Traveler Beware: Priceline Customer Service is an Oxymoron

Here is cautionary tale for travelers considering using Priceline to book their travel...

I haven't used Priceline for years because of bad experiences in the past. But I thought I'd give them one more try. I booked a hotel room through Priceline for our family, and requested 2 beds, but got a standard room with 1 king sized bed instead. Somehow in the booking process Priceline swapped what we asked for without us knowing. I'm sure this was just a glitch of their computer system , but none-the-less we didn't know this had occured first. I discovered this later when I called to complain that the "discounted" "name your own rate" was actually *more* than the hotel's own web-site showed! I called to complain about the price only to find out that my kids would have to sleep on the floor, because the room PL gave us only had a king sized bed.

The customer service rep. at Priceline could have cared less. She said that the contract clearly showed that we had purchased a standard room. But my eyes clearly remembered booking a room for 2 adults and 2 children. After spending 45 minutes with the CS rep. saying the same thing over and over and over again I finally gave up. I kept saying a standard room won't accomodate our family and our kids will have to sleep on the floor. She kept saying I didn't say your kids would have to sleep on the floor. I said you know that means four people in one bed. She said that is what you ordered. I said no I ordered 2 beds at a discounted price and got 1 bed at a price that is higher than the hotel itself charges! And round and round and round she went... I said the reason I'm calling customer service is to give you a chance to try to remedy a problem; but she just kept reading the contract. She never tried to rectify the situation.

PL customer service people have no power to change anything. It's not really their fault. Once I realized this I gave up. Priceline is truely a sorry outfit. I called my Credit Union and they gave me the steps to dispute the charges. I will NEVER USE PRICELINE AGAIN!

I've used Hotwire at least 10-15 times a year with about 90% satisfaction. On those occassions when there is a problem, the customer service representatives eventually fix the problem; even when the problem is with the hotel. Priceline customer service is truely an oxymoron. Be careful when you tempted to use them. Eventually your travel plans will crash and burn.

I love Priceline. Booked my honeymoon with it and consistently get very top notch hotels, even on busy/sold out weekends, for a fraction of the price of other specials.

Have used it about 20 times from coast to coast.

I wondered the same thing. I think this was a case of user error, resulting in hurt pride. I know. I was young once.

Well I don’t know what to tell you. I’m not young. I’ve been using travel sites on the internet for many, many years with great success, and I’ve been using Priceline, off and on, since they started doing business, with mostly poor results. Maybe I just have bad luck with them. I figured they must do something right or else they would be out of business by now; so every now and then I try them again, and try to keep an open mind. I travel a lot on business, and peronally book a lot of personal travel with my family. (Over 15 trips last year.) I’ve been using the internet since 1991 and I’m a techie. My main point is that when things go awry, customer service is a big differenciator for travel companies. I seem to have to endure Priceline’s customer service every time. It is the worst I’ve ever experienced. But no more...

You complained that Priceline’s “Name your own price” rate was more than the hotel’s advertised price on their website. My question to you is why you “named a price” greater than what the hotel was charging on their website?

Just to be clear, this is a small beach town in California with a very limited number of hotels, and with 2 star as the highest ranking. Priceline showed all the hotels in town on the regular price page. I verified this with Google maps. Almost all the 2 star hotels were on or near the beach and were listed at $220-$350. I started with a price of $110 which is %50 off. When that was rejected I raised the price each time, finally ending at $150. Then the price was accepted. It was at that this time I found out the name of the hotel, and it wasn't on the beach, wasn't on the list of hotels they showed on the regular page for that beach town, and it wasn't even in the city I specified. That's not a big deal because I've used Priceline and Hotwire before and they are sly that way. But then I went to the hotel's web site and found I had paid more to Priceline than they charged, that really hurt. Something clearly is wrong with this picture. I've contacted other online travel sites when this has happened before (very infrequent) and they apologized and refunded more than the difference. PL is in another league of customer service. Think bush-league.

I might use Priceline for travel if its only me, but I need greater certainty as to where I am staying that PL gives.

For now I stay at mid-priced hotels, and look at Marriott/Hyatt/Hilton/La Quinta for low weekend deals in the off-season.

I will certainly agree that customer service is important. For me, it is even more important when my family is with me than when I am alone.

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