Do hotels have to honor typos?
 

Found a fabulous hotel deal online -- they had entered a daily rate of $18 when they meant it to be $189. So I booked it, of course, then got a phone call that they just plain don't intend to honor it. Does anyone know the legal technicalities -- are they required to honorthis published rate? This is for a specific hotel in a very major chain, and for just one night of a 3-night stay.

No, they are not obligated to honor it although some companies do out of good will.

Forgot to add that they do not have to honor it because of some very recent legislation concerning the internet.

They are not legally required to honor an obvious typo.<BR><BR>The average person would know that an $18 room rate was incorrect.<BR><BR>However, as a goodwill gesture, they MAY honor it solely at their discetion...but don't expectit.<BR>

Put yourself in their place. If you made a mistake like that (on a check you wrote perhaps) would you want to be held to it? Treating corporations as deep pockets is what raises prices for all of us.

I am not aware of the legislation regarding internet &quot;mistakes&quot; but in terms of general consumer law, a merchant is required to sell you something at the published/listed price, whether or not it was a mistake. You may want to contact your state's consumer affairs bureau for advice. I don't think $189 is worth consulting a lawyer, as it would cost you more in legal fees. If you live near a law school and they have a public clinic, this might be an interesting exercise for them. (I am a lawyer, can you tell?)<BR><BR>Also, as this is a major chain, I would contact the marketing, PR or guest relations office at the headquarters of the chain. You can usually find contact information on the website for a chain, look under &quot;corporate information&quot; or &quot;contacts.&quot; You should do this in writing, and include any print-outs you have of the price and any written communication you had with the hotel. You may want to cc the CEO of the chain as well. If you are advised by your state consumer affairs bureau that you have a case, you should mention this. If not, the company may feel it would be good PR to give you the rate or a substantial discount from the correct rate.<BR>

Sorry Cicerone, But with thirty years of retail management behind me, I can tell you a retailer is not obligated to honor a price that was printed at the wrong price. Why do you think retractions are printed?

Lots of times going into a grocery store or department store there is a posting of an advirtising error with an apology for the error. Clearly the establishment did not intend for that to be the price hence the phone call. Happens all the time.

Something similar happened not too long ago on the British Air website. People who were lucky enough to find this fare bought it &amp; BA honored it. Someone posted about it on the Europe board if you want to try to do a search. The error was found fairly quickly &amp; changed.

BTW, I think it makes a difference whether the mistake was on the hotel's OWN website or a third party site. If it's their own mistake, IMO they should honor it. If it's a third party mistake, harder argument.

Gotta disagree with you Ronkala. If the price is marked on a sales tag or sticker, and no correction/retraction is reasonably visible to the public, the merchant DEOA have to honor the marked price. The same can be said of published prices in newspapers, etc which are later corrected by a retraction, etc., if the purchaser can show that they attempted to purchase prior to the printing of the retraction. All this is designed to prevent &quot;bait and switch&quot; and other consumer frauds. Just because you may not have practiced it, does not mean you have not been breaking the law. The fact is that many consumers don't know about their rights and get taken advantage of.<BR><BR>The same goes for those ridiculous signs in stores that say &quot; you break it you bought it.&quot; This is completely unenforceable. You have to make an offer to buy (by making a positive statement to that effect or, by case law, by bringing the item to the counter) before you can be forced to pay for it. Simply picking up an item to examine it and it then breaking does not mean you have made an &quot;offer to buy&quot;.<BR>

Cicerone, you're quick to point out that consumers &quot;get taken advantage of&quot; - and I agree. But as Grasshopper inferred, two wrongs don't make a right either -- the $18 rate would mean the hotel is getting &quot;taken advantage of&quot;. Legal point aside, it's still wrong.<BR><BR>Awhile back I booked a B&amp;B in Vancouver, BC at high season. There was an advertised &quot;fall special&quot; which was still bookable for June! Half the going price for this place...they soon called me (I had booked 4 rooms) and informed me of the mistake and said they would not honor it. As somebody once said, there is no free lunch!

Reminds of a new resort operated by Sheraton that opened up on Bora Bora last year. The Sheraton website posted the rate in tahitian currency, which converted to $100 US. Actual rate was supposed to have been $1000. I was amazed and dismayed by the number of folks who booked rooms knowing that the rate was incorrect, then tried to force the resort to honor it....seems the only ethics these days are situational.<BR><BR>And Cicerone, you may know the law, but your posts in this thread are the stuff that lawyer jokes are made from.

Just curious, would people feel differently (that they SHOULD honor it)if the quoted price were $89 dropping the 1 instead of $18?

