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I booked a reservation at the Fairfield Inn and Suites on April 23, 2013 for that evening. I called at approximately 2:30 PM and made the reservation with a clerk at 1 – 866 460 ****. I obtained this phone number from the hotel’s website on my smartphone. Little did I know that this was Expedia.com, which made my reservation. Because we were traveling with our dog, I made sure to mention that we had a dog with us. The clerk, who helped me told me that was not a problem and proceeded to book me for a room with a king size bed. He asked me for an email address, but I told him that wouldn’t make a difference because we were on the road and I wouldn’t be accessing my email. To put this in perspective we had left Sturbridge Mass at 5 AM and didn’t arrive at our destination in Emporia Virginia until 5 PM.

When I arrived at the hotel, the clerk at the desk said that the person that I spoke to booked me for a room that did NOT allow dogs. I then asked her to change it and she said that because I had booked with Expedia she could not do that, they had to cancel the reservation and then she could book me with an appropriate room. She was kind to dial Expedia for me, and I ended up speaking to 4 different individuals before one finally even found the reservation to cancel it. We (the hotel clerk and I) had all the appropriate reservation confirmation numbers etc. I ended up speaking to 4 different clerks at Expedia before a Brenda found my reservation to cancel it. I also spoke to a Vink, and 2 others whose names I did not catch. All in all, it took 1 hour to resolve this issue, which after 12 hours in a car with a dog made me furious. It has NEVER taken me so long to check into a hotel with a premade reservation, even without a reservation. In the meantime, I had a VERY hungry husband and dog sitting in the car wondering what was going on.

Expedia is INCOMPETENT. First of all their clerk booked me for the WRONG room type, and secondly, it took 4 clerks to even find my reservation wasting a complete hour of my and the hotel clerk’s time.

Monetary Loss: $150.

Location: Emporia, Virginia

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Guest

i am going on 45 minutes.. I asked for the best rate then went on-line and found it right there! NOW they have just disconnected me!!!

I'm right there with you!!!

will be more careful and ask who I am talking with the next time!!!!!

Guest

As a hotel general manager, I often receive complaints from guests who made their reservation though Expedia and thought they had booked directly though the hotel. They are often given incorrect information or misled by the Expedia agent.

Some are even unaware they are being charged for the room upon booking. An example of misinformation.

We have free parking, however, we are also near the airport so we have a Park, Sleep n Fly package which includes a shuttle to and from the airport and parking for 10 days. This must be booked at the package rate to qualify and hotel packages are not available though Expedia but when the guest asks for the package, they are told parking is free.

Andrea Ahw

Expedia and services like it give the customer the information based on what the hotel/airline/car rental supplies them. It is always best to verify with the hotel/airline/car rental before you book. It is entirely possible the hotel overbooked, and is blaming Expedia, knowing since you booked with Expedia, the hotel will not lose money, customer, or sleep over the matter.

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Andrea Ahw

Good Point; of course I blamed Expedia when Comfort Inn told me no pets after I arrived there. But Choice Hotels did have Expedia toll free number in large type at the top of their web site (and it doesn't say Expedia anywhere)and the local number in small print somewhere below with the location which I tried to call first but there was a connection problem.

So Choice is getting paid by Expedia to have their number knowing we will be paying more through them than what the charges would be direct with the hotel. Or was the site hacked with this number?

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-795477

Question...how are you getting the "hotel website". If you are using a search engine....then you are not visiting the hotel website.

Expedia and its affiliates (travelocity, hotels.com, etc.) and several smaller websites that act as travel agents, but book through Expedia pay to have their links appear ABOVE the actual hotel's website.

So you need to specifically check the URL that you are linking to.

No matter how professional the website looks, if you don't check the URL, you will never know which website you are actually booking on.

Expedia is the ONLY major 3rd party company that does this (mainly through their Hotels.com website). When you call the 800 or 866 number, all they say is "Guest services, how can I assist you". They NEVER mention the actual name of the hotel.

So to verify you are calling the hotel, if the staff member does not mention the name when they answer the phone, you NEED to ask, "I'm sorry, what hotel is this again?", and if they cannot tell you the name of the hotel you thought you called, then you need to hang up and verify which number you called.

I tested this with hotels.com. First think I asked, "am I calling the hotel?", they said "yes." (1).

I then asked to book a room for later today, and they asked "Ok, for which location did you want to book?". I then said "wait, I thought you were the hotel". They then said "oh, we are the reservation center that handles all reservations for the hotel." (2). I then told them the city of the hotel I wanted to book, knowing there was only one hotel in that city for that chain.

They then said "Oh, we have several locations in that area, which location exactly? Do you know what street it is on?". I then said "Wait, aren't you the hotel?" They then said "No, you called the reservation center for this hotel chain." (3). So then I said, "but there is only one hotel for your chain in this city, are you a hotel representative?" Then they finally said "No, you called Hotels.com".

(4). So it took 4 tries to finally have them say who they were.

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