Two rooms with one bed — and no refund

Question: I have recently had a problem with Hotels.com, and I hope you can help me. I called them to reserve one room at a Holiday Inn in San Francisco. This was to be a gift for my two granddaughters.

I was sent two email confirmations, which I assumed were duplicates since they both were for one room for two nights. My granddaughters were given two keys when they arrived. They showed the desk clerk the confirmation, but were told the reservation was for two rooms and that they were prepaid.

It turned out that each room had only one bed, so the girls did use both rooms. I received my Visa bill the next day and saw that I was billed for two rooms — two different charges for $302 each.

I called the Holiday Inn and was told that it was Hotels.com’s problem. The reservation that was made was for two rooms, and they had nothing to do with the billing. Hotels.com denies that they made an error, and that because the girls used both rooms, they would not refund the money.

I feel they made the mistake in reserving two rooms, and I should not be made to pay for the extra room, even though it was used. Is this the way they make money? — Nula Fales, Elk Grove, Calif.

Answer: Certainly not. If you only ordered one room, then Hotels.com should have only given you one. Any business that tries to sell you more than you wanted, wouldn’t last very long online, or anywhere.

But your story raises a few red flags. Why did you phone an online travel agency to make a reservation? Hotels.com, like any other online agency, works best when you make your booking online. When you make a phone reservation, the chance of a miscommunication increases. Fortunately, Hotels.com sent you two confirmations. You assumed one of them was a duplicate, but it wasn’t.

Had you used the Hotels.com site, you would have been able to fix this problem before your granddaughters checked in.

Your options for getting a refund are limited, at best. Turning to the hotel will do you no good. It just received a booking through Hotels.com and gave you two rooms, as requested. The breakdown apparently occurred between you and Hotels.com. (And it was a major breakdown, because you had ordered one room with two beds, and instead, you were given two rooms with one bed each.)

Hotels.com has the option of reviewing the call, but getting to that point is difficult. You have to write to the company, asking for a review, and you will probably need to appeal the inevitable first rejection. Remember, Hotels.com will be on the hook for one of the rooms if it turns out this is its error. It doesn’t want to be confronted with evidence that one of its representatives screwed up.

I asked Hotels.com about your case. It reviewed your request and found that there was a “miscommunication” during the booking process. Hotels.com said it wasn’t informed of a problem until after the stay, by which time it was too late for a refund.

Still, Hotels.com agreed to reverse the charges for one of your granddaughters’ rooms.

(Photo: Tro Del/Flickr Creative Commons)

  • Phil

    The OP says that she received two confirmations one for each room, well if she had looked closely at them she probably would have seen TWO confirmation numbers, one for each room. Unfortunately, she said she guessed they were duplicate confirmations so apparently she did not really read them. IMO too bad, out of luck, I would not have refunded anything to her. People have to take some responsibility for their actions and in this case reading what she received from Hotels.com may have cleared up the matter prior to the two girls arrival.

  • MarkieA

    Wow! $300 a night for a Holiday Inn? Even in San Francisco, that seems excessive. Just a quick look on the HI website and the most expensive was around $225. Either way, it seems to me that, as always, there’s enough blame to go around. I’d have a talking to with my grandchildren if I were the OP. Seems that when they showed up at the hotel, knowing they were supposed to have one room, and got two instead, they could have prevented this at that time. Instead, Whoopee! Lookie here, we got two rooms! A quick call to grandma right then could have solved this problem, I think. But, the admission by Hotels.com that “miscommunication” took place – a common euphemism for “We screwed up” – seems to indicate that the OP was correct. I’m not sure how I feel, however, about the fact that the rooms were indeed used, whether or not they should have gotten them.

  • Stephen Weihman

    Chris, I’ve seen the same response of “Why did you call an online agency?” many, many times before, and it doesn’t hold water. Whether a company takes reservations via phone, internet, fax, telegraph or pony express is irrelevant. If they accept the reservations via *any* method, it’s the agency’s responsibility to be able to handle the reservation that way. Giving the agency an out because it’s not their primary method of doing business is a cop-out. If they are willing to do business that way, then do it right. If they don’t, shame on them. Stop giving these businesses built-in excuses. If they don’t want to take reservations via phone, then damn well don’t. Quit blaming customers for using a method provided by the business for handling reservations. It’s not the customers fault for taking the company up on their offer to do transactions via phone.

