
Expedia: Bad for the Traveler, Bad for the Hotel - ValentineC
http://playazone.wordpress.com/2012/12/04/expedia-bad-for-the-traveler-bad-for-the-hotel/
======
specialist
Not using hotels.com is harder than you think. There are front entities
pretending to be the hotel and are actually booking thru hotels.com.

Background...

We booked a hotel in Key West FL. Fair deal. Show up, no reservation. Turns
out they gave us the wrong hotel info. It was super late and we couldn't
resolve the mess with hotels' customer service over the phone so we just
crashed where we arrived. Took months to get the charges for the other booking
reversed.

People at hotel where we arrived said it happens all the time.

For our next trip, resolved to not use hotels.com ever again, I found hotel
via the web. Called the number. Turns out both the website and phone number
were SEO optimized front companies that book thru hotels.com. Which we did not
discover until we arrived and there was a problem with the booking. We paid
$40 extra per night for the privilege of being lied to.

Rant...

Personally, as a consumer, I'm very grumpy that I'm constantly being lied to.
I work hard for my money. I try to be diligent about how I spend it. And I'm
sick of being robbed by legal means. It seems to be getting worse (ISPs,
banks, phone companies, mortgages, etc). I'm now more reluctant to spend
money. Because now my transaction costs are getting too high. Too much
friction.

If my wary consumer experience is widespread, it has to be dampening the
economy.

Free market! Woot!

~~~
beagle3
Same story here. Called a number I thought was the hotel. They replied with
"Hotel name, what can I do for you". I made the reservation, based on wrong
information in just about every department, the wrongest being that the hotel
has room (but also wrong about cancellation policy and other stuff, as I later
found out).

Got to hotel, only to be told that hotels.com screwed up and confirmed 30
reservations when in fact the hotel in fact had 2 available rooms for the day.

Went to a friend's house, as no other hotel around was available. Called
hotels.com; waited an hour on the phone, no answer. Disputed charge with
credit card company (took less than 10 minutes), and emailed them that I've
disputed, and if they want it to NOT go through they are welcome to contact
me.

They emailed me within 24 hours with some credit, saying it will take them 72
hours to resolve. After 120 hours, I email them; they say it's going to "take
them more time". After 4 more days, I email them - still no response.

The next morning, credit card company gave me my money back. Haven't heard
from hotels.com since, but I have a paper trail saying they will check and
contact me, and then silence. And so does the credit card company.

Never booking through hotels.com again, even if it means I have to work much
more to figure out a direct phone number.

------
avar

        > For the most availability, best prices and service,
        > always book directly with a hotel. 
    

(Full disclosure: I work for Booking.com an online hotel booking website and
Expedia's competitor)

I think it's a gross misrepresentation to say that the customer is always best
off booking directly with the hotel. You get something you wouldn't get when
booking directly through the hotel.

When you use an OTA you have collective bargaining power; If the hotel screws
you around in any way it's now the OTA's problem. They'll call up the hotel on
your behalf (in their native language, which you may or may not speak) and
either sort it out with them or make sure you have somewhere else to stay
because you're now _their_ customer.

Of course the service you get differs a lot by OTA. But from the customer's
perspective there's usually a net gain by booking through one.

~~~
gingerlime

        > If the hotel screws you around in any way it's now the OTA's problem
    

We're just in the process of trying to sort out a dispute with a hotel we
booked via booking.com. It doesn't feel like it's booking.com's problem, but
rather ours. We were essentially forced to pay for full 7 nights even though
we stayed only one, after it wasn't possible to stay any longer with a non-
functioning toilet. Not to mention false information published on booking.com.

    
    
        > or make sure you have somewhere else to stay because you're now their customer
    

That's interesting. In our case booking.com has never offered any such help.
We went by ourselves to try to find alternative accommodation. Not that it
makes a huge difference, but it is our honeymoon so I'm sure yo'd agree there
are many better ways to spend it...

