1800hotels.com, they are so untrustable!
Rating: 0 Posted By: jolapo
Views: 22 Replies: 0
I booked an all-inclusive resort at Cancun days ago at 1800hotels.com. They listed the hotel with All-inclusive in the name, and its price is higher than Expedia, Orbitz and other sites. I thought it is reasonable since it is all-inclusive.
At the moment of booking through the phone, I saw European meal plan in the content. I then asked the agent Johnny what the European plan is. Seriously I didn’t know since this is my first time booking a resort room. He explained to me that, the way they serve us is European style, and all the meals are included since the package is all-inclusive. I got a confirmation email with All-inclusive clearly stated at the top, and European plan listed.
I then booked the airline tickets.
Later I called the hotel directly to confirm something. And surprisingly found the resort never ever offers all-inclusive package. I then called back 1800hotels for help.
I talked to the guy named Mike. He said he would investigate and call me back soon. I wait for 2 days. No response. I called back. They kicked me back and forth. Finally I was transferred back to Johnny, the agent booked my room, who suggested nothing other than canceling, and re-booking. I bought their 1800flex plan which allows me to cancel with $10 charge. But I don’t think that is a fair solution.
I urged him to transfer me to the manager, which he didn’t like to do at the beginning. I then talked to Larry, the manager, who promised another agent would call me back momentarily. Certainly no phone call in past few days.
I called back again, and was promised the manager will contact me by the end of day. I really don’t believe it would happen.
What should I do? I am thinking of filing BBB. What else?
I recommended the resort to 2 of my friends. Three families of us have booked the rooms and airline tickets. I want to fight with them.
Suggestions, please!
Online Coupons
By DealGuruMantra
Comments (23)
Hi, on behalf of 1800HOTELS I would like to apologize again for the error that has occurred and the inconvenience it has caused you. I have spoken to customer service and it was brought to my attention that the opportunity to rebook at any of our other all-inclusive properties at no additional cost was presented. Both parties agreed to a full refund in lieu of re-booking. We do hope that this will not deter you to consider us for future travels. Have a great trip to Cancun!
- Angelina
I totally agree with you and know exactly what you are going through. BEWARE of 1800hotels.com!!! This agency is a scam. I booked a hotel from them for the labor day weekend in Las Vegas. When I arrived at the hotel, the front desk could not locate my reservation so they went ahead and check me into a room temporary because it was late at night. Next morning, the hotel front desk informed me that 1800HOTELS.COM had incorrectly input my arrival date. They told me to contact 1800hotel and have them call the hotel immediately to do a date swap. I called 1800hotels to informed them the issue and the customer service rep. acknowledged that it was their fault and told me that she will take care of it. I called again in afternoon to find out that nothing has been done. I called 3-4 more times in the evening and they have not done anything to resolve this issue. Next day, i called another 3-4 times and finally got on the phone with a customer service manager. He also acknowledged that the careless mistake was on their side and he promised that they will issue me a full refund. The hotel end up charging my credit card a much higher rate for the 2 nights that i stayed due to a last minute reservation. It has been over a month and i have not receive my refund. I have been calling/leaving them many messages, but they never call me back. The only contact I have with them is via email. I filed a complaint with BBB so i hope that they can help me resolve this issue. I think you should do the same too. 1800hotel.com is located in Florida so you need to file a complaint with BBB through the florida division. If many customers file complaints agaisnt a business, then hopefully they will take action. It is absolutely disturbing to know that a well known online travel agency is not willing to admit their fault and take full responsibility for their carelessness mistake.
I booked a hotel from this company last year and had issues with them too. We saw a great deal from 1800HOTELS.COM for an ocean view room and booked the room through them online. When we call the hotel to confirm, they told us there are no ocean view rooms available. We contacted 1800hotels to request a refund and was kicked back and forth too. After many calls and complaints they finally transferred me to a manager. He said he would investigate and issue me a refund promptly. I waited for about 2 weeks and no refund was issued. Their pathetic staff/manager did not even call me for an explanation. I finally called my credit card company and file a dispute. After about a month, my credit card got the refund for me. That was my first time dealing with this company and certainly be my last. Their rate might be cheaper than expedia, orbitz, travelocity, etc.. but their customer service is not worth the trouble.
