WELL worth the reading time
"Becca" wrote in message
...
This article was in the Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Oct24.html
washingtonpost.com
When Hotel Sites Don't Click
It seems so easy: Log on, find a deal, book. But things can go awry with
online agencies. We look
at the pitfalls, and how to avoid them.
By Gary Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 26, 2003; Page P01
While checking the Web for a Miami hotel last April, David Manero of
Hyattsville found an
irresistible deal: a $100 room at the Breakwater in South Beach offered by
the Hotel Distribution
Network, a discount reservations agency. That was $42 off the usual
starting rate.
Manero reserved four nights and prepaid with a credit card. But when he
and his family arrived in
August, the property had no vacant rooms and was no longer affiliated with
HDN, which is based in
Sanford, Fla. Manero couldn't reach an HDN operator, either, leaving him
on his own to find
another hotel. Two months, a dozen calls and countless e-mails later, he's
still waiting for an
explanation.
For frequent patrons of online hotel-booking services, Manero's saga may
have a familiar ring. In
recent weeks, the Travel section has received correspondence from
disgruntled customers of many
major Internet hotel and travel booking sites (Hotels.com, Expedia.com,
Travelocity.com,
Quikbook.com, Orbitz.com, etc.); the sites of chains such as Days Inn and
Starwood Hotels and
Resorts; and some of the smaller agencies such as HDN. The complaints
range from misplaced
reservations to finding out they could have gotten a cheaper rate for the
same hotel elsewhere.
"More and more you can get some fantastic deals for rooms on the Web,"
said Bob Jones, a
consumer advocate featured on OneTravel.com, a discount Web site. "But you
have to be careful
or else you could find yourself out of a lot of money with little
recourse."
Attempts to reach customer service personnel -- if you can even find the
phone number in the online
maze -- often lead to a labyrinth of recorded greetings, unhelpful form
letters and ill-informed
agents. When I called HDN to ask about Manero's case, I was put on hold.
"Your call is important
to us," a voice said at two-minute intervals. "There are four calls ahead
of you." After 40 minutes, I gave up.
Frequently offering discounts of 50 percent or more off regular rates,
Internet hotel agencies can be a boon for travelers. And
their popularity is growing: Forrester Research, a Cambridge, Mass.,
consulting firm, predicts that U.S. hotels will get roughly
15 percent of their revenue from online bookings in 2004, up from about 8
percent this year.
As a frequent user of Internet booking agencies, I hit snags regularly. A
few months ago, I reserved a room at New York's
Edison Hotel with Hotels.com, one of the largest online discounters, but
when I arrived the staff had no record of my
reservation. After two calls to the agency, the hotel gave me a room for
the price that Hotels.com had promised. More
recently, I prepaid for a room at the Monaco in Denver with Priceline.com,
but when I checked out, the hotel insisted I pay it
directly. (Priceline later refunded my account.)
Even with the most reliable companies, things don't always run smoothly.
When I wanted to add a couple of days to my stay at
a Miami hotel reserved through Quikbook, it was impossible to get a live
operator on a Sunday afternoon. I ended up
extending directly with the hotel -- at a higher rate. (Quikbook has
recently added operators on weekends.)
Quikbook President Ray Vastola, who says his agency rarely receives
complaints, blames technology for many of the snafus
other companies experience. "With millions of transactions taking place
every day between agencies and hotels that operate on
different [reservations] systems," he said, "some things are going to fall
through the cracks."
Joe McInerney, president of the American Hotel & Lodging Association in
Washington, takes a more critical view. "These
problems occur because most third-party hotel booking sites are in the
business of selling rooms but are not well trained in
hospitality or service," he said. "They are not concerned about keeping
the customer satisfied."
The sheer volume of rooms booked also comes into play. Although better
known for selling airline tickets, Expedia and
Travelocity, for example, do a whopping business in hotel reservations.
Expedia says it booked more than 11 million rooms in
2002, more than any other Web agency.
