HELP! Hotel Internet Booking problem
 

Does anyone know how binding hotel internet rates are? I booked a very, very, very low rate with at a national hotel chain's internet site for a London property. They confirmed my rate on-line and e-mailed me with a confirmation number and the very, very low rate. I called the reservation number to confirm (I didn't want to get to London and the agent pulled up my confirmation number and very, very low rate. The agent was concerned. They passed me to customer service. Basically, the hotel chain doesn't want to give me the rate I confirmed. Any suggestions? Help!

If it's on their website and you have documentation (printout of the price and confirmation number), I would guess that you are in good shape. Even if you were to have any problems with the hotel, my guess (but no hard knowledge) would be that your credit card company would accept the amount you agreed upon. After all, it would seem to be a contractual agreement. Any lawyers who can speak on this?

I am not a lawyer - - but if it seems too low to be real, and smells like it might be an outright typo, then you may not be able to do anything other than fax your printed out rate, and ask - - "okay, what real rate WILL you quote me, in response to this error?"

Luckily, I've never had that problem, and if you do have written confirmation of the rate I'm sure you can complain to the customer service or head office of the hotel. However, I doubt if your credit card will refuse to pay the bill because it will be impossible for that to happen (charges to your card) without your agreement to a rate when you check in; if you check in and agree to a higher rate, you will have to pay it as far as the credit card is concerned, although you can complain before and after. If you do not agree to the rate, they won't let you check in. I'm not a lawyer but I did take a class in grad bus school in business law, including contracts, and I don't believe you have a contract as you have exchanged nothing of value yet (ie, there is no "consideration", I think that's the term, but it's been a long time).

The customer service folks tried offering one night at the low rate and the other two at the regular super saver rate. I balked..in a nice way... and they decided that a happy customer was worth a lot. I got the very, very, very low rate for all three nights! I plan on sending a thank you letter to the boss of the customer service rep.