So far you guys are trying to help, but I can't say that the problem is
resolved or that it feels like you're treating it as your problem. To quote a
part of the latest email from booking.com on this:

 _> ... the hotels themselves are responsible for all the information provided
to you. Booking.com acts as an intermediary between the guest and the hotel
and is therefore responsible for delivering the reservation correctly to the
hotel. Once the hotel has confirmed the reservation it then becomes their
responsibility to accommodate the guests._

~~~
avar
I work in IT which is pretty removed from customer service, but if you send me
some details at the E-Mail listed in my profile I could see if I could find
someone to poke about this if needed. I'll be back at work on Thursday.

~~~
mistermann
This will only be addressed because this case has publicity. Have you
considered that you may have been drinking some kool-aid?

~~~
bryanh
On Christmas the gentleman offered to pass along customer information for a
warm intro to a customer service representative. Maybe it helps, maybe it
doesn't. It's not his job to troll forums and solve customer problems but yet
he still offered.

Have you considered you may be a rude and cynical person?

~~~
mistermann
I know I'm rude and cynical. My point was that he believes his company truly
cares in a very big way about these things, when it doesn't. If this
particular item gets resolved, it would only be because of the publicity.

If he truly believes his company genuinely values customer service, it would
be more interesting for him to stick around and explain _why_ the problem
doesn't get solved as the complainer tries to work his way through it with no
outside assistance.

Getting someone to solve a problem from the inside is useful only to the
single person with a problem.

------
irahul
> For the most availability, best prices and service, always book directly
> with a hotel.

It has never been the case with me. Expedia, or any other travel site, always
had better deals. In fact, I once called the hotel in question to ask why
there is a big price discrepancy between their site listing and makemytrip. I
was concerned makemytrip is selling me rooms that doesn't exist and the hotel
won't honor my reservation. The hotel staff told me the hotel sells rooms to
makemytrip well in advance, and whatever the price that is listed on
makemytrip will be honored(doesn't really matter; you pay directly to
makemytrip).

Also, I am a bit paranoid. I would hate it if some hotel overbooked and told
me "lol sorry" when I arrive. I know travel sites aren't really on my side,
but at least I will have someone to appeal to.

I didn't have any bad experience with Expedia but then, I had very limited
interactions with them(I didn't even modify or cancel my bookings).

I would advice against agoda and booking.com as they forward your credit card
info to the hotel as _security._ In what world does forwarding a customer's
credit card info to a random hotel makes sense? Imagine the surprise when you
are at the hotel counter and the staff shows you a printout of your credit
card info(nothing obscured; everything in plain text).

> If you would like to know more about our hotel just visit our website at
> www.lunabluehotel.com.

I tried, and the link is down. Most of the hotels don't even have websites,
let alone online reservations. There is a reason customers go to expedia in
the first place.

EDIT: Random travel tip. If you are in a foreign or an unknown location, a
hotel which provides airport transfer generally ends up cheaper than a hotel
which doesn't + cab fares. You would be surprised how wrong your assumptions
about transport might be. "You have a flight to catch at 8, it's 5, you are in
the lobby and there isn't a cab in sight and looks unlikely there will be one
for another 2 hours" isn't a pleasant situation to be in.

~~~
avar
(Disclaimer again: I work for Booking.com in IT)

    
    
        > I would advice against agoda and booking.com as they
        > forward your credit card info to the hotel as security.
    

They don't forward your credit card as security. They forward it for the hotel
to charge you for the entirety of your booking.

Companies like Expedia follow the merchant model, they buy up hotels rooms in
bulk in advance and then re-sell them directly to customers. When you buy from
a merchant your credit card isn't shared with the hotel as there's no need to
do so.

Other companies like Booking.com and Agoda follow the agency model. They find
customers for the hotels, forward their payment details along to the hotel,
the hotel charges the customer, and then pays the agency a percentage of the
booking as an agency fee[1].

Both models have their pros and cons. The merchant model works brilliantly in
the US where large chains are the norm. It works less well in Europe where the
vast number of hotels are small properties.

    
    
        > Imagine the surprise when you are at the hotel counter
        > and the staff shows you a printout of your credit card
        > info(nothing obscured; everything in plain text).
    

It's fair enough that this makes you uncomfortable. But the hotel with that
printout has a contract with the credit card company like any other merchant
and is responsible for treating it responsibly.

I think you'd also be very surprised at the number of other merchants you
might deal with where this is the case. Having a printout with a credit card
number is not at all unusual in a lot of businesses.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
Not unusual doesn't make it acceptable. It is still a PCI DSS violation.

