Hotels.com communication issue led to missed check-in: Seeking refund

Nitra8912

Hi,

I am sharing my experience about an issue I am having with hotels.com, and I will update the post along the way. Hopefully this will be useful to other people too having the same issue. Also, feel free to give me any suggestion that would help me speed up the recovery of my money.

What happened:
I had a 1 night booked in a guest house in Belgrade (Serbia). The guest house normal check-in time are 7am-9pm. However, knowing they were not going to be there at the front desk in the afternoon of the day of my arrival, the property wrote me a message using the hotels.com chat, providing the codes to open the building main door and my room door myself. The messages were shown as delivered on their chat (they later provided screenshot showing the timestamps).

The issue is that the messages above did not appear in my chat till the following day, when it was already too late to stay at the property (I also have the message delivery timestamps on my side of chat, which do not coincide with the timestamps on the host side of chat). My internet connection was working fine and my hotels.com application seemed to be working fine too on the day of my arrival.
Because of the chat issue, the host thought she had provided me with the information to access the property, and I was unaware I needed some access codes to get into the property, or that I should have even asked for them.

Once I arrived at the property on the 1 of May and realising nobody was there at the front desk, I tried calling the host phone number first and then I contacted hotels.com support which also tried calling the host. Unable to contact the host, the support suggested I booked somewhere else for the night and so I did.

What I requested:

I asked to be refunded the extra cost of booking somewhere else for the night. I have been exchanging emails with the hotels.com support for over 2 weeks now and they haven't budge an inch saying that they will not be able to offer any refund.

What's next:

Unfortunately, Hotels.com does not participate in any alternative dispute resolution scheme.

Since I have paid with debit card, I am right now disputing the initial booking charge with my card provider. I will let you know how it goes.

born_again

Nitra8912 said:

Hi,

I am sharing my experience about an issue I am having with hotels.com, and I will update the post along the way. Hopefully this will be useful to other people too having the same issue. Also, feel free to give me any suggestion that would help me speed up the recovery of my money.

What happened:
I had a 1 night booked in a guest house in Belgrade (Serbia). The guest house normal check-in time are 7am-9pm. However, knowing they were not going to be there at the front desk in the afternoon of the day of my arrival, the property wrote me a message using the hotels.com chat, providing the codes to open the building main door and my room door myself. The messages were shown as delivered on their chat (they later provided screenshot showing the timestamps).

The issue is that the messages above did not appear in my chat till the following day, when it was already too late to stay at the property (I also have the message delivery timestamps on my side of chat, which do not coincide with the timestamps on the host side of chat). My internet connection was working fine and my hotels.com application seemed to be working fine too on the day of my arrival.
Because of the chat issue, the host thought she had provided me with the information to access the property, and I was unaware I needed some access codes to get into the property, or that I should have even asked for them.

Once I arrived at the property on the 1 of May and realising nobody was there at the front desk, I tried calling the host phone number first and then I contacted hotels.com support which also tried calling the host. Unable to contact the host, the support suggested I booked somewhere else for the night and so I did.

What I requested:

I asked to be refunded the extra cost of booking somewhere else for the night. I have been exchanging emails with the hotels.com support for over 2 weeks now and they haven't budge an inch saying that they will not be able to offer any refund.

What's next:

Unfortunately, Hotels.com does not participate in any alternative dispute resolution scheme.

Since I have paid with debit card, I am right now disputing the initial booking charge with my card provider. I will let you know how it goes.

On basis are you disputing it?
As the booking was available, the fact you did not receive any messages has no relevance to the card dispute. Which is purely based on was the booking available. 

Voyager2002

Nitra8912 said:

Hi,

I am sharing my experience about an issue I am having with hotels.com, and I will update the post along the way. Hopefully this will be useful to other people too having the same issue. Also, feel free to give me any suggestion that would help me speed up the recovery of my money.

What happened:
I had a 1 night booked in a guest house in Belgrade (Serbia). The guest house normal check-in time are 7am-9pm. However, knowing they were not going to be there at the front desk in the afternoon of the day of my arrival, the property wrote me a message using the hotels.com chat, providing the codes to open the building main door and my room door myself. The messages were shown as delivered on their chat (they later provided screenshot showing the timestamps).

The issue is that the messages above did not appear in my chat till the following day, when it was already too late to stay at the property (I also have the message delivery timestamps on my side of chat, which do not coincide with the timestamps on the host side of chat). My internet connection was working fine and my hotels.com application seemed to be working fine too on the day of my arrival.
Because of the chat issue, the host thought she had provided me with the information to access the property, and I was unaware I needed some access codes to get into the property, or that I should have even asked for them.

Once I arrived at the property on the 1 of May and realising nobody was there at the front desk, I tried calling the host phone number first and then I contacted hotels.com support which also tried calling the host. Unable to contact the host, the support suggested I booked somewhere else for the night and so I did.

What I requested:

I asked to be refunded the extra cost of booking somewhere else for the night. I have been exchanging emails with the hotels.com support for over 2 weeks now and they haven't budge an inch saying that they will not be able to offer any refund.

What's next:

Unfortunately, Hotels.com does not participate in any alternative dispute resolution scheme.

Since I have paid with debit card, I am right now disputing the initial booking charge with my card provider. I will let you know how it goes.

I think that a dispute with your debit card provider is the way to go...

The key point is that you arrived during the hours when check-in would normally have been attended and no-one was there, nor did they answer your telephone call. You had no reason to expect that access codes were being sent (unless there were instructions on the hotel description or sent to you at the time of booking that told you this). All that you know is that you paid for a service and it was not provided.

