Priceline

I used to be a travel agent. Priceline is decent as far as prices and being a one stop shop. Here is some accurate info. Based on my personal experience with them. For car rental you'll need to be honest if you don't have a credit card and are using a debit card and be prepared to make a decent sized deposit. I've seen a lot of lines of people with this issue at the airports. Click the "using a debit card" option always on the site if this is your case and save yourself the headache as otherwise Priceline will assign you a rental company that does not accept debit. For hotels NEVER EVER USE EXPRESS DEALS because you only save around $20 and for some reason they really think a Howard Johnson is a 3 star resort. Choose your hotel based on star rating and location, you'll be happier you splurged that extra $15. For flights NEVER USE THE EXPRESS FLIGHT DEALS unless you are okay with flying redeye meaning you fly at 5am or some ungodly hour on a carrier that will still charge you for bags anyway. I recommend you choose your flight time with a higher price on the carrier that allows for the free or less expensive bag. Cost wise, it's ALWAYS a wash and you're saving time and stress and it's far more comfortable. I run away from Spirit and choose JetBlue and Southwest often for example. For timing everything Priceline is excellent if you book your flights first. Book and pay for the flights then they offer you the car to be picked up immediately after you land, no messing with timing or with multiple sites. Priceline even allows you to add mileage, points and so on. Priceline also allows cash back using ebates which saves more money. Priceline gives constant alerts on timing, travel updates, flight schedule and so on. Getting an agent to help out is easy and fast too. Do they always have the absolute best prices? Not always but pretty close. With this one site I can get literally everything booked, planned and set up and have an agent if I need one.

Hi, My name is Hilario James Jr., I have never filed a complaint with the BBB, as I am someone who believes you get what you pay for. I searched on 2/01/22 for a 2 night stay in Gainesville FL to visit our daughter at UF for the nights of 2/11 - 2/13 with Priceline, in my search I specified "Pet Friendly" in my filters, when I was about to book a room, I had a pop-up from Priceline indicating that there was a special discount, if I allowed them to book a hotel out of the 3 select hotels they provided, I agreed and unfortunately for me, they booked the worst hotel of the 3 for $279 total. I still was willing to stay at the hotel until I read a few of the reviews, that stated that customers were turned away when they brought their pets to check-in and upset that they requested a pet friendly Hotel, but the Hotel was not responsible and they needed to go elsewhere. I immediately contacted Priceline customer service on (02/01), and asked that they transfer me to another hotel that was "Pet Friendly" stating I would gladly pay more and there were at least 2 weeks before the initial reserv., the customer service rep., stated there would be no transfer nor will there be a refund and we should just leave our pet at home. This of course led to a debate for approx. One hour, with no resolution. I ended the call by pleading, they cancel the reserv. And telling the rep., I would have to book another hotel for the same timeframe, which the rep., stated that was my problem. Ultimately I had to book another hotel for 2/11 - 2/13,. I tried disputing this charge with my credit card company to no eval. My complaint with Priceline is, if the customer filters the need for a "Pet Friendly Hotel", you should not be offering anything but (ps... the other 2 hotels were pet friendly), and if it were their mistake, they should be willing to transfer or amend the original reservation, for unsuspecting customers. How many victims have they defrauded with this technique & why are they allowed?

On April 25,2022 I booked a car rental at Mex Rent a Car in San DIego through Priceline. THe confirmation email from Priceline is below. I was to pick up the car on May 4 at 11 am. I arrived at 10:45 and when I tried to obtain my car, the Mex Rent a Car told me that Priceline had not paid them and that she could not rent me the car until I paid the $168.79 for the car. She clearly had my reservation in her computer system, but it was not paid by Priceline even though I had paid Priceline on April 25,2022. I immediately called Priceline and they refused to do anything about it as they were just the third party. The agent then called Mex Rent a Car to confirm that I was in fact there and that Mex Rent a Car would not rent me the vehicle. The Mex Rent a Car agent confirmed with the Priceline agent that Priceline never paid Mex Rent a Car. The Priceline agent offered to cancel the reservation. THe Mex Rent a Car agent said that if the Priceline agent canceled the reservation, Mex Rent a Car would not have a car to rent me. The agent said there was nothing else she could do at that time to get payment to Mex Rent a Car. I was stranded in San Diego and had no other means to travel to my destination. THe Priceline agent was very aware that I then had to pay the $168.79 for the car and she told me that I would be refunded the $168.79 and somebody would call me back. No one ever called me back and no refund was given. Priceline breached the contract (terms and conditions) for the car rental by failing to supply the car at the date and time specified in the agreement. Not only did they breach it but they were very aware of the breach and I told the agent on May 4th that Priceline was in breach and they needed to fix it. Over 6 weeks later and no refund for a car that I had to pay twice for. Do not use Priceline.

