Misrepresentation of Hotel by Orbitz

I'll say this, from working at a hotel: Orbitz / hotels.com /
priceline.com, any of the third partys: you will probably be messed
over by. Either book through a hotels website directly, or call the
hotel directly. It's better that way to make sure you're getting what
you want, and most hotels will work with you on a price.

Last March I paid Orbitz for hotel reservations in one of the
cities we'll be visiting in in Peru. Last week I contacted the hotel,
asking for airport pickup, and was shocked to learn they had never
heard of me. They have not had any bookings available since last year
because they were under contract for an international trade show.
Meanwhile, Orbitz is unable to confirm the reservation itself because
it made them through another Travelport company, GTA (Gulliver's
Travel Agency). GTA told Orbitz that it refuses to forward my name to
the hotel until a few days prior to my scheduled arrival.
Based on Orbitz's hotel confirmation, I purchased plane tickets to
this city. Because of the trade show, virtually every hotel in town
is fully booked, so there is no option of choosing another hotel. I'm
afraid to fly there and find the Orbitz "hotel voucher" confirmation
is worthless.

Hi, I just wanted to let you know that Orbitz did refund the full
amount to me as of today. They stated that the info provided on their
website was given to them by the hotel and that they dont verify it.
At least they were prompt with their response and my reimbursement.
JC

That part is an issue with your own computer. I emailed them using
that fine a few days ago.

But I learned my lesson from Orbitz, which is why I now research
ratings for every hotel before I book it in advance.

I am not sure if any of those sites give a good hoot about the hotels
they shill, all they want is their commission. If you want to avoid a
lot of problems while traveling use tripadvisor.com before you make
any reservations, I just made some reservations in Richmond, and
thought I found a good deal at Candelwood Inn, but if you take a look
on tripadvisor, you will see it has major issues with customer service
and shady characters in the parking lot as well. I ended up at Hampden
Inn, which cost a bit more, but the ratings are almost perfect.

I've seen complaints like this all over the web. It seems that they
misrepresent where the hotel is or the type of room you will get. I
also find that the hotels routinely assign the worse rooms to the
customers of these sites.

I hope you get your refund! Orbitz, is one of the WORST sites to use.
I like priceline, never had a problem w/ that. As far as the hotel,
thanks for giving out the name, even though you booked through an
online site, they were less then helpful. I will avoid this place!
Nice letter.

We booked a room at a Shiloh inn in ID last year for a weekend
wedding, and when we arrived they were re-doing the sewage system, a
minor detail they "forgot" to mention online. To get to the pool (
which was actually very nice)you had to go through a hedge and down a
steep, rocky path and then jum down several feet because a step was
mising. There was an empty Gatorade bottle under our bed and neither
double had a bottom fitted sheet, just a flat sheet tucked in. The
room was also pretty dusty. Even though we had prepaid for the room,
they made us give a credit card number for a "water deposit" for the 3
bottles of water in the mini bar! $1.50 each! So we got a call from
Hotels.com the week after we got back, and we emailed them our
pictures and said we weren't happy, and they sent us a set of vouchers
for the full price, not including tax, that we had spent on the room
for the 2 nights! While you may not want vouchers, we were happy as
they could be used at any of the places on their site, and we booked a
room at the beach for 2 nights for our anniversary in October- total
cost after vouchers was $34. Their service was EXCELLENT and we will
use them again whenever we have a need.
Can you do a chargeback on your credit card? Good luck!

Unfortunately the hotel was right: because you booked through Orbitz,
any changes to your accomodations or refunds had to be handled through
Orbitz. That's one downfall of booking through a travel site like
Orbitz, Expedia, or Travelocity.

However, I'm wondering where the screw-up came from. My first thought
was that "oceanfront" doesn't always mean just that. (I live near Lake
Michigan and I always laugh at the number of buildings called
"lakeview" when they have no such thing.) But it sounds like there
were two different properties. Did the hotel decide to do a
last-minute bait-and-switch, or did Orbitz misrepresent? Hmmmmm.....

In the end, though, because you booked through Orbitz, Orbitz is the
one who owes you a refund, and I think you are more than entitled to
it. Have you tried calling them again, due to their e-mail link not
working?

I hope you get this resolved. Please stop back with an update.

http://planetfeedback.typepad.com/mommage/2007/08/just-beachy.html

Come by and take a look!