  • Wrona

    Nice of Hotels.com to refund the money for the 2nd room as IMO they shouldn’t have to since the room was used. The time to fix this was before they used the room, not after. Yes, a mistake was definitely made in the booking process but even so there was more than one opportunity between booking and using the room to fix this problem, and none of those options was used.

    It seems to me Chris that you are getting a lot of letters asking you to fix mistakes when booking by phone through online travel sites. I’m not one to say you absolutely need to use a travel agent (not just a booking site) for every reservation but it seems to me like you might need to write an article about when and who should use a travel agency to book instead of a travel website. I’m thinking number one on the list should be if you feel you need to call instead of booking online, then perhaps a local travel agent would be better for you.

  • Arizona Road Warrior

    This story is like the story, “Wrong name on plane ticket means son won’t be home for Christmas — what now?” earlier this week. At least Hotel.com admitted that their call center which is probably located off-shore made a mistake and refunded the money to the OP.

  • Arizona Road Warrior

    @ Stephen Weihman – “Chris, I’ve seen the same response of “Why did you call an online agency?” many, many times before, and it doesn’t hold water.”
    - – - – - – - – -
    I disagree and I agree with Chris. Individuals want low fares and low rates. The main reason why these online booking sites can offer these low fares and low rates (sometimes you are only saving $ 5 or $ 10 or even the rates are higher than what you could book directly) is to have low costs.

    That is why most of these online booking sites have their call centers in India, the Philippines, etc. because the average monthly income for a CSR is $ 400 USD (that is 25% of the salary of a CSR that is based in the US earning $ 10 a hour). Even if they have their call center in the US, the people working there are order takers, script readers, etc…They are NOT travel agents.

    Personally, if I was running one of these online booking sites, I won’t accept inbound calls unless the person had a reservation. I would lose some revenue but I would eliminate situations like this one (thus reducing some costs, increasing goodwill, etc). The business model for these online booking sites is based upon people making their reservations online not on the telephone.

  • Judy

    I just want to say “Thank You” to “Christopher Elliot”, you do so much for people with different types of problems that arise. I love reading your column keep up the great work Chris.

  • Steve

    Glad to hear this was resolved to the customer’s satisfaction, but I agree that the time to resolve this was prior to using both rooms. If Hotels.com had held firm on not refunding it, given that it was used, I wouldn’t feel they were totally wrong. (If the customer had contacted them prior to the stay, then I would agree that they had to refund the second room).

    @Arizona Road Warrior, your position on online booking sites makes sense. They shouldn’t accept new reservations over the phone if they can’t handle them correctly, and it would probably be better for everyone if they didn’t. Given that they do, though, they need to make sure that they get handled correctly.

  • Joe Farrell

    what is this sudden explosion of people calling computer booking sites?

    Chris – if you ask an obvious question like this – why don’t you get the answer?

    You got 2 confirmations – did you actually look at them? Guess what? They had different confirmation numbers! Guess what? You had 2 reservations.

    Caveat Emptor – if you are too ignorant to know what you are buying then you are too ignorant to be using a website over the phone or otherwise. That may seem harsh reality – people make mistakes and you made no effort to ascertain what you bought, what they sold you and what you wanted.

    If you went to a Chevy dealer to buy a black pickup truck would you be happy if you left in a red minivan?

    Next.

  • Aaron W

    Hotels.com was generous on this one. Miscommunication or not, you used 2 hotel rooms. Once you used the service you didn’t mean to order, I think you gave up a right to a refund.

  • Dan

    Hotels.com screwed up (hey, there was a “miscommunication”, right?) and the customer shouldn’t have to pay. I probably would have done the same thing — overlooked the “duplicate” reservation.