For its part, Travelweb.com, which launched this summer and is partly
owned by several major U.S. hotel chains, wants to lure
customers away from the third-party agencies. The pitch: Patrons won't
experience lost reservations and other problems
because the site is connected directly to the chains' booking systems,
thus eliminating the middleman -- the online discounters
who must transfer their clients' reservations to the hotels.
Is it working? "I think it's too early to say," said Ed Perkins, an Oregon
consumer travel advocate formerly with Consumer
Reports Travel Letter.
Whatever the process, booking online -- while often rewarding -- can be a
risky endeavour. Here are some of the common
problems and suggested solutions or ways to avoid them.
Refunds
The Problem: Receiving a refund can be difficult. Agencies tie up the
process in red tape, often taking two months or longer to
reimburse .
Example: Manero, in his dealings with HDN, called and e-mailed the company
several times after returning from his Miami trip
but couldn't connect with its customer service department.
I made two calls to HDN but got recordings routing me to voice mail. Two
e-mails went unanswered. Eventually, Manero
asked his credit card company, American Express, to intervene. He later
received a letter from HDN saying a refund would be
posted to his credit card. After three weeks, it arrived.
Although the larger agencies declined to disclose how often refunds are
requested, Michael Zaletel, president of i4vegas.com,
which books Vegas resorts, said 10 to 12 percent of its customers ask for
refunds. In most instances, the requests are the
result of changes in travel plans, Zaletel said.
Manero's case, in which no hotel room was provided, is just one of several
instances in which travelers should be eligible for
refunds. Others include:
. Major problems with the room or service.
. Cancellation of prepaid reservations made within an established time
frame.
. Overcharges or double-billing to a credit card.
. When travel is impossible because of a hurricane or other natural
disaster.
Kurt Weinsheimer, vice president of hotels for Orbitz, puts it bluntly.
"Hotel sites work somewhat like airlines," he said. "The
deeper discount you get, the harder it is to get a refund."
The Solution: Spokespeople for the major reservations sites advise
customers to keep printouts of the confirmation number
and all transactions, as well as familiarize themselves with the refund
policies of the agency and hotel where they reserve.
This is key, as eligibility requirements for refunds differ among
companies, room categories and particular deals. For instance,
once rooms are booked on Priceline.com and Hotwire.com, two
reverse-auction travel sites, no refunds are granted.
On Orbitz, some rooms are sold at special "Orbitz Saver" rates,
significant discounts the company negotiates. You must pay in
full at the time of booking, and to receive a full refund (minus a $25
cancellation fee), you must cancel at least 72 hours in
advance. Travelers canceling less than 72 hours before arrival may qualify
for partial refunds. Expedia, Travelocity and other
agencies offer comparable special deals, with similar policies.
By comparison, for non-deep-discounted rooms, travelers usually must
cancel within 24 hours before arrival to get a refund,
though you may be subject to a cancellation fee. Hotels.com charges $25
for all cancellations, for example, while Quikbook
charges $10 for cancellations of prepaid rooms -- and nothing if you
cancel in time for a room that wasn't prepaid.
If a refund is due, go after it promptly, providing all supporting
documents. Even in instances where the refund requirements are
not fully met, ask for one. (Bob Diener, president of Hotels.com, said
that in some extraordinary circumstances, such as a death
or sickness, refund restrictions can be waived.)
OneTravel's Jones recommends that travelers concerned about recouping
their money should consider travel insurance. "It's
important to be aware of the circumstances under which the insurance
company will help you get a refund," he said. "But if you
qualify, they will save you from a major headache."
In all cases, customers should pin down customer service agents on how
long it should take for a refund. If it does not come
through by that date, contact the credit card company used for the
reservation, which can do much of the legwork.
Customer Service
The Problem: Customer service staff at online agencies and hotel front
desks can be unresponsive, unhelpful, rude or, worse,
unreachable.
