Doing The Responsible Thing

Plans are in place to go to a New Year's Eve party at the home of some friends. They recently completed construction on their new home, and are having a combination housewarming and New Year's Party. I'm looking forward to it! Always love a good party!

Anyway, being the responsible type, I decided to book a hotel room for myself for the night. The party will be about 25 miles from my home, and thought it would be a good idea due to one, or all, of the following reasons:

1. I might have too much to drink (a distinct possibility)
2. Other idiots will be out on the roads who have also had too much to drink (a certainty)
3. I could get "lucky", and it would be nice to have someplace close by (probably wishful thinking)

With all of these things in mind, I went online to make a reservation. In the past, I've always used Expedia to make any reservations involving travel, hotels, car rental and so forth, with exceptional results. I've never had a complaint about their service, and would recommend the site to anyone who asked. However, a friend of mine had used hotels.com, so I decided to give it a try. I located a hotel about six miles from where the party will be held, and so entered all of my information and made the reservation.

An hour or so later, I located a hotel that was only a few minutes from the party, and wishing to error on the side of safety, I went back online to hotels.com to cancel the first reservation and make a new one.

That's where I made my mistake.

Upon cancelling the first hotel reservation, an invoice popped up on the screen indicating that my credit card would be charged a $25 cancellation fee! I was livid! Yes, the user agreement had stated that a cancellation fee may be charged, but this was within a couple of hours of making the reservation, and I intended to make another one. It wasn't as though I'd cancelled at the very last minute, either.

I dashed off a note to hotels.com's Customer "Care" department, expressing my outrage. Within a couple of hours, I received a curt reply indicating that nothing would be done.

I went to Expedia and booked another room.

Needless to say, I'm done with hotels.com. My recommendation to anyone considering using these con artists to book any travel arrangements: think twice. And then think again.

There. My anger having subsided, I wish everyone a happy and safe NEW YEAR! Woo-hoo!

Jaydog