$89 yes<BR>$18 no<BR>

I agree with Dick... generally, if the price quoted is so low that an average person should recognize that the quote must be in error, then the hotel does not have to honor it. Laws vary, however, by state statute and caselaw. And, Beachbum, there are lawyers (myself included) who do try to do the &quot;right&quot; thing. I, personally, would not try to take advantage of the situation even though the hotel chain has deep-pockets.

I think that it is more likely that $89 would be an &quot;on sale&quot; rate and that $18 would be a mistake. I think a reasonable person would recognize the $18 mistake and not blame the hotel but it is possible to believe that the $89 rate that is later not honored as being more like bait and switch.

Depending on the city, $18 probably doesn't even cover overhead.

Laws aside, I do think the hotel should at least offer some kind of substantial price reduction to make up for their own error if they don't honor the typo.

uuhhhh.....but what does the hotel have to &quot;make up for&quot; if no one was damaged?

I guess it all comes down to a matter of ethics. Not the hotels, but yours. You knew that this was a mistake, but you think the hotel should eat it. So with that kind of logic, if the hotel accidently makes duplicate charges for your room and they knew it, but thought they could get by with it then why correct the situation.<BR><BR>You tried to get a deal that was too good to be true. Sorry it didn't work.

Well, it did work. I just got a call from the booking agency, that the hotel has decided to honor the rate after all. <BR><BR>Sorry you don't like my ethics, I'm on a tight budget trying to take my daughter and a friend around to visit a couple of colleges and I'll take every break I can get. A posted rate is a posted rate, as Cicerone said.<BR><BR>ronkala wrote, &quot;I can tell you a retailer is not obligated to honor a price that was printed at the wrong price. Why do you think retractions are printed?&quot; Well, I think the retractions are printed becuase otherwise they ARE required to honor the advertised price! Otherwise, why would they go to the expense and trouble of printing hte retraction?!

It's great you got that price, and I fault no one for getting the best price, but trying to force it is another thing.<BR><BR>I'm going back years ago when I took business law, and it seems to me that we learned that an advertisement is just an invitation to make an offer. And that for a contract to be legally binding, there has to be three things: consideration (eg: exchange of money), mutual acceptance, and legal standing (eg: gambling debts are not legal). So if the hotel did not accept money from you ... or even if they charged, then credited your card before you had paid your statement, then I think any hotel could legally get out of the reservation.<BR><BR>I worked for a few major chain hotels years ago, and even with the &quot;guaranteed&quot; credit card reservations, we had to &quot;eat&quot; a lot of lost revenues, while I only remember one time ever &quot;walking&quot; a customer. I feel that reservations are really only a courtesy, unless a deposit is made &amp; accepted. Just my 2 cents. Enjoy your trip.

uuhhhhh,<BR>What the hotel should be making up for is their own stupidity. They should PROOFREAD! <BR><BR>It is a matter of ethics! If I made the mistake I would be ETHICAL enough to stand behind it. I keep my promises. A hotel chain or owner who want to be looked upon as operating in good faith would too.

so SaraLou, tell me about the ETHICS of Anonymous. how was s/he damaged such that s/he should get a better rate than anyone else? the typo was a mistake, not a wrong. there's a difference. follow your logic; i hope you don't like where it takes you.

If there wasn't some sort of penalty then hotels can all run ads for ridiculously low prices to get you to call and then bait and switch on the phone. The advertiser has an obligation to not be negligent in their advertising. People are just jealous that someone elses is getting a break. Maybe the hotel should find some employees with greater literacy skills. Now it's different if the publication makes the mistake, then it's on them as they have an obligation to properly publish the data given to them. Obviously if BMW accidently publishes the M3 price as $60 instead of $60k, I don't expect to get the car at that price, but with a hotel room, I'd at least expect a discount for my hassle of having to call them on the phone or call my credit card company to find out why I was billed a different rate or whatever.

We all pay for those kind of mistakes in the end. Personally I think your daughter's education would have been enhanced by paying the true rate. She got a major lesson in getting away what what you can get away with.<BR><BR>Last night I went to a restaurant with friends. The waiter forgot to include our second round of drinks on the bill. It took us about 15 seconds to agree to let him know. Then we went on to see The Producers. I think we all felt better about it. I know I did.

The ETHICS of the situation is whether or not your word is good. You make an offer and you stand by it. If you cannot do that, you should not be in business. Perhaps the only one here who is &quot;damaged&quot; is the hotel's own reputation. However, if the correct advertised price was listed at $189, the customer may have passed that up for a comparable room for $99. When the mistake is revealed and the $99 rooms are no longer available then Anonymous would be the damaged party. Bait and switch is illegal. &quot;OOPS I made a mistake&quot; cannot be a defense or bait and switch laws would be unenforcable.

one more time, SaraLou.... read the original post again. Anonymous booked the room knowing that the posted rate was incorrect. s/he then got a phone call notification that the hotel would not honor the rate as it had been posted in error. this is not a case of bait and switch. and i just don't get why you think we all should suffer (in the form of higher prices) for the benefit of Anonymous.

