Hotels.com - no reservation made!!

My complaint relates to a hotel booking made in August 2009 for 25-28 Sept, which it transpired was never agreed by the hotel (which is fully booked for the dates in question). Had I not found this out by chance, my partner and I would have travelled for 4 hours by plane and then 2 by car to a remote resort and then been turned away!

As it is, I have incurred several hundred dollars to rebook flights and rearrange with the hotel directly. This is an entirely unacceptable outcome. I have spent in total 5 hours on the telephone to Hotels.com call centre seeking compensation and an explanation, and have emailed customer services many times with detailed explanations of the problem.

Every time I have called the Hotels.com call centre, the representative has kept me on hold for up to an hour while they speak to supervisors or check something. Every time I have called I have had to explain everything again to a different representative-no notes were retained on the system. The staff will not let me speak to a team leader, and simply suggest I cancel and rebook-but this takes no account of my costs in rescheduling my vacation. They have emailed a suggestion of US$20 voucher-how can this compensate me for hundreds of dollars of additional costs and significant inconvenience in rearranging my trip? It plainly does not, and is an insult - I have therefore emailed them to reject it.

The hotel itself proposed comparable alternative nearby accomodation for the same weekend at a cost of Australian $900 over the original desired hotel's charge. Changing flights was therefore the cheaper option, and one which enables us to stay at the hotel we originally sought. However, that now entails taking an additional day of vacation for both myself and my partner, and rearranging at late notice with our employers - a real cost in itself, given vacation time is a scarce commodity.

I have now had to cancel my booking in order to avoid any risk of incurring charges for the original "imaginary booking" by Hotels.com - a booking which the call centre staff still insists remains in-place and valid, despite me giving them the hotel's reservations desk phone number to call! I have now also incurred the cost of changing my flights to the next available stay at the hotel in question, 27-30th September, at a total of Australian $640! I am seeking this additional expense from Hotels.com, and have lodged a complaint with the Dallas BBB.