Setting up the original flight and rental car (to Philadelphia) was easy, I was happy. The day of my trip I got dropped off at the airport (4:30 AM) to find out my flight was cancelled 20 minutes before departure. I tried to work through the airlines and Priceline to make it to my meeting 32 hours later in Philly. Unfortunately I had to purchase a new ticket through another airline which flew me to another city(DC) a couple of hours away. The new car rental was with Budget and was $102 to drive to Philly and drop it off the next day (and get my original rental 1 day later) or pay ~$400 to keep the DC car for the extent of my trip and drop it off in Philly. I chose to get my original car 1 day later than originally planned. I called Priceline to try to coordinate everything and this was the only option presented and I tried to get a refund initiated at the same time for not using the car in Philly for the full rental. I was told I would have to wait for the processors to complete a review. After review I was told that even though my flight was cancelled and I had to incur more charges that I wouldn't be refunded for the day I didn't have the car because I picked it up. Overall the experience was less than pleasing with everyone passing the buck ie Priceline tells me to call the rental car company then when I called the car company being told to call Priceline, same story with the airline etc... I would say that if the flight wasn't cancelled@5 am things would have been just fine but I will spend the extra $20 on paying the producer (airline company, rental car company) of the goods I want rather than the middle man in the future to avoid so much drama/ stress.

Buyer Beware- don't do it. I purchased a package deal with hotel, car and flight. Booked on Frontier which charged extra for everything but the seatbelt. Not even beverage service for a 3 hr flight. End of day, could have flown Delta, had a good experience and earned miles. Ugh, OK- moving on. Priceline then booked me for a car rental place called "Routes" which was 20-25 min OUTSIDE of the airport- I arrived in Denver at 10:15pm and the Routes website said they were open 24 hrs "almost always" (WTF does that mean?) the shuttle never came so I took a Lyft. This place was in the middle of absolutely no where and black for miles surrounding it. It was 18° and my phone battery was at 3%. I called another Lyft who began to turn around when he couldn't find the place- I got him to come back and find me (he showed up with no lights on and tinted windows- terrifying) and I made it to the hotel in 1 piece. I called Routes the next day who argued with me saying it clearly states on their website that they close at 10- Uh, OK, you can say that as many times as you would like; it doesn't make it true. You open up their site and it goes to "24 hr/7 day Car Rentals." I got a hold of Priceline who said it is the customer's responsibility to ensure the car rental is open after they land. Why even book through Priceline if you can't trust their bookings? Why would they package a car rental with a partner that is closed after the customer arrives? There is nothing in their system to catch that. I ended up in the suburbs of CO and had to rent from Enterprise for $450 after the 2 Lyfts for another $115 and the extra $70 for bags on Frontier. Again, I would have far better off from every angle booking on Delta, Avis (airport) and staying in a decent hotel. The Holiday Inn was crap city. Terrible experience. All of this while I'm here trying to be with my Mom who is end of life and in the final days. Seriously, who needs the extra stress? Buyer beware. Priceline may (I repeat, may) refund me $100 for the price of the Routes rental car. How much is your life worth standing in the middle of nowhere at 12am in 18° weather with a 3% charge in your phone? If this had been one of my kids, our attorney would be getting involved to sue Priceline.

You may have used Priceline before, or had a friend/family member who has, and may be thinking to yourself, "This doesn't seem too bad". But the problem with Priceline is that behind the prices are a litany of horrible customer service practices just waiting to betray you, and ruin your vacation or work trip. You cannot ever trust when/if this will happen, but for certain, if you keep pulling that trigger at Priceline then you are eventually going to wind up getting shot.

