reservation cancellation help
 

I found a very cheap hotel rate in Las Vegas on PRICELINE.COM and booked it through their regulal reservation sytem (not the "Name your own Price"). I couple of days later they said that my reservation was cancelled and that I was given a refund because the hotel posted incorrect rate on their website. Does anyone know if they can legally cancel my reservation? My credit card was charged and I received a confirmation number both from Priceline and from the hotel. Thank you in advance for any input you can give me.

Why do you suppose it would be illegal to cancel a reservation?

because it is a contract between me and the hotel.

I'm not sure I follow. Did you place the reservation on the hotel website or on the Priceline website?

In any case, I don't think it matters. Your money has been refunded. It sounds as if they told you the "real story". The posted rate was a mistake and they refunded money when the problem was discovered.

Book another hotel.

No. It's not a contract. It's a reservation.

You should read the terms and conditions on the Priceline website. It may give them the right to do this.

And to answer the previous poster - when a hotel offers a room at a particular price and you accept that offer by making a reservation and providing your credit card number, this creates a contract between the parties. Unilaterally canceling the contract may put the canceling party in breach of the contract. Then again, maybe not. It all depends on the terms of the contract.

My thinking is that if they made the mistake, they should "suck it up." I got two round trip flights from Newark to Honolulu for $150.00 each due to a computer glitch. AA honored the price -- I think priceline should honor it also. I would call them. ((b))

I did call and they didn't want to do anything. They said it was a hotel computer error and they were not responsible.

If the hotel was in breach of the contract, the fact that it agreed to provide a refund does not necessarily absolve it from liability. The question becomes, what damages did the consumer suffer?

Surely, all of you would be upset if you had booked a hotel stay and the day before you left, the hotel called to tell you, sorry, we made a mistake, we are canceling your reservation. What if at this point, all hotels are booked or prices are now significantly higher than they were at the time you made the original reservation.

I have a feeling all of you would have a different take on it.

If Priceline cancelled your reservation and refunded you the money that was originally charged to your CC then they owe you nothing. That's no different than you cancelling the hotel reservation before your arrival. No harm, no foul! If, however, this was a non-cancellable/non-refundable reservation you might have some recourse but I suspect if you read the "fine print" in the booking terms there's probably a section that absolves both Priceline and the Hotel from any liability in cases like this.

and I do agree with Budman that a good company would suck it up and honor it.

I do think it's interesting that if the buyer had decided she wanted to cancel, she couldn't have as the contract is totally binding and can't be cancelled, right. But the hotel can cancel on their end. Seems kind of one sided to me.

Like A Traveller suggests, it would be different if you would have been able to cancel as well, but if you weren't, then why should they be able to?

These are merely rhetorical questions, however, as we all know the hotel has the last word.

I also agree with Budman, a good company would honor the reservation, Budget once gave me a rate of $200 for a 12 day rental in Italy, even though I kept telling them the rate could not be correct, they said it was, and honored it! Do I continue to rent from Budget, yes, even if their rates are a bit higher.

There was a computer error. "A couple of days later" they discovered and corrected the error. There is nothing to indicate the trip is in the next couple of days.

That has happened before and discussed on this board. The humans involved made it right. A couple of days ago there was a thread about someone who booked a non-refundable Net Rate - and wanted to cancel. She called the hotel and the human involved provided a solution.

Is anyone else tired of immediate talk of breach of contract and "just sue" mentality (not on this thread, but others). Does anyone else wonder what happened to the "mistakes happen" approach to life.

Oops! Sorry. Sounds like a "quality of life" lecture I've complained about in the past.

"Thank you in advance for any input" - Book another hotel and let this drop.

This sounds like a discussion at the Supreme Court.

I can understand why a consumer would be unhappy if a supplier backed out of a favorable agreement.

However, I can't understand how it would be possible to do business in a market that requires sellers to deliver on <i>every</i> purchase for which they except payment even if it is impossible for them to do so.

Should those who make a purchase using a credit card be required to pay for it even though it is not as represented, not delivered, or unsatisfactory in every way?

pay for a service using a credit card be required to pay for the service even if

YES they can cancel your reservation.

NO, you have no recourse.

YES, this has been discussed ad nauseam.

starrsville, I agree.

starsville is right - nowadays a lot of people think that they are &quot;owed&quot; some type of restitution for what really, in the scheme of life, is a trivial inconvience. Having a booking agent cancel a reservation for the reasons described is such a minor event. True, readers can extrapolate a lot of &quot;What IF&quot; scenarios such as &quot;What if the cancellation occured on the eve of a big wedding&quot; or &quot;What if the person was booking the room so he/she could spend the last minutes of life with a dying relative&quot; ( make up your own What If) but the reality is these are not earthshattering situations where someone should be thinking about the LEGALITY of cancelling something so mundane as a hotel reservation.

Like I and others have said if OP got her money back all that need be done is for her/him to make a reservation elsewhere.

Just a small post script.

When I was the Director of Sales and Marketing at a resort, with large conferences, I would have a large amount of cancellations day of arrival after the refundable deadline had passed.

One or two would be fine (s%$t does happen) but in many cases it would be 10-15 rooms for a 50 room arrival).

