pwjone1

This is going to sound like a complaint, and really it's not, it all worked out fine, but a recent experience left me with several questions.

Background: I had made a reservation (as I have done many times with absolutely no problems) though one of the major e-booking sites, booking the flight mainly, and happened then to also book through them for a hotel room for part of the stay (going to a family reunion), about 2 months ahead, everything went fine. But about 3 weeks ahead I received a note+phone call saying the reservation for the hotel was no good, there was no really solid reason given, but it sounded like the hotel was overbooked. The site was very nice about it, offered to rebook, etc., I ended up doing it myself, just easier to do it on a web site myself, and the person on the phone was not a native speaker, etc. And I do very much appreciate that they took the time to call, I get so much e-mail, I might have missed it otherwise. It was a bit tricky, a big event in town at the time, but I found something reasonable, and we'd wanted to try a new hotel there anyway. So it all worked out.

So now my questions:

1. Is Hotel Bumping something that's common?
2. When you book through a non-Hotel web-site, is the booking as good as the Hotels?
3. Do I have any travelers type rights if I do end up bumped, if it were to be last minute?

qwovadis

1. Uncommonly Done usually locally by the hotels.A scam that
is commonly run is to overbook and bump to a hotel less
quality.You can decline but most are tired and do not.
Have had this scam run on me in Rome and Paris.

2. Better for me to book with E sites of quality like
Booking.com Priceline.com Otel.com.Constracturally
they cannot bump you like booking direct.

3. Booked direct they can do this you may decline.

Otherwise little recourse so I always use reputable E booking
sites though I still have problems with some.Sheraton Roma
bumped me off the preferred guest club floor to a superior room because I had booked for $60/nt on hotwire.com as opposed
to paying triple with them even though I was an spg.com
member.Privately owned worst Sheraton I have EVER stayed in
they tried to pad my bill with 50 euros or so of extra charges
daily including believe it or not "Unicef Donations" so always
chek your bill carefully.They did correct it once caught.

Still for $60/nt in Rome a good deal pricewise.

thursdaysd

You can get bumped regardless of how you book. I follow Chris Elliot's travel mediator blog - http://www.elliott.org/ - and this comes up every so often.

Seamus

"Bumping" is the term usually applied to air travel when a previously booked and confirmed seat on a specific flight is not available. When you show up at a hotel to claim a reserved room and the establishment says they are full and have no room for you, they typically get you a room at another property; this is called "walking" the guest. Usually the oversold property will cover the cost of getting to the new place and the first night's room charge.

Sounds like what happened to you is neither of these - if it was the booking site that called you chances are they never made the hotel reservation for you in the first place.


<<qwovadis on May 7, 11 at 8:06am...2. Better for me to book with E sites of quality like Booking.com Priceline.com Otel.com.Constracturally they cannot bump you like booking direct.>>

Not at all accurate - where did you get that notion?

As with air travel, best bet is always to book directly with the provider. Still not a guarantee that an irregularity might occur (e.g., overbooking) but eliminating the middleman makes resolution easier in the event of irregularity.