~~~
avar
Sending them over is not. It's allowed under the PCI standards to send credit
card numbers unencrypted via the fax system. I believe it's then up to the
receiver of the fax to physically secure it. But I'm not overly familiar with
these standards.

~~~
irahul
> I believe it's then up to the receiver of the fax to physically secure it.

Yes, I get it. Once you fax it to the hotel, it's not your problem. But how
does it make things any better for me? You are still PCI compliant, but the
customer now has his info passed to a random hotel clerk.

~~~
avar
I think you might be making the implicit assumption that this is somehow shady
or out of the ordinary when it comes to credit cards.

When you hand your credit card over to any clerk anywhere you're giving them
access to your name and credit card number. If you hadn't booked through an
OTA your credit card number would have likely been manually written down
anyway on a piece of paper by the clerk at the desk.

All of this is PCI compliant, in order to process payments at all the hotel
has a contract with the credit card company (or a local bank by proxy) which
stipulates that they have to adhere to the relevant PCI standards.

Could this be more secure? Of course it could. But credit cards were never
meant to be secure. They explicitly take convenience and the ability to do
offline payments (writing down your credit card number for later) over
security. If anything goes wrong they'll use some of the money they get from
transaction fees to refund fraudulent payments.

------
duopixel
I worked in the online booking industry for a couple of years, coincidentally
I also live in Playa del Carmen now.

What most likely happened was this: Expedia and other big players buy
wholesale room inventory from large hotel chains. Expedia might come up and
say that they want to buy 30% of the rooms of a hotel for a certain period at
a steeply discounted price.

This might be something that the hotel itself can't fill, so the happily sell
to Expedia et al. To Expedia, selling these rooms might be something like 80%
profit, against 25% for a small hotel such as the Luna Blue.

Expedia then promotes the hell out of the hotel through their website: they
make it appear on top of search results, they "pimp" they profile of the
hotel, and such. They are not allowed to undercut the price, because other
retailers might ask for the same price.

Then, the office managers of Expedia Cancún are most likely on some sort of
incentive to sell most of these wholesale rooms (travel is dominated by such
economic incentives). The hack is is pretty clear: "closing" smaller hotels
causes users to book another hotel, and it will most likely be one of these
pimped out hotel profiles that provide much more profit than other hotels.

I'm guessing this is a regional issue, just some dim witted office managers at
Cancún that are trying to game the system in order to get a big incentive.

~~~
mistermann
This sounds very plausible, and this type of thing should be closely watched
by corporate and punished harshly when it does occur. The older I get, the
more I think government should get involved in business, because it seems
increasingly common that corporations will not police themselves - "oh, we had
no idea this was happening!"

Personally, I am getting tired of hearing lie after lie from corporations. I
have always been right wing or libertarian, but I am starting to adopt the
political opinion that I would like to see the government step in and start
punishing these companies so hard that they will very seriously regret that
they didn't self-police.

------
impendia
I am a typical travel customer. I often go to conferences and book hotels in
unfamiliar cities. I am very sympathetic to this story. And yet -- at the end
--

>either use the internet to do the research or go to a reputable travel agent.

Let's look at these alternatives. Use the internet to do the research? Expedia
makes it very easy, that's the point. Are its competitors better? Maybe. How
am I supposed to be able to tell? Is Hipmunk also evil? Orbitz? Some other
random website I find which compares hotels? If I use these websites to do my
research and then book directly, I'm avoid some of the problems -- but
probably not all?

Go to a reputable travel agent? No, sorry. That's a pain in the ass.

I'm disappointed in this article. It makes a very convincing case that we
should avoid huge internet travel monopolies, but yet doesn't compellingly
suggest what I should do instead.