    And as far as “they used the room, they’re screwed” goes? Well, those reservations were apparently prepaid, non-refundable rooms with single beds. The girls were sort of trapped once they arrived. They can’t exactly cancel the second room and get their money back. Was HI willing to give them a room with two beds and they turned it down? We don’t know. If they weren’t, surely, they can’t be expected to sleep in the same bed.

    Hotels.com made the mistake, and hotels.com should have to pay for the mistake. It’s really that simple.

    I’m all for holding travelers accountable for the mistakes they make, and just the same, the travel providers need to be accountable for the mistakes they make.

  • http://www.twitter.com/cestbeth Beth

    I’ve called hotels.com before and yes, it was an offshore call center, so the phone agent probably misunderstood. That being said, the two confirmation e-mails should have been a red flag and this could have been corrected before travel. Also, if they only reserved one room, why did they use both, then request a refund? I would have used only one of them rooms, then written a complaint.

  • BucksterSF

    “Hotels.com sent you two confirmations. You assumed one of them was a duplicate, but it wasn’t.”

    That was the point of failure. You booked two rooms and were given two confirmations. Done.

  • BucksterSF

    I agree with Arizona Road Warrior. Why even have a call center. It just invites trouble.

  • MVFlyer

    @MarkieA–the reservation was for *two* nights–$151/night is pretty normal (if not low) for SF. The OP was charged $604 for two rooms for two nights, if I read it correctly.

  • LeeAnne

    This was a tough one to decide.

    On the one hand, the OP should definitely have checked out both confirmations. It really is incumbent on the buyer to verify every detail of their purchase. I know that *I* would have considered receiving two confirmation emails to be a red flag. Not only that, but I read every single communication that I receive, in detail, because I KNOW how many mistakes are made out there.

    I’d like to think that I would have noticed that these were two separate reservations – the reservation numbers would have been different. But the truth is, that might not have jumped out at a less-experienced traveler. I’m sure that the content of the emails, other than the reservation number, looked identical. So I would give a pass on that one to the client, and consider that Hotel.com’s fault.

    The real problem occurred once the girls got to the hotel. They should have realized that they were not getting what was purchased. No, it wasn’t Holiday Inn’s fault, but at that point they should have immediately contacted Hotels.com to fix the problem. Instead, if I’m reading this correctly it appears that they just went ahead and used the rooms without making any contact with Hotels.com…which then meant that Holiday Inn was entitled to get paid for those rooms.

    But it’s completely understandable why the girls did this – they needed two beds, and that’s what the hotel gave them.

    So now the question is, who pays for that wrongly-reserved room?

    I think the right thing happened here. Clearly, the initial mistake was made by Hotels.com. It would have been better to resolve it before both rooms were used, but given the circumstances, that wasn’t possible.

    I suspect Hotels.com did the refund because they reviewed the case and saw that it WAS their representative who screwed up. So, good for them for doing the right thing.

    I have no comment on the call center vs. online thing. The bottom line is, they took the reservation over the phone…it’s their job to do it right. And if they do it wrong, to make it right. That’s what happened here.

    I love a story with a happy ending. :-)

  • Monica

    The first red flag should have gone up when she received the two confirmations. I’d certainly wonder why. She should have actually *read* the confirmations. She probably would have seen a different name in each reservation (one for each granddaughter), plus different confirmation numbers. Second, the girls should have known they were sharing a room and called grandma immediately to confirm, not assume they were hooked up. Hotels.com was generous for refunding one of the rooms. I feel they did right by sending the confirmations. When the OP failed to read over the email and catch the mistake, she basically agreed that whatever was on the confirmation was correct. The confirmation also would have alerted her that the Visa card was going to be charged $600+.

  • http://www.cutcat.com ChelseaGirl

    Hmmm….”I was sent two email confirmations, which I assumed were duplicates since they both were for one room for two nights.” One should never assume anything! The time to deal with this was immediately she received the two e-mails, not after the trip was over. When making reservations online instead of over the phone, it’s particularly important to double-check everything. While hotels.com made a mistake, the customer had time to rectify it and didn’t. Both parties are at fault, so perhaps only a partial refund would have been in order.

