Hotels.comReviews 1,049

Last evening I made a reservation for 2 rooms for 4 nights on hotels.com. The online form asked me for my email address and password which I assumed automatically signed me on to my hotels.com account.
I then booked another hotel on the hotels.com noted that the first reservation was not on my account to accrue an extra reward night. I proceeded to book the exact reservation again on hotels.com. I then went to the original reservation to cancel it and was alerted that I had to cancel each room separately and would be charged a cancellation fee of $76.59 for each room.
I proceeded to call customer service for hotels.com on the phone and the representative hung up on me. I called them back a second time and after insisting to speak to a supervisor, she also hung up on me. Prior to both hang ups I was told: 1) I was not signed on to my account for the first reservation 2) there was nothing they can do about the penalty as it was from the hotel not hotels.com.
I reviewed the confirmation email of several pages that was very unclear. Only after re-reading it several times, could I locate in fine print, at the very end of the email confirmation it states: If you change or cancel your booking after 6:00 PM, 07/06/18 ((GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)) you will be charged for 1 night (including tax) If you change or cancel your booking on or before 6:00 PM, 07/06/18 ((GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)) you will be charged for 1 night (including tax). I called hotels.com a third time and requested a mailing or email address to file my complaint with the company. I was told they do not have a mailing address and was given the bogus email *******@hotels.com which sent an automatic reply that that email was defunct and unmonitored.
In summary, hotels.com online reservations are vague and confusing. I was totally clueless that when I could not find the first reservation on my account that it was in a second account that held the same email and password. That was only reason I booked the exact same rooms a second time. Now I am charging a penalty of $160 to cancel the double booking and hotels.com REFUSES TO ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY OR EVEN HELP. Instead hey hang up after giving me a scripted excuse for what happened.

I just used this site today for the first time and never will again use them! I booked a hotel in Myrtle Beach and the Rep did tell me that if I cancelled I would be charged one night. I accepted that condition but unfortunately had to cancel a few hours later for personal reasons. However now the Rep at hotels.com told me not only did I have to pay the original amount I was quoted but $61 more for taxes and surcharges, something never mentioned before. I asked for them to find out if they could waive the fee altogether since it was only a few hours since I made the reservation. They put me on hold to get approval from the hotel to do this. When they got back to me the Rep said they spoke to a Supervisor named Jenna at the hotel who would not waive any fees. Instead I then called the hotel myself directly. The Hotel Rep spoke to her Supervisor who quickly waived any fees but also told me no one from hotels.com ever called there. So not only did hotels.com misrepresent the penalty for cancellation but they outright lied about calling the hotel to find out about waiving some or all of the fee. Totally LIED! Grossly unprofessional and unethical. At this point in time I still have to work with hotels.com to cancel the reservation, and they have to now call the hotel to get approval themselves to cancel without penalty. So I called hotels.com and they said that they keep getting voicemail and can't reach anyone. Funny since I called the hotel and again and had no trouble getting them on the line! So I ended up conferencing the hotel rep and the hotels.com agent together so hotels.com couldn't lie again and stop me from getting my room cancelled without penalty. So I'm posting to social media to warn anyone of buyer beware using hotels.com! And note that hotels. Com is owned by Expedia so don't use them either!

I made a booking through hotels.com with a Hotel Bougainvillea, Pokhara with details as shown below
Check in: Saturday, December 30,2017
Check out: Monday, January 1,2018
Duration: 2 nights
Room type: Deluxe Double Room
I reached the hotel upon calling *******448 and identifying the location. The number was on hotels.com booking slip itself. When I reached there, I was barred to check-in saying they have no contract with hotels.com and hotels.com is fraud. On such rush hour of new year even 2018, I had to leave the premise with my wife and 18 months old baby to find other location.

I contacted several times with hotels.com staffs. They never replied until I contacted them through their facebook page. And they sent me reply as shown below after 2 months of the problem.

Thanks for getting in touch with Hotels.com regarding your recent reservation under itinerary number **************. I am sorry to hear that the hotel did not accommodate you upon your arrival.
I contacted the hotel and the manager confirmed that the room was reserved for you, but the booking was no show. The hotel has charged the booking in full as per their policy. I also checked our records and noticed that we were not contact during the stay. As a third-party travel agency, Hotels.com would not be aware of any issues about your booking unless we are informed. In future if you have any issue with the booking, please contact us immediately and we can work for an alternative solution.

They are fraud.