I’ve also experienced problems with 1800hotels. We travelled from the UK to Florida for a vacation and family wedding. We had booked a two night stay at Travelodge St Pete’s Beach, via 1800hotels.com, to attend the wedding in St Pete’s
When we arrived the hotel was a complete building site! We had not been informed of any rennovation works. The hotel was uninhabitable! We immediately called 1800hotels to request a refund. They could not guarantee this until we e-mailed receipts to them which we would not be able to do until we got home in about 1 1/2 weeks time. 1800hotels offered us no assistance in finding accommodation for that and the next night. There were 8 of us including children! We had to find our own accommodation at 7pm at night at a futher cost of $300 per family.
1800hotels are refunding our money for the original booking but even that hasn’t gone smoothly as the cheque was made out in the wrong name! They have been completely unwilling to offer us any further compensation for the extra money we had to pay for accommodation, blaming Travelodge for not informing them.May I also add Travelodge have also been completely unhelpful! I would never use 1800hotels again, there are far more reliable companies out there!
On 17 Jan,I booked a motel at Fort Benning,GA.I was promised confirmation by email.The money was removed from my card on Twenty First.Today,28th,still no reply.I cannot find an email address and do not feel like making an international call in the middle of the night.No toll from Australia.Can anyboby help with an email address for them.
I emailed Days Inn but no answer was the stern reply.
There will be a lot of veterans there on the day.The dedication of a memorial to the dead of the 173rd Airborne Brigade and the Australian and New Zealand forces who served with the Brigade.
Please get my name and email off your site.thank you/
NEVER USE 1800HOTELS! BE WARNED!!
On Tuesday, February 16,2010, I booked online using 1800Hotels. I did not actively search for 1800Hotels to book the room through but it popped up as the booking agent for Rodeway Inn Center City, 1208 Walnut Street, Phildelphia, PA. I booked two different single night stays; one for 03/25/10 and one for 04/15/10. My son has been very ill and he and his wife are going to see a specialist at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. He had two early morning appointments, one for the morning of 03/26/10 and one for the morning of 04/16/10. Unfortunately, my son was recetly hospitalized and is not strong enough to go to the 03/26/10 appointment. I called Rodeway Inn yesterday morning to cancel the reservation for 03/25/10. The woman who answered, Brandy, said no problem to cancel, but that I should call 1800Hotels because she said this charge for 03/25/10 (as well as the 04/15/10 charge) had already been charged to my credit card by 1800Hotels and needed to be reversed. I was surprised that these charges were immediately put on my credit card since normally the credit card information is taken if you do not show up and have not cancelled so that the room can be available for another guest. I called 1800Hotels yesterday morning and I also sent an e-mail for a call back to have the charges reversed. A woman, Molly, from Customer Service, called me at about 1:15 PM yesterday and said 1800Hotels has a NO REFUND policy for cancellations for one night reservations. I told Molly I wanted to speak to a supervisor and was put on the phone with Jonathan De Santis who was abrupt and told me to put everything in an e-mail and it would be investigated and a decision made. I did so and in a few hours received an e-mail from Donne Burrows stating ‘Unfortunately our booking partner is charging a 1nt penalty for this reservation for 3/25, so it is non-refundable.’ I called Rodeway Inn this morning and spoke to Brandy and asked her if I booked a one night stay directly with the hotel, what thweir cancellation poliy was. Brandy said as long as I called 24 hours before check-in time, I would not be charged. In the original booking confirmations I received from 1800Hotels, all it states is ‘For further information on our cancellation policy please click here (link opens in new window)’ so they have chosen not to print on the confirmation what their punitive cancellation policy is. Although I am surprised that my credit card was charged immediately for the two one-night stays, which is something I have not encountered at off-peak travel seasons, I can accept that policy. I would like e reversal of the charge of $111.57 for the 03/25/10 cancellation. I am sure others have run into similar problems with 1800Hotels since I have now cancelled the room with Rodeway Inn directly and have prepaid for absolutely no services whatsoever.
1800hotels caused my recent trip to Boston to be a travel nightmare. They continually reassured me that I had a room even though I could not confirm my reservation with the hotel. I will take care of it and call you back soon was what 1800hotels represenatives would say. Never called back. When they were late calling back, I called and asked for the rep helping me. 3 times this happened. The rep had left for the day each time. I was coming from Nashville for a convention and was finally told the truth a few hours from Boston. That they really didn’t have a room for me. They reassured me that they would find a suitable replacement. They didn’t. All hotels in the area were booked. After realizing 1800hotels would be no help, I found a place just outside the city. I ended up in a bad location, not close to the convention, and paying more for it. I am not one to write reviews about anything. But this was the worst customer service experience I have ever witnessed. Do Not Use 1800hotels.com.