The excuses ranged from death in the family to houses burning to the ground to flying locusts.

I finally made guests start provided me with documentation (death notice, police report, anything at all) and the majority of people fessed up they were just trying to get out of the reservation.

Here's one from last week. I called to make a reservation at a hotel less than an hour from me. They asked if I was with a group and I gave them the name of the conference. They sent an email confirmation - which I never looked at.

When I checked in, I found out I had been charged for a no-show the night before. I considered not checking in for that night, but that would have been another charge, because of the cancellation policy. I was a bit distressed, but didn't make a fuss. Who knows if I made the mistake or the reservation agent made the mistake? I don't THINK I did, but perhaps I was distracted while talking and driving (I know, I know). What I think happened is that I called to make the reservation for one night and since I used the conference discount, the agent booked the two nights listed on the conference rate.

I asked the front desk agent if they could please change it from &quot;no show&quot; to a regular room charge on the folio. I told him I would be in &quot;deep doo-doo&quot; for being a no-show at a hotel so close to home. I was distressed - and I'm sure it showed. He said he would check on it, and walked back to the manager's office.

When he came back, he announced that they had removed the charge for the previous night. I was surprised and thrilled.

Supporting what GoT said - I did not lie. I did not make up some stupid story. I did not make a scene. I honestly couldn't tell him if it was my mistake or the reservation agent's mistake. He saw my distress - and made an exception I didn't even ask for.

The more I travel, the more I firmly believe - it's all in the attitude and how you treat others. And, honesty is always the best policy.

You would have a better case, if they didn't cancel your reservation....and you were told that no room was available when you got to the hotel.

In that case, the liability would still only be a refund of money paid.

Well I agree that this isn't exactly a matter of life and death. But it certainly would cause me to question doing business with priceline(or this particular hotel - it is not clear to me where the mistake was) if they can unilaterally cancel reservations while binding you to the reservation.

And happytrails - it doesn't sound like it was &quot;impossible&quot; for the seller to deliver - more like they didn't want to. That's a big difference.

At the very least, this is a bad business practice.

tom42 - So, don't do business with priceline. I said this on the SWA thread, and I'll say it again. If you don't like a company's policies, don't do business with them. If enough people share your view, they'll change their policies. In this case, enough people appear to disagree with you that priceline is happy doing business just as they are doing it now.

I also agree with the others who said mistakes happen! Sometimes airlines or hotels post incorrect rate information and sell tickets or hotel rooms at that rate before the mistake is caught. Depending on how many tickets/reservations are sold and at what ridiculously low price, sometimes the seller decides to honor the mistaken price as a good will gesture. Sometimes they choose to cancel the reservations to save money. You can choose from there whether this action makes you want to stop doing business with them, but that doesn't mean there is any legal liability involved.

If a hotel kept your money and refused you a room, that would be an entirely different story. They said they made a mistake and refunded the money. End of story.

&quot;But it certainly would cause me to question doing business with priceline(or this particular hotel - it is not clear to me where the mistake was) if they can unilaterally cancel reservations while binding you to the reservation.&quot;

OP said they booked the room through Priceline's regular reservation system. That system (unlike the Name your price system) does allow cancellations, albeit for a $25 fee. It's in plain English on their website, so before someone argues that I'm incorrect, go to their website and look at the terms for a regular reservation. OP was not bound to the reservation except at the risk of losing $25, and those terms were clearly outlined at time of booking. What's the problem?

I don;t think there's any way you can &quot;force&quot; them to honor the contract. You can call the hotel directly - and do speak to a manager - and see if you can get them to honor it.

If they don;t you culd take them to small claims court. But - as someone mentioned you really don;t have a cause of action unless there was some loss involved - ie they canceled the day before you left and your only recourse was to take a much more expensive hotel since that was the only thing available. In that case you might be able to collect the difference between your reserved rate and what you had to pay.

But is this really the situation - and is this enough to go to court over?

If you call the hotel and they won;t cooperate I would just find someplace else.

jlm - I don't do business with priceline. And I agree with most of what you said, except for the statement about legal liability. Whether there is or is not, depends on the situation.

In any event, I don't know who would bother pursuing anything here absent some extra-ordinary circumstance - it would be easier to just reserve another hotel room.

Nytraveler gave the best advice.

Just curious. How did you determine that nytraveler gave the OP the &quot;best advice&quot;? Nothing against nytraveler's post, but what exactly was said that was better (or significantly different) than other posts?

Made me think of Regis and Kelly's awards. That post deserves a Relly! :-)

To satisfy your curiousity starrsville, I found nytraveler's post the best because she (or he):

1. offered a practical step the poster could take if she wanted to pursue - call the hotel directly.

2. told the poster what the next step could be - small claims court - and correctly told her that she didn't really have a cause of action if there was no loss

and

3. concluded with what everyone here seems to agree - that if the hotel won't honor it, she should just book another hotel.


I hope this explanation satisfies you.

The Relly goes to nytraveler! :-)

I don't know what a Relly is.

I do not do business with Priceline, and I've never had the OP's problem.

In this instance, if Priceline gave me no satisfaction I would turn to the hotel (from which OP claims to have a confirmation) and then to my credit card company.

It is they who have the answer to this muddled transaction.