hotels.com
a dishonest and untrustworthy company
(2020)
In December 2019 my friend Giovanna booked a hotel in Montreux (Switzerland) using, for the first time, the hotels.com website (Expedia Group).
The booking was for the month of May 2020 (two nights). At that time there wasn't the faintest idea that a virus would start circulating in Europe in the coming months followed by a lockdown of many activities, first of all tourism.
The result was that the booked hotel was closed during that period.
Because of this new situation, my friend wrote a message to hotels.com and got the following reply:
We confirm that in this case Hotel.com will issue a voucher of the same value as the originale reservation within 30 days.
Reassured by that, she waited, and waited, and waited…until September.
At that point, she wrote another message and received this reply:
We apologize for the length of time this has taken. There has been a system issue that causes delay upon the issuance of coupon, please bear with us. Rest assured that we''re all hands on your case and it will be investigated.
So, according to them, they were all “hands on” this case.
Unfortunately nothing happened and we reached the middle of October. Their policy of delay and procrastination was ever more apparent.
The last straw was when, replying to another message, they wrote:
We apologize for taking it so long for your coupon to be issued as there has been a system issue. Rest assured we'll do our best to work on getting your coupon issued. Kindly expect your coupon within 4 - 6 weeks.
Now the excuse was “the system issue”. So, besides being an untrustworthy company they were also a messy company with an unreliable organization system.
The morale of this unpalatable experience is that this company is a dishonest and untrustworthy one and the suggestion is to avoid them like the pest.
There is even a Facebook group with the title: Hotels.com where is my money??
There is also a page full of complaints against this company: Hotels.com complaints.
So, beware of crooks and thieves. The more you keep your distance from them, the better for your life.