Example: Last May, Nina Basu of Columbia used Travelocity to prepay for
two nights at the Ramada Inn in White River
Junction, Vt. En route, she called the hotel and learned that it had
changed ownership and name -- to the Regency. A desk
clerk told her they had no record of her reservation and no rooms. She
then called Travelocity, which offered her lodging in
Boston and other far-off locales before eventually finding her a room at
the original hotel.
But after the first night, she was locked out by hotel management and had
to talk her way back into the room. The desk clerk
said she had paid for only one night, even though she had prepaid
Travelocity for two. Basu faults both the Regency and
Travelocity for not dealing with her problem promptly, and "poor customer
service" in general.
Although Travelocity declined to comment on the specifics of Basu's case,
Josh Feuerstein, vice president for the site's hotels,
said the agency's "customer-service reps are especially trained to handle
problems. We encourage customers with problems to
contact them."
Basu said she did just that. And though she got her room, it wasn't until
nine weeks, eight calls and several e-mails later that she
received a response to her complaints. Although she was technically not
owed a refund, Travelocity granted one.
"What I really wanted was an apology," she said. "And I still haven't
gotten one. That makes me reluctant to deal with them
anytime soon."
The Solution: For urgent assistance (e.g., you arrive at 10 p.m. and find
the hotel has no room), call the Web service's help
desk. (For phone numbers, hours and e-mail and mailing addresses, see Page
P7).
Unfortunately, in many instances the person working the service desk does
little more than repeat vague company positions --
and sometimes it takes a while to reach someone. If the first operator (or
desk clerk) is not responsive, ask for a supervisor.
"People should not be shy about pushing their cases," advises Quikbook's
Vastola.
Otherwise, the agencies encourage customers to send questions or problems
by e-mail. Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity
promise responses within about four hours any time of the day or night.
Lodging.com says it will get back to you "as soon as
possible." Hotels.com doesn't indicate how long it will take.
Customers should write to the online agency and file a complaint with the
Better Business Bureau. Web sites such as
www.bizrate.com, www.complaints.com and www.epinions.com offer venues to
post complaints about Internet businesses.
Simply reading the postings might help you learn from others' mistakes.
A last-ditch option for dissatisfied guests is to sue in small-claims
court, said Perkins, the consumer rights advocate. "It may turn
out to be more time-consuming and cause more heartache than it's worth,"
he said. "But it's the only legal recourse I know of
open to those unable to come to terms with the agency or the hotel."
Properties/Rooms
The Problem: The amenities of the room you booked online, and the hotel
itself, are substandard.
Example: When Erin Feuillet of Damascus and a friend arrived at the North
Beach Days Inn in Miami last New Year's, she
was shocked. "It smelled of mold, the carpet was dirty and the lock didn't
work right," she said. "It was nothing like what I
expected when I booked on the company's Web site." A call to the Days Inn
customer service line was not helpful. "They told
us that the problem had to be resolved with the hotel's management."
But there were no other rooms available at the hotel or any others in the
area in her price range. "We just had to put up with it
and stayed in the room as little as possible." A couple of weeks later,
hotel management sent her a certificate for a two-night
stay at a Days Inn resort. She doubts she'll accept the offer.
Days Inn spokesman Emanuel Naim declined to comment on Feuillet's case
except to say, "We're sorry that it happened." He
explained that inspectors visit Days Inn properties four times a year and
recommend improvements if they're needed.
The Solution: If you don't like the room you're assigned, request another
one. Pronto. And it never hurts to have a backup
hotel in mind, particularly for long trips.
Naim said dissatisfied Days Inn customers should bypass the front desk and
appeal to the property manager. If that doesn't
result in a satisfactory change, they should call the chain's customer
service line and, finally, the president's line, a special service
that addresses serious complaints. Cendant Corp., which owns Days Inn and
other chains, is one of the few companies with
special staff designated for dealing with hard-to-resolve cases.
Spokesmen for the online agencies said customer complaints are passed on
to hotels. "If customers consistently complain about
a property, we will take it off the site," said Orbitz's Weinsheimer.