1800hotes.com is such a rip off company its a shame. I had a bad experience with the company booking a trip to Las Vegas in the past so I have decided to never do business with them again. Unfortunately my friend has book a future trip with the company and the rate is sky high. The hotel rates for the days in question have fallen substantially and 1800hotel.com says thats too bad there is nothing we will do for us. We are told that we can cancel the booking but its going to cost us about $400.00 to do so. I’m really biting my lip right now to make the right decision, but i want to cancel the reservations with them and book with a company that deserves my business.
The Islander Inn of OIB in NC is perhaps the worst hotel on the island. We had a terrible experience at this nc beach resort. The room was not ready for 45 minutes after our check inn time. So we sat in the sweltering heat for about an hour with two young kids and a dog (which cost us an additional 60 bucks). You might say “why didn’t you guys go on the beach to kill a little bit of time”…which is exactly what we did and resulted in a fine from the OIB Police for having our dog on the beach before 6pm. Our bad, but you think there would be a sign on the hotels enterance to the beach…which is another disaster. You have to go through the pool area to get to the beach cross over…a pool area with two sets of outward swinging safety gates…guests and their kids running around, a maze of lounge chairs, and busted up concrete….did i mention the two kids, the wife, the dog , and bags of kid supplies..uggg. if you are even slightly handycapped i wouldn’t even consider touring this crap hole. All this aside, we finally get the mexican cleaning crew out of our room and decide to relax on the back porch to enjoy the view of the ocean …which was great so long as you ignore the ratteling humm of the rooms a/c unit which is as much a fixture of the decore as the stackable white (mildewed) form-molded pvc chairs. Then the gang of homeless cats arrived (I swear you can’t make this stuff up)…dog is going wild..kids now crying…wife about to freak out…i must react quickly so i go down to the gravel parking lot of the islander inn and shoe them away…but their retreat is just a transient ploy…as soon as i get back up to the porch they are back…only with reinforcemnets to boot…aah, but i am far smarter than a cat…even 10 of them…while the gravel lot was poison to my feet it provided me with some ammunition for a full on assault…i lined the stones along the porches edge just under the railing and waited for the perfect shot. The mangiest of the crew was in sight…my wife diles me in ..”a few clicks to the left”..”you are set”…my foot is drawn back like a driver…fire!!! Hit…Dismay…the vermin thought i was kicking food to them…Yet another defeat…i return inside with hopes that they dont start to nest in our van. The night fanally draws to a tylonol pm induced end and all attempts are made to ignore the rattle and humm of the out dated ac unit…after all who the heck would want to sleep to the sound of that silly ocean. 3AM…EEERT!….EEERT!…EEERT!…EEERT!!!…and i arose to see what was the matter “alarm clock?” “radio?”…”Fire?”…”FIRE!”…”FIRE!” no fire extinguisher in room …may have to exit off 2nd story porch…no fire escape latter…must go uot front door…alls clear we (me, wife, 2 small kids, dog, 2bags kid stuff) make our way to the parking lot. Our building is fine so i go back up get the rest of our stuff and we drive 2 hours home in a van that now smells of cat urine if you use the vents so i can get enough sleep to go to work in the morning. Realy freakin cool way to drop almost 300 bones on a room and about that on gas and food. We call the Islander Inn and are told a manager would contact us…he did not…and continues to avoid our calls…Thank god we put it on our AMEX…they are going to revearse the charges. Still managed to spend a bunch of money on gas, made our entire family miserable, and worked a 10 hour shift that following day on 3 hours of sleep. Thank you Islander Inn NC
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NEVER EVER BOOK WITH 1800hotels! I had a trip schedule to go to Brazil back in Feb. On the day of my trip the whole Northeast was covered in 2 feet of snow. I couldn’t even leave my state! I was forced to cancel due to the weather. So I contacted 1800hotels and they told me I will not get refund because its within 1 day cancellation policy but they claim that they will “check” with the hotel to see if they could give me some refund. What HOGWASH! There goes my hard earn $1000 down the drain. Save yourself from the headache and book directly with the hotel itself! Yeah you make pay a bit more but if you need to cancel at least you get some refund. CUT OUT THE MIDDLE MAN! It will save you.
1800hotels.com WENT BANKRUPT???? BE AWARE!!!
As I see above there are countless complains on 1800hotels.com but what happened with me last weekend was quite bizarre…
I had a reservation made on June for July 10th-12th in a 4star hotel in Paris. On Friday 9th, just hours before my arrival, I received an email from one their employees (Kristin Mawhinney) saying they’ve upgraded my reservation to the Intercontinental Hotel. At the time I saw this email I was already in the original hotel booked suffering to find out that my reservation has been canceled.