~~~
taybin
I think a lot of the evils in the world continue because of your sort of
attitude. Merry Christmas!

~~~
monochromatic
It's very easy to say "X is bad, you shouldn't do X." It's a lot more
difficult (and a lot more _valuable_ ) to be able to say "You should do Y
instead of X, and here is a convincing argument why."

~~~
y3di
Pointing out that a problem exists is still valuable.

~~~
monochromatic
Yes and no. It can be counterproductive if it causes people to abandon what's
actually the best solution, just because it's less than perfect.

------
lotsofpulp
I know people in the hospitality business, and all third party travel websites
(and travel agents) are bad for the traveler and hotel, for a few simple
reasons.

1) Middlemen always need their cut. In this case, you pay the website, and
then the website pays the hotel less.

2) By bypassing the middleman (call the hotel directly, and speak to that
specific location's on site employees), you SHOULD be able to get a better
deal. Simply compare prices, and if you find it cheaper on a website, ask the
hotel to give you 5% off. Any competent manager will do this because it costs
much more than 5% to get your reservation from a travel agent. Obviously, they
will have to verify that third party price, but in the case of Expedia, they
can just search it.

3) Additionally, it's good to book directly with the hotel for the following
reasons too (or at least call them directly after booking online to confirm):

-In the fine print of travel websites' T&C, it will say you are guaranteed A room, not THE room you want. This means if only smoking rooms are available, the third party site will still sell it to you as a non smoking room. Also, there are many incompatibilities in the GDS/Central reservation system software, so there is a chance there can be an error in your reservation.

-Third party reservations don't go to the hotel with the guest's contact information. This means if the hotel wants to contact you about some issue, they cannot reach you, and the websites won't give out the guest's information. This was a big problem during Sandy a few months ago.

All in all, third party websites are a relic of the times when hotels did not
have the technical expertise to implement internet reservation systems.
Nowadays, you can just look up the hotel's reviews on TripAdvisor, call the
hotel directly, and make sure you get the room you want by speaking with
someone directly at the property, with actual knowledge of the place. The ONLY
benefit these third party websites can provide, seems to be with the bundling
of hotels/flights/rental cars, but I still wouldn't use them. Going straight
to the vendor has been the more pleasant experience for me.

Edit: I should have noted that my knowledge comes from US and British hotels,
mostly franchises like IHG/Hilton/Choice/Wyndham.

~~~
krenoten
Full disclosure, I work for an OTA and CRS (central reservation service)
specializing in boutique hotels.

1\. Often the hotels themselves charge the customer, and pay the OTA
commission on a monthly basis.

2\. Many contracts between hotels and availability services mandate that the
hotel provide the lowest rate to the OTA, and that if they use several that
the rates are in parity with each other. If you find a lower rate by going to
the hotel directly, there's a chance that they are breaching contract.

3\. The OTA can only be as accurate as the hotelier providing it with
information. If the customer is not satisfied, we get a partial refund or
credits for future bookings. For our more remote hotels, sometimes they have
to throw up a satellite transmitter once a week and update the information
they are telling the world about themselves. If they are on a good CRS, it
will fan-out that information to many online sites.

The OTA I'm at does provide the hotel with the customer's information, and
requires that all communications between the hotel and customer are CC'd to
them. This is because when the customer calls our customer service with a
problem, we want to know what the back-and-forth between them and the hotel
was so we can address the issue more objectively.