My hotel was canceled 3 hours prior to checkin on a vacation. I had a 4-star Marriott booked that simply decided to sell my room to someone else AKA "overbooked". Priceline allowed this activity. What's worse, when someone informed me they would get me another room at the same rate, they lied. They simply canceled my room and returned my money. When I called customer service to ask what was happening, they said because I canceled my room there was nothing they "could" do. I explained they canceled my room, I did not. They called me a liar and said an agent couldn't do that, like a mysterious force was keeping their hand from clicking "cancel" until I blessed them to do so. I received absolutely no assistance and was told I would have to wait 2-3 days for them to review the situation. I paid over 5 times the amount for a same day hotel replacement. For my trouble and considerable cost, Priceline sent me a 5% off code. 5%! I would have felt better if they sent someone to slap me in the face. A week later an email came that said, "Because you canceled your room, there is nothing we can do."

So there is an obvious and intentional policy scam in place for these situations that everyone unwise enough to use Priceline should be aware of. They do not care about you or your business as much as the do retaining a modest profit margin on a simple transaction such as above. Just think about how many more times I would be using their service if I could trust not being shot in the foot on vacation for it! But instead I am dropping this review everywhere I can imagine. This is a foolish, badly managed business that you should either stay away from or expect to have an important trip seriously ruined by. Don't say you weren't warned.

When the rental car company told us that they couldn't rent cars because their system was down, I tried calling Priceline relentlessly to get a real person on the phone with no luck. I thought "well if I go on their website and rent another car, that should make it easy to get reimbursed for the higher price I'm sure to pay on the spot to rent another car." That was a mistake. I chose the cheapest available Economy car on their website which was $50 more than the first car I rented, which was apparently a Mid-size car. When I was FINALLY able to get someone from Priceline on the phone later that night, they not only told me that they wouldn't pay this $50 difference because it wasn't the same class of car, but they wouldn't refund me the money for the car that I COULDNT PICK UP BECAUSE THE RENTAL COMPANY WOULDNT GIVE IT TO ME. They were extremely heartless on the phone, very scripted with their "I'm sorry for the inconvenience" lines, and I'm still fighting trying to get my money back that I paid for a service that wasn't given to me. I will never use Priceline again and if you do, I hope for your sake that you don't have any issues and have to call customer service.

TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE! Let me preface this review with I'm a VIP member and used priceline for all my business trips (30+ bookings). We made a reservation on Halloween but since it was after midnight it automatically booked us for 1/1. We went to the hotel and they said we cannot cancel and we have to call the travel agency. We asked if anything was available that night and they said no. Fine. Price line told us 'rest assured' (which, by definition means: to be certain that something will happen) that they will handle it. At 3pm 1/1 still no update. We reached out at 3:30pm, 30 mins before we had to check in. They replied at 5:30pm stating that they're STILL WAITING on the HOTEL'S RESPONSE. Priceline reached out at 2:08pm on 11/2 (3 hours AFTER our reservation would have ended) to tell us "sorry it's nonrefundable". If I knew that I wasn't going to get a refund, I would've at least went to the hotel to get my money's worth. I take responsibility for messing up the reservation but neither the hotel OR priceline are taking responsibility to, at the very least, offer me another date to reschedule despite the fact that both of them SPENT MY ENTIRE RESERVATION TIME AND MORE discussing what to do with NO follow up. I'm furious and disgusted at how easily they sleep knowing they pocketed $83 for nothing.

Let me tell you my horror story. I booked a package deal flight and car from JFK TO MIA. Monday 1st 2020. To Friday 5th 2020 flight was good told renta car was on airport. It was not 45 minutes to drag bags to Fox rental off airport. But the worst was Fox wanted to charge my card another 250+- for the rental after i paid priceline everything i did.
The insurance from my credit card was NOT ACCEPTED THEY WANTED MORE$$$$ FOR THEIR INSURANCE. I told them i also had my own personal insurance that would cover. They refused. I called Priceline ( they sold me this crap) they said nothing i could do pay the extra hundreds of $$$$$ or loose the $$$$$$ i chose to loose the $$$ and loose priceline (should be called PRICFRAUUD)
I WILL NEVER EVER USE PICE FIXERS AGAIN. AFTER 12 YEARS IM DONE. BTW. I returned to the airport went to budget. The bill with Budget was less than extra $$$$Fox wanted to add to my credit card. So my opinion price frauudd fix is done they were once a good company in my opinon now.
Hustlers there are better companies out there