Anyway, I went to the Intercontinental happy until I’ve discovered that my reservation had just being canceled at the time I got there. I called 1800hotels.com endless times in the USA, UK and Ireland numbers and spoke with 3 different people when a guy called Eric finally told me:
“We can do nothing about your cancellation, you have to get in touch with our agency Tourico, just they can solve this for you.”
So I have discovered that behind 1800hotels.com there are usually 2 agencies: Gulliver and Tourico. We called both of them and they both said:
“1800hotels.com are not paying us so we are canceling all the reservations we have made for them asap so there’s nothing we can do about your situation”.
Therefore I called 1800hotels.com and someone called Molly said:
“You can TRY to get a refund sending an email to reservations@1800hotels.com”
As requested, I wrote 1800hotels.com an email on the same date asking for the refund and still haven’t heard from them, I call their numbers in the middle of the day and nobody replies… It’s really scary and it looks like I’ll loose £549!!!
So here I am, in the limbo of dishonest institutions or 1800hotels.com just blew up??? Anyone knows what is going on with 1800hotels.com???
Lake Eve Orlando 7/5 – 7/10
We arrived by car from CT around 12pm to Lake Eve on Monday July 5, 2010. We were told due to the fact that the hotel was over booked from the night before; they could not let us in early. We understood that our time to check in was 3 pm anyway, so that was ok. Around 2:40 pm I checked to see if we could be checked in, at which point we were told in 10 minutes. Well that was OK with us. At 3pm we went back to the counter and spoke with Robin, she told us that we would have to wait now 45 minutes due to a lighting issue in the room. At this point we became upset, because according to our contract with 1800hotels, check in time is at 3pm. Robin said that check in was actually at 4pm. When I made this reservation I made sure I found out check in times due to dinner reservations we had. We asked for a manager due to the fact that Robin was unable to rectify the problem in a timely manner. A manager by the name of Joshua I believe had no clue as to how to help us. I suggested to him to maybe call additional staff to go into the room and help fix the lighting issue. Not only had we just traveled 19 hours by car, we also had a 4:30pm dinner show to get to. Joshua really was no help so we asked for another manager. Maria came out and told us that our problem was with 1800 hotels because there check in time has always been 4pm. After explaining our dilemma to Maria about the dinner show, she suggested my party of 6 all shower in the gym. What a slap in the face! We asked her would she shower in the gym and her answer was no. Long story short, Maria did not care about what our contract with 1800hotels said. Maria was firm that 1800hotels new that 4pm was the check in time. Never 3pm so therefore had 1800hotels breached the contract. She offered no apology for our inconvenience. If anything she had an attitude with us for what reason, I am not sure. We arrived 45 minutes late to our dinner show. We missed a good portion of it. I did call 1800hotels customer service after finally getting into the room. The rep said he would call the front desk, but there was not much he could do. The customer service rep called me back and said to send a written complaint to explain what happened as well as to request some sort of refund to compensate us for any inconvenience. The first response was to thank me for letting them know about the check in time. Unfortunately there would be no refund. I emailed a manager and mentioned Better Business Bureau. The reply was we have a plus rating with BBB. Oh and no refund because they got me a great price on the room. We missed half of the dinner show. I have to contact BBB.
Hi,
I`m sorry to say that my wife and I had the same experience with 1800Hotels.com. We booked three nights at the Hotel Domina in Rotterdam and I got there to be told we had cancelled !!! The Hotel reception kindly investigated for us and were told that “Tourico” had not been paid by 1800 Hotels so “Tourico” had cancelled without notice to us (and having the effrontery to make it look like my wife had cancelled as the booking was in her name).
Well, I am a lawyer by trade so I will be suing them promptly if we do not get an offer of refund by 22nd July. Looks like their office is in Dublin, so if anyone wants the address of the Dublin District Small Claims Office, go to http://www.courts.ie
Seems as if 1800hotels is letting the answering machine pick up calls. The site also does not seem to have availability for any hotels.
An update on 1800hotels or “Happyduck ltd” which is their Irish Company Reg. name (and number is 364864).
Their website today says they are fighting bankruptcy proceedings…so it may be a matter of joining a queue of creditors rather than suing them. Further details may not be available for some weeks but will eventually appear on the Irish Company Register website.
Happyduck, I`m not a happy bunny.