  • Mike Z

    I’ll break away from what some of the posters say and assume that because Hotels.com refunded one of the reservations after the rooms were used, it was because they reviewed the call and realized that the lady only asked for “a room” and not “two seperate rooms”. I don’t care how many confirmations she got, if she told the agent one room, it is on the agent to get it right. Anything other than one room should be on the company to make right.

    @ Arizona Road Warrior, the poster you quoted is correct. Just because they are primaily an on line agency doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be any good at phone reservations *if* they also accept phone reservations as a revenue tool. The company has decided to take phone reservations and therefore should be expected to do so in a manner in which there are few, if any mistakes. If a Chevy dealer makes a deal with me on a used Toyota and tells me they will fix xyz part, should they be able to change the deal at any time and stiff you on the repair because they normally don’t sell Toyotas? Or do you expect them to uphold the deal because they are a dealership and they choose to sell that used car?

  • DJP

    The confusing part was getting two confirmations.

    I dont like this.
    For example when I book a plane ticket I will sometimes get two different emails confirming it. You know you only paid for it once.

    She may have assumed the same thing…duplicate emails sent.

    2 beds one room…one room and two beds are a very conceivable flip error done by the grandmother or by the website. If she did the reservation over the phone…then the tech working likely made the error.

  • noah

    I actually did get double confirmation emails from Hotels.com once. But it raised a red flag for me, so I confirmed that the confirmation numbers were the same. Sometimes glitches like that happen.

    Nevertheless, I agree that Hotels.com was under no obligation to refund the room, in light of the confirmation emails and the fact that the granddaughters’ used the room. Very good customer service for them to refund it anyway. Kudos to Hotels.com.

  • Annette

    Chris, I have to agree with Stephen W on the “why call an online agency” line. The reason, particularly for hotels.com, is clear — they tell you to. In fact they have a commercial dedicated to telling you to call them by phone to make your reservation.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cSRix0TL-Y

    So in my opinion you really have to stop shaming people for calling these online companies, particularly when that’s what the companies are telling people to do. And by the same token the companies can’t be given any slack at all for any potential miscommunications – if they’re going to be encouraging people to make their reservations by phone then they had better make sure they’re doing it right.

  • flutiefan

    @Dan wrote: “Was HI willing to give them a room with two beds and they turned it down? We don’t know. If they weren’t, surely, they can’t be expected to sleep in the same bed.”

    Really? They can’t? Why not? My friends and I do it all the time; it saves on cost and it’s not a big deal. The granddaughters are presumably sisters, or perhaps cousins. Since when is it so inconceivable for them to share a bed?

  • FL Traveler

    Customer got lucky. Hotels.com was generous for refunding one of the rooms. I have a feeling if she had looked closer, she would have discovered two different resv. #.

  • Cory J.

    OMG I still can’t believe that people book through sites like hotels.com, nothing but problems, especially when you call instead of do it online. Go directly to holidayinn.com for goodness sake! And if the moron can’t read and figure out that she’s got two different confirmation numbers, then she deserves everything she got. In this case she got lucky and got a refund.

  • Carver

    @Joe

    I strongly disagree with your entire post

    1. Multiple e-mails don’t raise red flags. When I make a prepaid reservation I usually get 1 email confirming the reservation, another confirming that the payment went through, and a third, reminder e-mail.

    2. Why do you suggest that OP is ignorant. She made a perfectly legit purchase and Hotels.com screwed it up by their own admission.

    A better analogy would be you went bought a black Caddy DTS online but the dealership gave you a CTS. The dealership needs to fix it.

    One thing that is being overlooked is that the girls were told that the rooms had already been paid for. Therefore they have no reason to believe that using both rooms will cause Granny further expense.

  • Anonymous

     ”which I assumed were duplicates”  You know the saying when you  ’ass-u-me’ anything.  Hotels.com at least compromised and made themselves look good.

  • Anonymous

     ”which I assumed were duplicates”  You know the saying when you  ’ass-u-me’ anything.  Hotels.com at least compromised and made themselves look good.