Do not confuse the issue by blaming Booking.com: the hotel was extremely unprofessional by changing the arrangements for entry at the last moment and assuming that the chat function provided by a third party would work smoothly. The fiasco was their fault and they are responsible for your losses. They might have a legitimate complaint against Booking.com for the failure of the chat system, but really that is not your business.

I think that the reason Booking.com support is not giving you a refund is that you tried to blame them and they got confused. Clearly this is the fault of the hotel, and they do normally refund when a hotel lets a guest down like this.

eskbanker

Voyager2002 said:
Do not confuse the issue by blaming Booking.com

Especially when the booking was made via hotels.com!

Nitra8912

born_again said:

Nitra8912 said:

Hi,

I am sharing my experience about an issue I am having with hotels.com, and I will update the post along the way. Hopefully this will be useful to other people too having the same issue. Also, feel free to give me any suggestion that would help me speed up the recovery of my money.

What happened:
I had a 1 night booked in a guest house in Belgrade (Serbia). The guest house normal check-in time are 7am-9pm. However, knowing they were not going to be there at the front desk in the afternoon of the day of my arrival, the property wrote me a message using the hotels.com chat, providing the codes to open the building main door and my room door myself. The messages were shown as delivered on their chat (they later provided screenshot showing the timestamps).

The issue is that the messages above did not appear in my chat till the following day, when it was already too late to stay at the property (I also have the message delivery timestamps on my side of chat, which do not coincide with the timestamps on the host side of chat). My internet connection was working fine and my hotels.com application seemed to be working fine too on the day of my arrival.
Because of the chat issue, the host thought she had provided me with the information to access the property, and I was unaware I needed some access codes to get into the property, or that I should have even asked for them.

Once I arrived at the property on the 1 of May and realising nobody was there at the front desk, I tried calling the host phone number first and then I contacted hotels.com support which also tried calling the host. Unable to contact the host, the support suggested I booked somewhere else for the night and so I did.

What I requested:

I asked to be refunded the extra cost of booking somewhere else for the night. I have been exchanging emails with the hotels.com support for over 2 weeks now and they haven't budge an inch saying that they will not be able to offer any refund.

What's next:

Unfortunately, Hotels.com does not participate in any alternative dispute resolution scheme.

Since I have paid with debit card, I am right now disputing the initial booking charge with my card provider. I will let you know how it goes.

On basis are you disputing it?
As the booking was available, the fact you did not receive any messages has no relevance to the card dispute. Which is purely based on was the booking available. 

I am disputing it on the base that I paid for a service that I did not receive. It is like paying for a concert and not receiving the ticket to attend.

eskbanker

Nitra8912 said:
I am disputing it on the base that I paid for a service that I did not receive. It is like paying for a concert and not receiving the ticket to attend.

I don't think that analogy works, in that you effectively did receive the ticket but had an issue entering the venue - the hotel obviously did set aside a room for you though.

I can easily see hotels.com and the hotel pointing the finger at each other here, but if you've already submitted a chargeback request, it's now just a case of waiting to see what the response is....

born_again

Nitra8912 said:

I am disputing it on the base that I paid for a service that I did not receive. It is like paying for a concert and not receiving the ticket to attend.

I'll lay odds on that this is destined to failure, as the service was available. Which is what Visa/Mastercard regulations work on.
So while you may get a refund up front. Expect it to be redebited later on. 

TBH, I'm surprised that bank is even taking it on, on this basis.

Nitra8912

eskbanker said:

Nitra8912 said:
I am disputing it on the base that I paid for a service that I did not receive. It is like paying for a concert and not receiving the ticket to attend.

I don't think that analogy works, in that you effectively did receive the ticket but had an issue entering the venue - the hotel obviously did set aside a room for you though.

I can easily see hotels.com and the hotel pointing the finger at each other here, but if you've already submitted a chargeback request, it's now just a case of waiting to see what the response is....

Hotels.com and the property are indeed pointing finger at each other, hotels.com saying that the property is responsible to decide on refunds and the property saying they did send a message (although received too late) and therefore it is not their fault.

Nitra8912

born_again said:

Nitra8912 said:

I am disputing it on the base that I paid for a service that I did not receive. It is like paying for a concert and not receiving the ticket to attend.

I'll lay odds on that this is destined to failure, as the service was available. Which is what Visa/Mastercard regulations work on.
So while you may get a refund up front. Expect it to be redebited later on. 

TBH, I'm surprised that bank is even taking it on, on this basis.

I have low hopes too on the chargeback to be successful to be honest. We'll see how it goes. Is there anything else that I could be worth doing to try and get my money back if I have no luck with the chargeback?

Nitra8912

Nitra8912 said:

born_again said:

Nitra8912 said:

I am disputing it on the base that I paid for a service that I did not receive. It is like paying for a concert and not receiving the ticket to attend.

I'll lay odds on that this is destined to failure, as the service was available. Which is what Visa/Mastercard regulations work on.
So while you may get a refund up front. Expect it to be redebited later on. 

TBH, I'm surprised that bank is even taking it on, on this basis.

I have low hopes too on the chargeback to be successful to be honest. We'll see how it goes. Is there anything else that I could be worth doing to try and get my money back if I have no luck with the chargeback?

Quick update: The chargeback has not been disputed by either Hotels.com or the guest house. As the response window for the merchant has lapsed (it was a Mastercard chargeback), I'm pleased to report that I have successfully recovered my money thanks to the changeback!