In short - this site promises full refunds on bookings until you press purchase and as soon as you do you are informed that you have made an unrefundable purchase.
And worse than this - last year I booked a holiday to Amsterdam for my parents. Sadly my mother fell extremely unwell - to the point that we were not sure if she would make it out of hospital. We had booked one of these refundable/non-refundable hotels. I called the hotel and they were lovely - so compassionate and said we should cancel the booking but that they would reactivate it if my mother got better... which she did. But guess who refuses to reactivate the booking - not the lovely hotel I can tell you. HOTELS.COM... I've emailed them multiple times and phoned and spoken to a total of 4 different people - each one (til last) lovely and pretended to help and PROMISED to email or call back within 24 hours. Of course none of them ever did.
The last person was the supervisor - who almost refused to apologise for the actions of his colleagues - it took several attempts to even say the word sorry. He claims that the hotel have already been paid and need to refund me but the hotel have told me they never received a cent... Guess which company I believe?!... Apparently I'm on an emergency list to have this problem addressed. This time I am not holding my breath. What a shame when the hotel were so lovely, so compassionate to be represented by such a terrible company.

I had been using hotels.com for over 10 years. I started using this site and was impressed with the range of options. I continued using this site because I was truly impressed with the flexibility and level of customer service I received when I had to adjust bookings due to weather delays (cancel at the destination, add at the airport I was stuck at). It was incredible.
I've been lucky enough to go many years without running into such a weather issue again, but now, trying to call more than 48 hours in advance of a check in time because of a major snow storm that will prevent travel, I am not being allowed to adjust my existing reservation at all.
This is a dramatic change in level of service and flexibility. I was certain it had to just be that one representative, not understanding what I was asking trying to cancel and re-book me at a higher rate. But I called back again, and got the same answer, and then asked to speak with a supervisor about this ridiculous policy that to change a check in date, you must cancel the entire reservation and re-book at a higher last minute rate, so that I can get fewer nights for the same price.
This is truly their hard and fast policy, across all levels of reward status. This is a greedy money-making policy at multiple customers' expense. They take back the entire lower rate reservation to re-book all nights at a higher expense. It would seem far more honest to just cancel the one night requested and make a profit on that night, but that's just a honest person's perspective. Perhaps if enough others experience this and switch over to trivago.com or direct hotel bookings, it will put customer satisfaction back into perspective. Unfortunately, I'll never know, as I never intend to use this site again.

After making a reservation in an hotel using hotel.com by mistake a cancel the reservation within 2 minute and receive a confirmation of a cancellation without having to pay for the cancellation.
After my vacation i came back home and realise that i did get charge on my credit card and email the hotel about that, the hotel send me an email telling me that they did not charge me and that i should get in contact with expedia.
After an exchange of email they (the hotel) finally decided to get in contact with hotel.com to tell them to refund me and hotel.com sent me an email telling me that they issue a refund to my credit card and that was 3 weeks ago and still i did not receive my refund on my credit card, today i sent another email to the hotel and to hotel.com about this and i'm waiting for a reply.
My guess is hotel.com did take my money right away and decided to play the statistic regarding people fighting to get their money back, it's just business for hotel.com to take advantage of us and get away with it.
Every hotel in the world who care about their guess and their reputation should not do business with the likes of hotel.com period
Better do reservation directly with hotel instead of using hotel.com imo

I talk to Rob he was very rude the customer got charged 2 times because their careless and irresponsible manor. The customer only should have been charged once by hotels.com.
The issue was resolved after tremendous effort of customer. Customer was reimbursed and customer support never apologized, it was their fault and very disrespectful.
If the customer didn't try to put much effort in order to fix the problem, ROB (Customer service) would have not wanted to fix the problem. He tried to make it look like 3rd party's mistake.
Jan. 24,2018 at 12:57a.m.

I booked 4 rooms in April of 2017 in Mykonos for a group trip I was going on that July. They never sent me a confirmation email with any of my reservation info, nor did it show up in my account. After being unable to find out the hotel info I thought I booked, I went ahead and had to book more rooms to accommodate myself and my travel companions. 3 days before I was supposed to check into my hotel in Greece, they finally emailed me my original hotel confimation info. But it was too late to cancel and refund the rooms and they refused to accept any responsibility or provide me any proof that they did indeed send out the original confirmation. I got stuck with an 1800 hotel bill for NOTHING. They are HORRIBLE and I will NEVER use them again. Worst travel website and worst customer service.

We booked a room with a king sized bed for 2 nights in Upperstate New York at a Hampton Inn, and the hotel had probably 20% capacity. After checking in, we realized the room was made for handicap accessibility, which wouldnt be an issue except for all the ADA compliance fixtures and accessories (I. E. the shower head is much lower with no adjustability for a tall person) and the flip down shower seat was taking up a lot of space which made it awkward for standing. Hampton Inn informed me that these rooms are usually the lowest priced and Hotels.com are notorious for these types of bookings without description. The hotel reservationist was accommodating and let us switch to a regular room at no additional cost. Buyer beware when booking through Hotels.com. 5 Stars for Hampton Inn.