Travelocity and Expedia have similar policies.
Still, it's best to do some research before jumping on the latest Web "hot
deal." Read the description of the property
thoroughly. See whether a pool, health club or restaurant are on-site and
what other attractions are nearby. Peruse the pictures,
too, but be wary -- photographed the right way, nearly anything can look
good.
Also, the rating systems used by most of the online agencies can be
helpful. (Travelocity, for example, uses AAA ratings and
in-house inspectors for some properties and also publishes guest reviews
of some of its hotels.) Calling the hotel to find out if
there is construction going on might spare you lost sleep after arriving.
Secondary sources are usually more objective. Start with guidebooks; the
AAA and Mobil guides, which inspect many
properties and rate them, are good resources. Fodor's, Frommer's and
Lonely Planet often have reliable hotel reviews, too.
Check Web sites such as Tripadvisor.com and HotelShark.com, which offer
independent reviews by former guests (see box,
Page P6).
Not surprisingly, Ken Marshall, president of HotelShark, believes that
online sites like his are the best places to check. "Not
only do they give reports from people who have stayed in the hotels," he
said, "but the information is usually much more
up-to-date than that in the print guidebooks."
Rates
The Problem: After booking, customers sometimes find they could have
snagged a cheaper room at the same property from
another Web site or directly from the hotel.
Example: Hotels.com is offering queen suites at the Fitzpatrick Chicago
Hotel in early November for $179 a night. But when I
called the hotel's toll-free number last week, an operator offered a rate
of $159 for the same room.
Such discrepancies are common. On Bizrate.com, six out of 22 reviewers of
Hotels.com gave the firm a negative rating, mostly
because they found cheaper rates by contacting the hotels or other Web
sites. Readers have voiced similar complaints about
other online agencies.
"We try to negotiate the lowest possible rate with hotels," said
Hotels.com's Diener. "But hotel room prices change constantly,
sometimes several times in the course of a day. We cannot keep up with all
of them."
The Solution: A number of online reservations services offer guarantees
that they have the lowest rate available -- and will pay
the difference if you can prove them wrong. "Usually the hotel rates
offered by the different agencies don't differ that much,"
says Jones of OneTravel. "But if you find a better one, let your agency
know and get them to match it."
According to Hotel.com's "lowest guaranteed-rate policy," for example, if
patrons find a cheaper rate on the Web for the same
property within 24 hours of making a reservation, they'll be refunded the
difference. Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz offer a
similar deal. Unfortunately, if you find a better rate outside the 24-hour
window or through another source such as the hotel's
800 number, you're stuck with the original rate.
Always comparison shop before booking. Check directly with the hotel and
ask for specials or the cheapest available room. If
the hotel is a chain, use both its toll-free number and Web site.
Got chutzpah? Connect with a hotel manager or other person of authority
and bargain. The site
www.biddingfortravel.com, in
which travelers say how much they paid for rooms on Priceline, offers a
rough guide of how low a hotel might go.
Details: Where to Turn When Booking Online
ONLINE DISCOUNTERS:
Sometimes simply finding the customer service numbers, e-mail addresses
and snail-mail addresses for the major online hotel
discounters is half the battle. We've ferreted out the information for
many of the industry's biggest players and included the
hours of operation for each service desk.
(Note: Many sites offer a spot on their home pages where you can click to
e-mail the customer service department. The
agencies without street addresses told us that, as Web-based businesses,
they have no mail contact for customer service.)
. Hotels.com
Service desk: 800-219-4606 (8 a.m.-1 a.m. daily),
800-364-0291 (1 a.m.-8 a.m. daily)
E-mail:
Mailing address: 10440 N. Central Expressway
Suite 400, Dallas, Tex. 75231
. Expedia.com
Service desk: 800-397-3342 (24/7)
E-mail: (you'll get a response with a link
to the site's feedback form)
Mailing address: N/A
. Travelocity.com
Service desk: 888-709-5983 (24/7)
E-mail:
Mailing address: 8750 Tesoro Dr., Suite 100
San Antonio, Tex. 78217
. Orbitz.com
Service desk: 888-656-4546 (24/7)
E-mail:
Mailing address: N/A
. Travelweb.com
Service desk: 866-437-8131 (24/7{rcub}
E-mail:
Mailing address: N/A
. Quikbook.com
Service desk: 800-789-9887 (Monday-Friday 9 a.m-
8 p.m., Saturday-Sunday 10 a.m.-6 p.m.)
