Tim C.

We booked a hotel in Chicago 4 months before our trip thinking we were getting a good price and assuming they would credit me and notify me if the price lowered. After check in I noticed the price advertised for the hotel was 25% cheaper than what we had paid. I looked it up on the hotel.com site and saw the same pricing and realized we had overpaid by 100's of dollars. I attempted to contact them the day we checked in to figure out how to get the price match and was told we could submit it after our trip was over. I contacted them again after we returned home only to be told that the price match would only apply if we claimed it 24 hours before the trip started. You have to monitor the price yourself which I had never thought to do on this stay or past stays since they make you think you're getting the best price. Basically, you're better off booking directly with the hotel a few weeks before your stay since there is no financial benefit to having hotels.com hold a room in your name.