DO NOT USE THIS BOOKING AGENT OR YOU WILL LOSE MONEY! We used 1800HOTELS to book for a night in Istanbul. The room was paid for in advance 4 months prior. However, upon arrival to the hotel, we were told the reservation had been canceled the previous night via fax. I checked my e-mail for notification, but there was none. We also attempted to contact a representative over the phone and were routed to a voice mail system regardless of the extension I chose. The third party who supposedly canceled the res. was called Guliver’s Travel Associates, so I would be wary of anything with their name on it as well. I spoke to an extremely rude rep. with GTA who said she had no contact info for 1800HOTELS and could not direct me to anyone who could explain my predicament. As stated before, stay away from this company!
Sorry to hear all the horror stories this company has brought to so many people…I dare say I am a FORMER employee of this deciteful company and I am deeply sorry that so many people lives have been affected due to the pure greediness of the owners.
I can tell you there were alot of people that worked there and NO ONE things were as bad as they were until one after another “booking partners” were canceling reservations, and soon after walking papers were given out after people spent hours upon hours of trying to put all guest in a hotel…but there were too many to keep up with…..
I personally left after the first wave of problems…I did not want to be apart of such misery and deceit however I was lucky to have a job waiting, however others were only trying to CLEAN up a mess they had nothing to do with and keep a job..since jobs are so hard to come by…however all are very upset that this very bad thing has happen.
Please do not get mad at the workers as all were a victim of the lies as you ALL were and was only doing what they were told to do not knowing that it was going to hurt so many in the end.
Thank you.
BEWARE!!!
My wife and I also had a reservation at a five star hotel in Paris thru 1800Hotels this month. We paid over 2,000 euros a month earlier on a credit card. When we arrived, we learned from the hotel that the reservation had been cancelled the night before for a “payment related issue.” My wife and I were embarrassed standing at the front desk of such a beautiful hotel. Fortunately, the hotel was very gracious about it and found us a room. Unfortunately, we were charged the total full rate for the room (which was 200 euros more per night than our original reservation). I called 1800Hotels at least 50 times over the next 48 hours waiting online for a total of at least 2 hours, leaving many messages (the few times I could get through), and even emailing them. No response to any of these attempted contacts. Finally, I “disputed” the original payment to them on my credit card.
BEWARE!!!
My wife and I also had a reservation at a five star hotel in Paris thru 1800Hotels this month. We paid over 2,000 euros a month earlier on a credit card. When we arrived, we learned from the hotel that the reservation had been cancelled the night before for a “payment related issue.” My wife and I were embarrassed standing at the front desk of such a beautiful hotel. Fortunately, the hotel was very gracious about it and found us a room. Unfortunately, we were charged the total full rate for the room (which was 200 euros more per night than our original reservation). I called 1800Hotels at least 50 times over the next 48 hours waiting online for a total of at least 2 hours, leaving many messages (the few times I could get through), and even emailing them. No response to any of these attempted contacts. Finally, I “disputed” the original payment to them on my credit card.
Mack
I booked a hotel with 1800hotels.com, however i recently realized that they have filed for banruptcy! they have already taken the money out of my account, all their telephone numbers are disconnected and all their emails bounce back of course! I am trying to file a dispute with my bank, however there is no confirmation that it will be resolved beign that this company seems to no longer be on the face of the planet. I am not sure what i should do!
I used 1800hotels.com to make two hotel reservations in Italy for our family trip there July 2010, in Rome and Florence.
When we arrived at our Rome hotel, they couldn’t find our reservation despite our paperwork shown (printed after the payment confirmation on 1800hotels.com website), and they told us they never worked with 1800hotels.com. After hours of investigation, they found a canceled reservation under our name with an agency that they do work with called GTA Travelport! Lucky for us, they had a room that we ended up getting, though we had to pay much higher rate with Euro cash to secure that.
Later, we were told by the hotel they had to turn away 3 other parties with 1800hotels.com reservations the same way, as we got the last available room.
Since we got our Florence hotel also through 1800hotels.com, I tried to call and email them many times that day, leaving voice and email messages and urged them to call me as soon as possible. That was 2 weeks ago and the only responses I got so far were two automated emails with subject line “Need to cancel? Now you can, online!”??!! I responded and told them I don’t want to cancel and asked them to confirm the reservations, and never got any response to that either!
So be ware! If you don’t want to end up like us, in a foreign country, with young kids in tow, and found out the places you paid for aren’t expecting you there, do NOT use 1800hotels.com!