I Booked a Hotel room on line at Hotels.com in Kona at the Hiilton. I picked the Lagoon Tower. When I received my e-mail confirmation, it did not state any tower on it. I wanted to make sure that I am in the Lagoon Tower. I called the hotel directly to confirm. They told me that I am booked in the Palace Tower (which is a cheaper room), and not the Lagoon Tower, the hotel said it is hotel.com's fault. I called hotel.com, and they confirmed that it is in the Lagoon tower. I asked them to check with the hotel, so they did. Then hotels.com told me that I am actually booked into the Palace tower. They also told me that it is the hotels fault for this error. So I cancelled the reservation, and booked directly with the hotel.

While we were traveling, I booked a suite in Amarillo, Texas for New Years Eve through Hotels.com. I checked in via phone with the hotel in the afternoon, and I found out that there was no suite for us, Hotels.com had a glitch in their inventory. After several hours on the phone and website, I selected a different hotel. I was told that Hotels.com would issue a compensatory credit to me for all the trouble they caused me. Sounds fair, right?! Well, that never happened, and all the managers I spoke with about it said that would never happen, no compensatory credit. This is despite the first employee assisting me when I first discovered the mistake by Hotels.com stating that he would put all of these notes in my file. He didnt. To make matters even worse, Hotels.com overcharged me $8 from the non-existent room, $14 on my substitute room, and charged me $13 higher than the hotels rate on the substitute room. I was put on hold for at least 1/2 hour in one instance, and even received several hang ups from various employees of Hotel.com. Now I have a call in to their Dallas headquarters, and then after that, theres Expedia, the parent company of Hotels.com. Stay away from this business

Hotels.com ruined my holiday family trip. I booked a hotel in Williams Arizona, when I arrived there was no booking. Found out that they booked me in Williamsburg Va. This is not the first time they did the same thing to others. They are incompitant and if you do have an issue they don't care and your out of luck. They wouldn't give me cooperates phone number but I found it anyway. They are shady and grossly incompitant. Don't use them if you want a nice trip.

Horrible customer service for cancellations, I spoke to 'Hotel.com' representatives twice(12-12-2017 and 17-12-2017) for my refund and 'Hotel.com' representatives have confirmed on call that they spoke to the corresponding HOTEL and their supervisors where the accepted for my complete refund.

And today (24-12-2017 09:22 AM after waiting on call for 22 minutes), when i speak to your representative(MONISHA), she say I haven't spoke to any of their 'hotels.com' representative before.

I have their call logs screen-shot taken and the 'hotels.com' says there is no call record that i spoke to them, which clearly states they dont want to refund my £115.

Please be aware they will keep you on hold for 20 Minutes minimum so that you disconnect the call yourself. I would like to suggest do use other websites not this 'Hotels.com' as they dont have the intension to assist the customers.

Thanks,
Vijay P

I booked and then quickly cancelled a reservation at Pelican Stays Boston Harbor Suites 5 months in advance of the stay. Pelican was going to charge $500 but after I spoke with Hotels.com they negotiated it down to $50. This was agreed upon by all parties in the beginning of October 2017 - two months ago. Pelican Stays is a sham organization with little or no customer service. They have repeatedly lied to me stating that I would be receiving the agreed upon refund. They say they will get back to me and have never once done so. They clearly have no intention of refunding my money and never did. Hotels.com has been totally ineffective in stepping in to assist. They repeat what Pelican stays says "they will be getting back to today", and today told me that "maybe the refund is being held up by my bank?!" When I asked to speak with a supervisor or the head of the Customer Service Department, or to have a name and email, I was told that the representative was not free to give that information. Totally poor business practice. You either stand by your customers or you don't. I guess Hotels.com clearly sees the hotels as their customers - whether or not those hotels are reputable. I will never book with then again.

We had booked a reservation with hotels.com for Hampton Inn in Pearland in Nov and they booked it as a smoker's room and we are non-smokers. Hampton Inn informed us when we arrived that is what was booked and did not have any others. Could not stay there due to room was filled with smoke. Receptionist informed us they had no other rooms and we had to cancel and we rebooked with Hotels.com at another hotel. Hotel.com charged us for staying at both hotels the same night and they would not refund for the one we did not stay in.

Two weeks before my scheduled arrival at the hotel, Hotels.com send me confirmation of my payment and of my hotel room. When I arrived at the hotel, they wouldn't give me a room because Hotels.com hadn't paid them. I showed them my confirmation from Hotels.com. They said they had my name but that Hotels.com hadn't come thru with the payment. I called Hotels.com and it took over an hour of back and forth before I could check in. It was already late and my wife and I were tired to begin with. Hotels.com first gave the hotel a card that didn't work. When I finally got it straightened out, Hotels.com promised to email me a $150.00 voucher for the next time I travelled. LIARS. I never received it. Follow up calls got me nowhere. I tried leaving a negative review on their site. But apparently they don't accept negative reviews!