July 12, 2011

Went to the Hotelreservations.com web site to make a room reservation. When I confirmed the reservation I noticed an extra fee of $4.95 had been charged. The total was supposed to be $90.74 but with the $4.95 it came to $95.69. Plus there was a second $4.95 fee charged which brought the total to $100.64. I immediately backed out of the reservation as directed on the web site which is supposed to cancel the transaction. Then I called hotelreservations.com to confirm that the reservation did not take place. They said the reservation HAD been made. I cancelled it again. I asked what the $4.95 was for and they claimed the credit card company placed a charge on the transaction. I called my credit card company and they said there were 2 transactions pending. One for $90.74 and one for $4.95 and that the $4.95 wasn’t a credit card charge at all. I called Hotelreservations back and was told that they are actually Hotel.com and that Hotelreservations was an affiliate. I tried another phone number from the Hotelreservations web site and they claimed that they didn’t make the $4.95 charge and blame the charge on the web site Hotelreservations.com which is their web site! I asked to speak with a supervisor. I’ve been on the phone for 25 minutes on this one call alone now and still haven’t resolved this. In total I’ve spent over an hour just trying to cancel these charges. After another long wait the same guy came back on the phone and told me the charge was made by the web site and is non-refundable. Still no supervisor. I ask again for a supervisor. Total time on this one call is now 35 minutes. At 40 minutes he came back on and offered to rebook the reservation and give me a credit for $4.95 but still would not let me talk to a supervisor.

Call the credit card company back to see who is actually making the $4.95 charge. It is Hotelreservations.com. As I said, Hotelreservations denies making this charge and apparently are saying that the web site is separate from the actual company that makes the reservation even though they are the same name etc. Meanwhile the credit card company has not paid the $4.95 fee yet and cannot put a dispute on the transaction until it is actually paid. I don’t know what the deal is with the second $4.95 fee.