(no subject)

[stormdog]

Hello;

I booked a hotel yesterday morning (the 18th). This morning, after finding out that the event I was going to be staying at that hotel for was no longer happening. I called to cancel the booking.

When I first called Hotels.com, your representative indicated that I would need to get confirmation from the hotel itself that hotels.com would not be charged for my stay. With that, I was told, I could get a refund of my room payment.

I called the hotel in question. The staff at the hotel advised that they would not charge me anything until I actually showed up at, and checked into, the hotel. They could not give me any confirmation that my booking would be cancelled and hotels.com not charged because I would not be on their books until I got there; there was nothing to cancel. (He also suggested that next time I book directly through the hotel, as this situation is not an uncommon one when going through a third party such as hotels.com.)

With that information, I called hotels.com again. I explained the situation to the representative there; that the hotel had assured me that they would not be charging hotels.com for my stay as long as I didn't arrive and check in. The representative called the hotel to confirm that himself while I was on hold, which I appreciated. But when he came back on the line, he stated that I would be unable to receive a a refund of my charge for booking the rooms.

I have to admit that I don't understand why this is the case. If the hotel is not going to charge hotels.com, why am I unable to recoup my expenditure on the rooms that I'm not going to use and that I cancelled less than 24 hours after booking?

Unless there is a way for me to be credited for my money spent, I don't see any point to using hotels.com to book hotel room nights. Whatever added convenience I may gain from using the site, I don't believe it makes up for difficulties enountered when plans change. It sounds to me like the hotel staff is right; I don't see the flexibility that I would like from an organization such as hotels.com, and plan to avoid using the service in the future unless this issue can be corrected for me and I can be credited for my expenses.

Thanks very much for your time,

Me



My day has been not so good. On top of being out money for my hotel room, my cell phone has been intermittantly dropping calls at home all week. The VOIP hardware I've been waiting for was sitting in Sturtevant from Tuesday through yesterday because the contruction in front of the house kept the UPS van from getting here.

I had it redelivered to my parents' house and picked it up an hour ago. When I plugged it in without reading the manual, I proceeded to take both actions the manual says not to do when plugging it in (picked up the handset on the attached phone and power cycled it), and now I can't get an internet connection or phone through it. I've gone back to the old router.

Oh. And I have a tooth that's been bothering me since eating wings last night with megmoves.

I am grumptastic.