldgit

Wonka_2 said:

shefmarkh said:

On arrival at the hotel I was informed they had never agreed to change the booking and so no rooms were available. I found another nearby hotel with a room and stayed there.

Out of interest why did you find another hotel ? Did you not contact Expedia at the time to sort it out given they'd confirmed the change ?

Taking them out of the loop and finding your own replacement isn't going to make it easier to get them to take any responsibility 

In fairness when you rock up at a hotel in a foreign country expecting a room and get turned away sometimes it's not always simple to get in touch with customer services at the agent to sort out the problem. I've had issues with bookings at AirBNB and Booking.com and in both cases you often get a 'we'll get back to you within 24 hours' message. And of course you may or may not be able to phone them depending on roaming, the time of the day, whether they answer, whether you can afford to hold on the line at whatever roaming cost is per minute etc. 

Sometimes you just need to take initiative and find somewhere to sleep for the night

RefluentBeans

As others have said, contacting Expedia would’ve been the optimal way to go before booking another room. Either way, too late now, so no point dwelling on the past. 

When you had the confirmation of change what did the email say? Was it an acknowledgment of your request to change (I.e. we have received your request, and are contacting our partners) or was it a confirmation that ‘you’re booking at Hotel X has been amended to this date’. 

I feel that is the crux to whether you can get a refund or not. If it was the former (I.e. an acknowledgment of your request) then they should’ve followed it up, but sometimes emails gets marked as spam etc.

If it was the latter then they should refund you for that. They may offer to supply a refund to ensure you didn’t pay more than what you originally paid, but I think this is a weak case (imagine booking a BnB and then having to rebook so you go to the Ritz - even though they can see on their system there was still rooms available at other places in the area!). 

I think you need to go back to Your emails, check that the email confirms the change is actioned (not just requested) and then take it from there. It entirely depends on that email imho. 

born_again

Does the hotel allow changes?
While these 3rd party site do, you need to check the actual hotel you booked with T/C from their page.

shefmarkh

Email from Expedia stated booking had been updated and showed the new dates.

Hotel terms and conditions, shown in original email, shows change of date allowed.

on attempting to check in the hotel did not mention anything about the original booking.

it just didn’t occur to me to ring Expedia, given the hotel was crystal clear they were not going to give me a room.

Wonka_2

tightauldgit said:

Wonka_2 said:

shefmarkh said:

On arrival at the hotel I was informed they had never agreed to change the booking and so no rooms were available. I found another nearby hotel with a room and stayed there.

Out of interest why did you find another hotel ? Did you not contact Expedia at the time to sort it out given they'd confirmed the change ?

Taking them out of the loop and finding your own replacement isn't going to make it easier to get them to take any responsibility 

In fairness when you rock up at a hotel in a foreign country expecting a room and get turned away sometimes it's not always simple to get in touch with customer services at the agent to sort out the problem. I've had issues with bookings at AirBNB and Booking.com and in both cases you often get a 'we'll get back to you within 24 hours' message. And of course you may or may not be able to phone them depending on roaming, the time of the day, whether they answer, whether you can afford to hold on the line at whatever roaming cost is per minute etc. 

Sometimes you just need to take initiative and find somewhere to sleep for the night

OK - accept that but as a very frequent traveller I can think of only a single time in the last 15yrs when I've not been able to raise an agent to resolve on the spot. Or maybe I'm just an assertive Northener happy to stand at reception whilst they resolve and find me a room there, or an alternative for the night to then resolve more fully the next morning.

Obviously I wouldn't use this if there was any doubt as to whether agent had merely accepted my request to change rather than confirmed that the change was made/accepted 

tightauldgit

Wonka_2 said:

tightauldgit said:

Wonka_2 said:

shefmarkh said:

On arrival at the hotel I was informed they had never agreed to change the booking and so no rooms were available. I found another nearby hotel with a room and stayed there.

Out of interest why did you find another hotel ? Did you not contact Expedia at the time to sort it out given they'd confirmed the change ?

Taking them out of the loop and finding your own replacement isn't going to make it easier to get them to take any responsibility 

In fairness when you rock up at a hotel in a foreign country expecting a room and get turned away sometimes it's not always simple to get in touch with customer services at the agent to sort out the problem. I've had issues with bookings at AirBNB and Booking.com and in both cases you often get a 'we'll get back to you within 24 hours' message. And of course you may or may not be able to phone them depending on roaming, the time of the day, whether they answer, whether you can afford to hold on the line at whatever roaming cost is per minute etc. 

Sometimes you just need to take initiative and find somewhere to sleep for the night

OK - accept that but as a very frequent traveller I can think of only a single time in the last 15yrs when I've not been able to raise an agent to resolve on the spot. Or maybe I'm just an assertive Northener happy to stand at reception whilst they resolve and find me a room there, or an alternative for the night to then resolve more fully the next morning.

Obviously I wouldn't use this if there was any doubt as to whether agent had merely accepted my request to change rather than confirmed that the change was made/accepted 

Well for example in the past 12 months or so I've had the following with Booking.com bookings:

1. Turned up to find the hotel locked at 11pm and unable to gain entry despite having confirmed my arrival time the day before

2. Turned up to find the hotel empty at 10pm apart from a cleaner who didn't speak English.

In both cases I hadn't yet gotten a local SIM for my phone and couldn't access WIFI either. My priority in that situation is getting somewhere to sleep for the night not necessarily trying to contact customer services and even if you do theres a good chance you're going to be stuck on an automated answering system for an hour and or waiting on a chat person to respond at some point in the next 24 hours