Priceline.com / Processing transactions

Trying to book multi-destination flights and car rentals through PriceLine, they have tied up my credit card for $2900 dollars.

On Dec 13th 2006 I tried to book flights for three people to multiple destinations; Depart SMF -> PHX, return PHX->SNA then return SNA->SMF. This also included request for car rental in PHX and SNA. The system returned with a message that the itinerary was rejected by the airlines, despite choosing the very ones they gave me. I went through this three times and the last time the system notified me that it would take 15 minutes to respond and if I didn’t receive an email to call. I used the same credit card for all three attempts. BIG MISTAKE

An hour later I decided to make the reservations myself and contacted the airlines. They accepted my itinerary, (big surprise) then the credit card was rejected. I got online and found out that PRICELINE had processed three approvals and the airlines that they communicated with also processed three approvals and thereby locking up my credit card for $2900.00. That was more than my available credit on that card.

It took me 15 minutes to get a human being at Capital One (there is another horror story) and they told me that I would first have to contact PriceLine and America West Airlines. It took me an hour total to talk to people there and they pretty much told me that the transactions were in limbo and it would take 24 hours to release. Painful but bearable, I think; so I nicely said thank you and hung up the phone, not being able to make my flight reservations. Finally got that handled using two smaller credit cards, but still fuming the whole time.

24 hours later I am checking my credit card status, still tied up, still can’t use it. 48 hours the same. Call Capital One and they tell them that the other companies have $ BUSINESS DAYS to process their transactions. I said I received nothing and that I didn’t want the transactions processed. Well it seems Capital One can do nothing until after the 4 days or an actual transaction is processed. So I am stuck not being able to use my credit card this weekend in order to purchase gifts over the internet to have them shipped to the persons who I will be flying to see over Christmas.

Why is PriceLine allowed to tie up my credit cards without first making sure that they can provide a product and why are the Credit Card companies foolish enough to allow these companies to do it? What moron came up with this business schema?

And I can’t determine how to get these people to comply with a simple request, because all their customer service persons are walking, talking morons. They can only read from their scripts.

So PriceLine, I hope Bill Shatner and Leonard Nimoy soaked you for a good some of money on those commercials. You’ll never get another dime from me.

See the following threads for more of PriceLine’s crappy service