Third party websites yield value to people who feel like being backed by the
OTA's brand to ensure that they receive the experience they paid for. They
offer comfort insurance, and will go through the hassle of fixing problems
with the hotel for you. For hotels, the agency may also forward their
information to google and bid on ad placement. The one I'm at also guarantees
certain perks to people who book through us, and offer a membership program
for travelers to receive champagne on arrival, breakfast, transportation,
etc... It sounds like you've really been burned by the lower end OTA's. Sorry
for the blatant spam, but maybe you'd be interested in TabletHotels.com

~~~
lotsofpulp
Thank you for providing the perspective from an OTA's side. I shouldn't have
said all OTAs are bad. It seems as though your organization operates quite
differently than the bigger OTAs, and from the list of services you provide, I
think your market may be quite different than the one I'm referring to (i.e.
higher end, less commoditized).

However, for run of the mill franchise hotels, the quality control is already
being provided for by franchises (i.e. Marriot, Hilton, Choice, Wyndham, IHG,
Accor, etc). In my experience, third party reservations at these places is
only a hindrance because the OTAs don't guarantee room types, so people show
up expecting a certain type of room, but the OTA takes whatever is available
from the hotel, even if it's not what the guest wants, and then the hotel has
to deal with the fallout when the guest arrives.

------
shadowmint

        First of all they have a well-deserved reputation for bad customer service. 
        Google the words “Expedia bad customer service” and see what comes up.
    

Yes.

Anecdotal I know, but I've used Expedia twice, and will never use them again.

It took _a year_ and an offer to take the case to court before they issued a
refund, and the second time they just screwed all the bookings up with no
apology or comment upon complaint.

~~~
easytiger
To add something contrary to this, i had the opposite experience. I had to
cancel a flight/hotel booking at short notice because I couldn't go. They said
normally they charge for that but this time would let me do it free. Replies
were fast and prompt at awkward times of day etc.

~~~
adambenayoun
I have experienced pretty good customer experience with Expedia as well.
However we're not talking about the end customers here but rather the
suppliers (of services).

I wouldn't want to use a company (no matter how good they are) who have been
known for crushing smaller players to maximize their bottom line.

------
javajosh
When the cost to enforce a contract is higher than the value of the contract,
then there is no justice. Small businesses are left with what is effectively
vigilante justice, writing blog posts and appealing to the public directly.

Frankly I'm biased against large organizations in general, and so I'm tempted
to take this post at face value, and get angry with Expedia. And perhaps
that's the right thing to do (although, as someone else pointed out, some
e-mail quotes, screenshots, or other corroborating evidence would make for a
more convincing story). But I can't help but think that we're all missing the
big picture: that the high price of justice creates an enormous advantage for
large companies. That justice is priced out of most people's ability.

I used to hear about how 'litigious' American society has become. And yet, is
that really true? Personal injury is no doubt quite popular. What what about
simple fraud and breech of contract? What about conspiracy to commit fraud?

Unless the justice system is priced for people to actually use it, then it's
useless. So the question arises: what cheaper options does the OP have for
pursuing this case?

------
jiayo
I see Expedia as no different from traditional middle-men (travel agents). If
I search a flight+hotel deal on Expedia, I can _always_ get the exact same
price by booking directly with the airline and hotel, and without the
potential hassles described in the article.

Perhaps it's naive, but I feel safer booking direct, because then if I have
any problems, I'm dealing with a first-party and it's harder to be given the
three-way runaround.

~~~
stoolpigeon
One thing I learned on a trip this summer is that Delta will charge an extra
fee to change tickets if they were booked through expedia.

I don't know if other airlines do this too but if I'm flying Delta it is a
motivator to book directly. Which I'm sure is the point.

~~~
OafTobark
Interesting to know. I personally avoid Delta, United, American, and a few
others if at all possible. My main airlines are:

Virgin America

Southwest

Alaska Airlines

In that order with JetBlue mixed in somewhere in there. Helps to have a narrow
set if you are racking up air miles and I've had HORRID experiences with the
others. I only take them if I have to now

~~~
jowiar
The best strategy with flying I've found is to pick one Legacy
carrier/alliance if you're a frequent traveler (because they treat their folks
with status quite well, at the expense of everyone else). If you don't fly
>25k miles/year, do what you do.

~~~
monksy
I'm a Gold member on United, and Silver on Delta. United treats me fairly well
[when they have an issue they pass me on to US Airways]. I've had massive
issues with Delta.

Honestly, I'm not thrilled about Southwest. They'll get you there... but eh.

~~~
ubernostrum
I have flown pretty much all the legacy carriers, including the ones that
merged out of existence.

Delta is by far the worst I've dealt with. No other carrier even comes close
on that score.