E-mail:
Mailing address: 381 Park Ave. S.
New York, N.Y. 10016
. PlacesToStay.com
Service desk: 866-224-9765 (24/7)
E-mail:
Mailing address: WorldRes Inc.
1510 Fashion Island Blvd., Suite 100
San Mateo, Calif. 94404
. Lodging.com
Service desk: 888-563-4464 (daily 8 a.m.-11:30 p.m.)
E-mail:
Mailing address: 4805 N. 30th St., Suite 103
Colorado Springs, Colo. 80919
. Hotwire.com
Service desk: 866-468-9473 (24/7)
E-mail:
Mailing address: N/A
. Priceline.com
Service desk: 800-774-2354 (24/7)
E-mail:
Mailing address: N/A
HOTEL CHAINS: For links to the major chains, check www.hotelstravel.com,
an online directory of hotel and other
travel-related Web sites.
WHERE TO COMPLAIN:
. Better Business Bureau. To report a problem, call 703-276-0100 and find
the phone number of your local branch, or go
to www.bbbonline.org.
. Several Web sites act as trading posts where consumers can offer their
views on Internet booking agencies. These
include www.bizrate.com, www.complaints.com and www.epinions.com. -- Gary
Lee
Web Sites That Let Hotel Guests Tell All
Who you gonna trust? In an online world where hotels pay for placement on
travel booking sites and ad copy can be difficult to
discern from editorial reviews, it's hard to know where to turn. That's
why I go straight to the source: reviews from fellow
travelers. Online guidebooks, such as Frommers.com, can be helpful, but
there's no substitute for no-holds-barred comments
from road warriors themselves. Web sites devoted to consumer reviews
provide frank assessments, sometimes with dozens of
critiques for a single hotel.
Travelers' reviews appear on advice sites (TripAdvisor.com), general
consumer sites (Epinions.com), even a major booking
site (Travelocity.com). Their critiques can help you get past the glowing
descriptions hotels write for themselves and go beyond
the properties that surface at the top of travel booking sites because
they pay to show up first.
A word of caution, though: Travelers appear most motivated to write after
a bad experience. Perhaps it's a way to get back at
the hotel or just a method of blowing off steam. So don't base choices on
one review -- look for patterns. And beware of
reviews that sound like ad copy; those may be written by a PR staffer
posing as a consumer. But overall I've found the vast
majority of reviews to be genuine and fair, as well as a valuable tool for
making informed choices about where to stay.
Among the options:
. TripAdvisor.com. Launched three years ago as a collection of destination
advice, TripAdvisor now specializes in consumer
reviews of hotels, resorts, inns and packages. More than 90,000 hotels are
listed, and popular properties have 60 or more
consumer reviews. Some hotels can be booked via TripAdvisor's new
QuickCheck system (note: QuickCheck might not work
if your computer blocks pop-up windows). Using a combination of editorial
and consumer reviews, the site ranks hotels
according to popularity. TripAdvisor CEO Steve Kaufer says rankings are
independent of commission agreements. "In some
cities, the top hotel can't be booked from our site, so we can't make any
money on that," he said. The site sells sponsored links
for hotels, airfares and packages, but these are clearly marked. With so
much going on, navigating the site can be confusing, but
it's worth the effort.
Sample review for the Drake in Chicago: "The hotel staff were attentive,
friendly and were able to satisfy my multiple requests.