I work in retail and after the last year I deserve a break. I found a weekend retreat in Arizona that would be just what I need. I booked a Flight and a hotel thru Price line on March 6. I am all set to go. The resort owner contacted me March 29 letting me know that they had a death in their family and they needed to reschedule my weekend. We agreed on a date in May. I tried to change my itinerary on line. Nope couldnt do it, It would not accept my priceline booking number. No biggy it happens. Then I tried to find an email for them Nope, cant email them. I found a link to text, I sent a message and got no response. Well the dreaded last resort make the phone call. It goes like this. Do to high volume of customer calls we ask that if you are not flying in the next 7 days to hang up and use our website. I tried the website, it is as broken as this company is. I decided not to hang up. A nice recording came on an again told me about the high volume of calls and that if I needed to talk with a real person that I wouldn't have to wait on hold ( yippy) that they would call me back in more than 47 minutes (OH $hit). Hmm, Do I ask my boss if I can answer my phone while I am working? Not a good idea. If it rings maybe I can sneek ito the bathroom and spend 30 minutes on the toilet. Again probably not a good idea. When my shift was ending I called the number to be added to the call back list. Yep 47 minutes later they called back. You really want to know what they said... You will have to call the hotel and the airline to cancel or change this flight. $#*! me!
I called the airline and they referred me back to priceline. I called the hotel, and again they referred me back to price line. $#*! me twice! So now I start this entire bull $#*! over. I wait another 47 minutes to talk with a person. It goes like this. Their is nothing I can do for you sir, you must call the hotel and airline directly. CLICK. Price line can keep my 250.00 and shove right up their $#*!. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY... They are not in the bussiness to help people, they are in the bussiness to take advantage of people. Shame on them especially during a pandemic that we are all tired off!

I booked the Beach paradise hotel in miami through Price line and when I arrived I noticed that the pictures are not the same as crappy hotel.
I called priceline and spoke to two different people and they kept saying that they won't refund it becuase the Hotel doesn't refund them. This has happend with Hotels.com and they fixed the issue in 5 min and refunded my money. Priceline is a shady company that ripps off people and has no customer service to deal with the issue.
The hotel is unresponsive as well and they won't cancel the reservation.
I have been waiting in its crappy lobby for an hour and the hotel manager is not around and the assistant manager can't make an executive decision to cancel the reservation that I haven't even checked in.
BEWARE OF PRICE LINE AND DO NOT GIVE YOUR BUSINESS TO THEM> THEY WILL NOT STAND BEHIND THEIR CUSTOMERS.
For management team of price line, the reference number to my complain is ******* and you better do something about this, otherwise I will continue writting reviews until you pay back this amount in lost business.
The hotel is dirty and disgusting. You can read the reviews for yourself.

I have never been more disappointed by a travel site. First we did the bundle deal to rent a car and flights together, because they clearly stated that you were able to pick up the car rental at the airport. When we arrived we could not find the kiosk. I doubled checked the reservation and it said the airport again, but there was another address under this. I called customer service and at first she just said well you must have to get a cab to that address. I asked why it said airport and why did this not update until after I paid for the reservation. She looked further and finally found where I could get a shuttle. At this point she just kept repeating directions with no actual customer service. I accepted that I might have missed this some how, but the presentation of the bundle was purposely misleading and the customer service was horrible.

When booking the flights our itinerary updated and Priceline had changed our return flight to Frontier. I was not happy about this, but figured that was apart of the cheapest bundle. At the end of our trip the flight was still active on Priceline and we did not receive any updates. Luckily we tried to check in the night before and kept getting an 'error' or 'reservation not found' message. We called Priceline and were transferred to the flights department which said they would have to call us back. While waiting I called Frontier and they told us there was an error in booking back in September and they cancelled our flight (I still don't know what this means). Their only offer was a 38.00 refund or to reserve their next available flight, which was not until February. When Priceline finally called back they just said "are you sure your tickets were cancelled, this is still showing active", "did you actually speak to Frontier"... Finally the customer service rep looked a little more and confirmed the same thing as Frontier, she saw some sort of error. She then informed us that it is not their responsibility to send us updates or make sure our booking went through or that the flight was active when booking. We get this information from the airline. Meanwhile we are still stuck in Miami with no way home. I told her its ridiculous to charge so many fees and to book through them if they don't support the transaction, but we needed a solution and way home. Her response was that this was the flights department, but it was a reservation issue and they would have to call back. We did not get a call back until 1 am. We had to find flights at another airport and still have not gotten our refunds or another customer service response.

