Hotels.com booking issues
My Mom was flying back to Ukraine from Seattle this weekend, and on my stay in Ramada close to SeaTac International Airport. Even though we got the rooms okay, and with the exception of the magnetic keys not working every other time, everything went pretty smoothly. It didn’t go so well for the guy in Hawaiian shirt in the lobby, who arrived there with his family to find out that the hotel he booked through Hotels.com has been filled. Turns out Hotels.com uses old-fashioned faxing to book a room when it’s sold on the Web site. Nothing wrong with that except that the fax comes 3 hours after the reservation has been made on the Web site, so occasionally during high demand times, such as SeaFair those 3 hours might be crucial, as the hotel books the room for other customers. Even though Hotels.com appears to sound reliable by sending you confirmation numbers in a special e-mail message, those confirmation numbers don’t mean a whole lot to the hotel, since they’re Hotels.com-specific. I am not sure what the guy needed the hotel for (either visiting SeaFair in Seattle, or flying tomorrow morning out of SeaTec), but he sounded pretty disappointed (to put it politely) with Hotels.com service.