I'm not sure why others have found fault with the Drake -- perhaps they
like brand new hotels where all the rooms look alike. I
enjoyed my stay tremendously and will return again and again."
. Travelocity.com. As a top booking site, Travelocity is to be commended
for enabling its customers to post frank and
sometimes scathing hotel reviews. To find reviews, select "Hotels," then
choose a city. A list of hotels will be displayed with a
link to "Traveler Reviews." Each reviewer rates hotels with one to five
smiley faces, but much more valuable are the comments.
Here's one for New York's Grand Hyatt: "This place is awful. Wallpaper is
peeling off, bums outside the door, linens and
towels that look like they came from a shelter." A few other reviewers
echoed these sentiments, but one traveler wrote: "After
reading the reviews I was very apprehensive about this hotel. I found the
rooms clean and the size sufficient. The staff was very
friendly and helpful."
. Epinions.com. Though this isn't primarily a travel site, Epinions has
thousands of reviews for hotels in the United States and
abroad. Put a city name in the search box and select "Hotels and Travel."
After you choose a hotel, click "Read Reviews."
Most give each hotel a star ranking from one to five and rate the rooms,
service and location. Above the text descriptions are
lines of pros and cons. To read the full description, click "Read more" --
some reviews make Russian novelists seem concise by
comparison.
I found 150 hotel listings for Las Vegas. Here's one guest's take on the
Bellagio: "The service at the Bellagio came nowhere
near the Four Seasons. It ranged anywhere from friendly, to amateurish, to
laughable, to downright rude -- particularly in the
casino!"
. Fodors.com. This online guidebook includes consumer reviews alongside
its hotel and restaurant listings. From the home
page, select "Hotels" and choose a city; you'll get a page of listings
with editorial advice from Fodor's. To see what consumers
think, click "User Rating ." Travelers rank hotels on a scale from one to
five with grades for the room, atmosphere, service and
value. The site seems to attract a knowledgeable and upscale clientele who
appreciate service. Searching for a room in Paris, I
found comments endorsing the Artus Hotel, with several reviewers praising
the service and location. Here's one: "The staff
(everyone, but especially Sanjay) was fabulous and incredibly helpful. For
our last evening in Paris, Sanjay pulled strings to get
us dinner reservations at a restaurant we wanted to try."
. HotelShark.com. Devoted exclusively to hotel reviews and boasting an
easy-to-use design, HotelShark seemed promising
when it launched a couple of years ago. But it's yet to reach a critical
mass -- many hotels have just one or two reviews and
some major properties aren't listed. Without a selection of reviews, it's
impossible to find patterns. In Atlanta, for example, only
five hotels are reviewed. Here's an excerpt from one -- in fact it's the
only one -- for the W Atlanta: "Away from the maddening
crowd at Perimeter Center. But the coolest hotel in town."
. WhereToStay.com: Covering hotels in the Caribbean, Bermuda and Hawaii,
WhereToStay features consumer reviews but
only for a fraction of the properties listed. To find reviews, select an
island with the "Select Location" menu and check the
"Reader's Rating" column. If a hotel is rated, you can click "Read" to see
consumer reviews. Here's a sample review for the
Crystal Cove in St. Thomas: "The unit was older and in need of painting,
but in spite of this our needs were met. I want to thank
Alice, the manager of the property, for assisting our every need with a
smile and immediate action to make our stay
comfortable."
. Online forums. Discussion groups allow you to ask advice about places to
stay. For example, some forums at Flyertalk.com
and LonelyPlanet.com (click the Thorn Tree link) discuss hotels and offer
tips from fellow travelers. Usenet groups are another
excellent source; to peruse these forums, go to www.groups.google.com and
enter a search term such as "New Orleans hotel."
Read through the postings before asking for recommendations. These forums
are based on participation, so when you get back
from your next trip, pick a forum and let the world know what you think.
Michael Shapiro, a frequent contributor to the Travel section, is a travel
columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and
author of "Internet Travel Planner."
-- Michael Shapiro
© 2003 The Washington Post Company