I landed in Spokane at 12:30 a.m. went to get our rental car I reserved to find the front desk lady already left early for the night. So, we had no car. We got to our hotel and they over booked our room and canceled our reservation, we had no hotel. Spent over an hour on the phone making calls, we got a hotel and car last minute. However, Priceline did find us a new hotel and covered the price difference. They also reimbursed 25% of my first night.

Now where what would have been a excellent review for their way off resolving our hotel promblem is not turning into a horrible review.

I called the car rental company today to inquire why the agent was not there last night. They let me know they close at 12:30.

When I booked my rental through Priceline.com they had the option available for 12:30 that the company was open. So they had me book a car rental that was closed! I called Priceline for them to tell me that it was my fault for choosing 12:30. What... why have the option available if the company would be closed? I asked for them to cover the cost of the rental difference I got through Hertz. They said no because I didn't book through them. They said I should have gone back at 6 a.m. when the company opens and purchased my rental.

So let me get this straight. They wanted me to purchase a taxi to take me to my hotel. To find out they over booked my room. Hire another taxi to take me to my new hotel 20 min away. Then, hire a taxi to drive me back to the airport to pick up my rental, all while running on 3 hours of sleep!

After back and forth and going through multiple "higher ups" they said they will get back to me in 1-2 business days. Basically they told me this why my fault for booking the time and getting a car through another agency. My rental is over $150 difference than Priceline what I booked through Priceline.
I had to get the only car Hertz had left which was a fully loaded suv.

On a side note kudos to hertz.com they gave me a discount on my car rental after they heard of our ordeal.

I was shopping travel packages (hotel, air and car) today, October 22nd, 2015 for a six day trip from Newark, NJ (EWR) to Honolulu (HNL). I selected my package that included: Nonstop flights on Hawaiian Airline, Outrigger Reef Hotel & a midsize car from Avis Car Rental. I also added the trip protection plan@$53.00. The package total was $2288. 39 which included the $30.00 per day hotel fee, taxes and other charges. As I was checking out, I noticed my airport changed from EWR to JFK. Luckily I caught it. So I went back and changed departing city to EWR went through the entire process of checking out again, I double checked the departure airport was EWR and clicked the "Purchase" button. I waited for the reservation to process. It did not give me the itinerary but instead a message that read: Here is your "Trip Number" please check back for itinerary. When I checked back, I was shocked to see that Priceline.com changed my departing City AGAIN to JFK. I called, explained what happened to the CS Rep. Who said, no problem, I can help you with that. Then he processed to tell me to cancel my flight only and to re-book. Otherwise there would be a charge to cancel the hotel & car. I said, but that would increase my travel price because it is no longer a package. He said that was all they could do, os I asked to speak to a manager. I spoke to the CS lead who told me the same thing. I then asked to speak with her manager and was told, "There is no one else you can talk to. All you can do is take down the business address and write a formal complaint." Of course, I am not the least be happy about this! Big Corporations just ripping people off left and right with no regard for their customers whatsoever. Now I am out of pocket $2300. 00 for travel that I cannot use. I will have to go back and book travel with another company at a higher rate because travel increases by the minute. Berma at Priceline Corp offices contacted me. She said that because New York has several airports, their system chose a different one, and that there is nothing they could do. Too bad so sad for Priceline's consumers!

I have a complaint I rented a vehicle with reservation FFX02A6945 CHEVROLET EQUNOX OR SIMILAR IN SPECIFICATIONS IT HAD FOR THREE BAGS AND THEY GAVE US A MISUBISHI FOR ONE SINGLE BAGGAGE ADDITIONALLY WHEN RENTING IT SAID TOTAL COST $385.80 DOLLAR, ADITIONALLY IT SAID THAT THE TOTAL VALUE WAS WITH TAXES AND FEES, DESPITE OF THAT THEY CHARGED US IN THE AGENCY WHEN WE PICKED UP THE CAR TAXES. FUTHERMORE WE RENT A CHEVROLET EQUINOX OR SIMILAR THAT IN THE WEBSITE IT SAIDS IT HAD SPACE FOR FIVE PASSENGERS AND THREE LUGGAGES BUT IN THE AGENCY THEY CHANGED THE CAR FOR A MITSUBISHI OUTLANDER SPORT THAT IN THE WEBSITE SAID IT WAS ONLY FOR ONE LUGGAGE.