Hotels.com Rant

My mom booked a hotel for our upcoming New Orleans trip back in August (for October). She used Hotels.com who instantly charged her credit card and even went so far as to send an email saying there is no need to call the hotel, everything is confirmed.

But nothing was confirmed. By chance she calls anyway the night before we are leaving, and the hotel had never heard of us. And they are booked solid. Or course they are, it was a really cool hotel. An converted brewery, that included breakfast and wifi in the rooms, had a salt water pool, was right in the heart of the french quarter, and even greets you with a cocktail when you arrive. She had spent a lot of time researching the perfect hotel, because that part of the experience is important to us.

So what does Hotels.com do? They should make it right after taking her money but not booking the room, right? And letting the place she wanted fill up, while assuring her that they had made the reservation, right? Well, nearly everything in the center is booked, except the slummiest of places. A big chain hotel with a big tower building has free rooms, so they put us up there and cover the supposed higher rate of this hotel. Although this place does not include breakfast, internet, a cocktail, and the location is certainly not any better.

Why is this insufficient? Because we came so close to showing up to N.O. and not having a place to stay due to their mistake. Because we really wanted the cute boutique hotel we spent time choosing and booking months in advance for a more “New Orleans” experience and ended up with the farthest thing from it. Because our original hotel included breakfast and our new one is $15/person/day and Hotels.com refused to cover this extra cost. Because our original hotel included wifi and our new one is $15/day and Hotels.com refused to cover that extra cost as well.

So I will never ever use Hotels.com again and I think if you ever hear anyone mention them you should let them know they make terrible mistakes and then don't make it right.