I'm currently with US Airways (Platinum) for various reasons; they've treated
me pretty well, their hubs are decent enough, routes are convenient, and they
fly real planes rather than cramped CRJ lawn darts in and out of my home
airport (Kansas City). And it's comforting to know, at the moment, that if
they do screw up horribly I have other options within the alliance, though the
looming prospect of the AA merger is going to lead to some serious thinking
about whether I should just do it pre-emptively.

Among the low-cost carriers I don't mind Southwest so much. They're kind of
the Chipotle of airlines; you know what you're going to get, you know it's not
the greatest but also not the worst, and they have some quirky branding and
service aspects that inspire loyalty among their regular customers. If I were
going to fly an LCC, though, I'd probably pick Frontier just because they give
a bit more bang for the buck on the routes I'm most likely to fly.

------
frqunttraveller
I see few posts where people are in doubt. This behavior is unfortunatly their
business model. Mark "non participating" hotels as full and listen against
their will and trick users to more expensive/hotels they get more commissions
from. Not long ago they even lost in court around this in Norway
[http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&...](http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dagbladet.no%2F2011%2F11%2F03%2Ftema%2Freise%2Freisesokemotor%2Fdom%2F18876877%2F)

------
greghinch
Here's my reason for avoiding Expedia.

A few years ago I booked a trip to the UK to visit some friends. The morning I
was supposed to leave, I get an email from one of my friends saying that I
should check if my flight is still on, because there is "something going on
with a volcano in Iceland". Turns out it's the start of that major eruption
and all air traffic in Northern Europe is grounded with no foreseeable
reopening.

I first called the airline, Virgin Atlantic. They were very friendly,
apologetic, and as helpful as possible. They said they could reschedule me,
but given all the unknowns they weren't making any new bookings for at least 2
weeks. Now this was a two week vacation I was taking, with lots of other
things scheduled, so I couldn't really just up and shift the whole thing two
weeks on a whim. They would have gladly given a refund, but since I booked
through Expedia, I had to talk to them. That's when things started going
downhill.

First of all, even on what I'm sure was a crazy customer service day, the
people at Virgin answered the phone in minutes and were quite friendly. The
Expedia call took almost an hour to be answered. Every agent I spoke too was
borderline rude and confrontational, and had the worst broken English of any
oversees call center I've dealt with. From the start they only wanted to
argue, that because it was the day of the flight, I could neither cancel or
reschedule. Finally, after about 90 minutes of arguing and being transferred,
I got to a high enough manager who actually seemed to listen to what I said
and not just be reading a script, and got my refund authorized. And I thought
it was over.

Months go by and the credit never appears back to my card. I call Expedia a
couple times, each time they say it is being processed by the CC company, but
it can take up to 90 days. I check with the CC, they have no record of the
credit. Finally after 90 days, I get a hold of Expedia and they say it is fine
if I just have the CC company cancel the transaction on their end (as a
dispute), as there must have been a "glitch" somewhere. And that flipped the
trouble switch.

Apparently there is an automated system in Expedia, if you dispute their
charge with you CC company, they automatically flip it to a collections
agency. A few months after I did, I got a very threatening letter and phone
call saying I owed the charge plus penalties and interest. If I did not pay,
they would flag my credit rating and possibly take further legal action. I
contacted Expedia again to ask WTF is going on, and their response was that
they are not allowed to communicate with the collections agency once the
matter has been given to them. They were confident that if i just explained
why I didn't owe the money, the collections guys would drop it. But they
couldn't provide me with any documentation to give them.

After another month of letters and phone calls with the collections agents,
and quite a bit of stress on my end, I stopped hearing from them so I guess it
was resolved.

Keep in mind, all told this is about 8 months down the road from when I was
originally supposed to travel. In fact I rebooked the entire trip for about a
month after the original, and had already gone and come back. But definitely
not with Expedia.

~~~
eli
Totally an aside, but if you're in the US and there's a collections agency
after you for a bogus debt, it's easy to make them go away: Send them a formal
dispute letter under the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act and advise them
not to contact you further. If they do anyway, you can sue them for punitive
damages.