Anonymous, glad you got the rate.<BR>First, they offered a product at a price. You expressed your desire to purchase. At that point, the hotel had the opportunity to reject the transaction due to their error...they didn't, they accepted your offer, so you had an agreement between buyer and seller, a binding contract. The fact that they don't have the management systems in place to make sure their offers are correct is not your problem.<BR><BR>Now to ethics. The travel industry engages in bazaar type pricing, using value based rather than cost based pricing. They have lots of people calculating demand and manipulating proces on an hourly basis in response to that demand. While $18.00 may seem rather odd, you cannot immediately assume it is a mistake. It could be some sort of promotion, the terms of which are buried 4 clicks down in their promotional code page.<BR>The reality is that prices vary widely, they offered and accepted the deal, and they tried to get anonymous to pay for their poor management.<BR><BR>That would be caveat vendore?

When I accidentaly clicked the wrong airline ticket and asked for an exchange the folks at expedia were anything but helpful, they certainly didnt take the attitude that &quot;it was an honest mistake and I meant no harm&quot;. A reasonable person should not assume that $18 is a mistake especially when there are promotions out there that offer a &quot;free one nite stay if...&quot;

Whether Anon knew when the room was booked or when she got the call that the correct price s/b $189 is not specified in the original post. But what Anon knew or what the hotel meant to print is all irrelevant. Decisions of rules and laws are based on facts and the fact is that the price was printed. IF (and that is a BIG IF) that means &quot;we all suffer&quot; then so be it. Are you one that thinks Little League shouldn't keep score because someone's feelings might get hurt, someone might &quot;suffer&quot;. If not, then you should see this for what it is.

Uhhh, no one said Anonymous was &quot;damaged&quot;. It's not like she's sueing the hotel chain for mental distress or anything, she just called them on the rate THEY posted, seeing if they will honor that, they did, end of story. It's not as though she was trying to be sneaky or deceptive, she booked the rate on the internet. Who among us wouldn't have done the same (OK, I can't wait to hear from everyone here who insists they would've let a great deal like that pass them by). I also didn't read anywhere where she might have threatened the hotel.<BR><BR>Good for you anonymous. Sounds like you could've used a break and you got one. Next time, I'm sure the hotel will be more careful with what they publish.

I vaguely remember hearing in econ 101 years ago that one of the fundamentals of capitalism is the notion that individuals will do what they deem is in their own best interest; in other words, everyone looks out for number one. Anonymous must have taken the same course. <BR><BR>The question is, whose decision is more capitalistic, Anonymous's or grasshopper's?<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>

Although the price was extremely low, there was a (slim) chance it was a real price. Anonymous figured it was wrong, but there could have been people out there who thought it was just an incredible Internet value. I have read so many posts here and elsewhere about the &quot;steals&quot; they get on Priceline: &quot;I got a 4-star hotel for $39 a night!&quot; &quot;We paid $59 a night for a deluxe room when the hotel's rate was $250 a night&quot; etc. etc. It's UNLIKELY (highly) that the price was real, but it was POSSIBLE, especially since it was valid for just one night of a three-night stay.<BR>

SaraLou,<BR>imagine yourself typing the rules of the house for your 10 year-old daughter. by mistake, you type her bedtime as &quot;99:00pm&quot; instead of &quot;9:00pm&quot;. What are the &quot;facts&quot;, and what time does your daughter go to bed?

Hi all... I work in hotel automation and can tell you if Starwood loaded a 100 rate for Bora Bora, the hotel is not the one who would take the loss. The data is managed by Starwood, not the property and if Starwood incorrectly entered the data they will generally offer a refund of the difference.<BR>The hotel hires Starwood to manage the data and if they make a mistake, it is automation group who will usually take the hit. Starwood is exceptional in this area, too... they generally stand by the rates loaded.

Regarding a retailer having to honor the price affixed to the merchandise....they don't.<BR><BR>People switch price tickets all the time in stores. Without accusing anyone, if a store can show theat the price ticket is on the wrong item, they don't have to honor the reduced price.<BR><BR>The $18 price was an obvious error. Once notified, they corrected the error. It would have been different if they had been informed of the error and left the $18 price posted. Then the would have been some legal recourse.

Starwood did not stand by the incorrect Bora Bora rate.

uuhhhh,<BR>I do infact have a 10 y.o. daughter so that is a FUNNY question!