~~~
lotsofpulp
For reference, Section 805(c):

<http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fdcpa/fdcpact.shtm>

~~~
eli
Better yet:

Sample dispute letter:
[http://nedap.org/resources/documents/DisputeLetterwithElectr...](http://nedap.org/resources/documents/DisputeLetterwithElectronicForm.pdf)

Sample "cease contact" letter:
[http://nedap.org/resources/documents/CeaseLetterwithElectron...](http://nedap.org/resources/documents/CeaseLetterwithElectronicForm.pdf)

It's actually a pretty nice, common sense law. Note that if you intend to
dispute the charge, you should move quickly: there's a 30 day limit from first
notice.

------
LunaBlue
Thanks to all the folks offering support here and sharing their own stories of
frustration with Expedia. We also wanted to note we are aware that our site is
down. Our host server is having real troubles today and tell us things won't
be fixed for 24 hours. If you need to contact us before then please email us
at info@lunabluehotel.com or via our Facebook page.
<https://www.facebook.com/lunabluehotel>. Again thanks for the voices of
support. Tony & Cheri Owners, Luna Blue Hotel

------
mikecane
Why should anyone be surprised? Do you really think abuse of power is absent
because a business is on the _Internet_? How many times have publishers had
their Buy buttons removed from their books at Amazon? How many stories are
there of small devs getting ripped off by Apple and Microsoft? What about late
payments to devs from the Google Play Store? I will never use Expedia now.
Better that I should be inconvenienced than be jerked around by smug companies
out to crush small businesses.

EDIT: Typo fixed.

------
dotBen
Travel hack: as the article points out, Expedia take 25% cut of the booking
rate, which is usually the same a the hotel's direct rate.

Because the hotel will make more profit from you, you have a higher chance of
getting a room upgrade at the property, better amenities or even just better
service if you book direct rather than via Expedia.

~~~
fmavituna
Here is the funny fact, whenever I check the hotels' own websites, prices are
almost always higher than Expedia's listing. Does anyone know why?

~~~
lotsofpulp
It's due to competition, and price discrimination. In highly competitive
areas, other hotels will offer their rooms at a discount to
Expedia/Travelocity/etc, to catch the market that visits these websites (due
to the websites' marketing and reputation as being the place to go for online
bookings). If a hotel doesn't offer their rooms on the third party websites,
then they effectively lose those sales. I know some of the agreements will
make it so that they can't advertise rooms at the rates given to travel
agents, so that may be why you see it cheaper. Priceline has a different
system, where each hotel provides three price levels, and if a person bids at
or above a price level, then Priceline gets the difference between the price
level and what the person bid.

At hotels that don't have problems selling rooms, they have no reason to offer
rooms to travel agents, so you won't see any price discrepancies there. In
fact, you probably won't even see the room offered on third party websites.

------
jrockway
A classic "small business is mad" blog post. It even contains the a quote
about how much money they spent on their business, "We put all of our money,
time and heart into making it work," as though that's a criterion Expedia uses
when deciding how to respond to customer service inquiries.

I'm also surprised that the links broke and Expedia's "IT department" said
they'll "never" be fixed. That doesn't really make any sense. I can't help but
think that the images are hosted by the hotel itself and that _they_ broke the
images. I don't know. The story sounds plausible but unlikely to me and has
all the classic "crazy person" literary features. (Some sources to back this
up would be good: emails, screenshots, etc.)

~~~
dquigley
While frequently with these articles you have to wonder about the validity of
all parts of the story, I can say I've had A similar experience from a
consumer perspective. I was trying to book hotels for my wedding and couldn't
find a hotel that I knew was in the town my in-laws lived in.

I looked up the hotel on the corporate website and it showed it as completely
booked, and this particular had didn't show up in any searches for rooms
because of that.

I ended up calling them and found out they had left the chain and were
becoming independent and had plenty of rooms. So I can't confirm this small
business' story, I Can confirm that similar things happen.

~~~
bloaf
I'm not familiar with how hotels inform 3rd party websites about room
reservations. Could it just be that smaller independent hotels simply don't
have the technical chops to correctly set up or manage such notifications?

------
coditor
I work for an OTA and this is likely not Expedia per se, but the local office
trying to up the value of their sales. Small hotels are always going to have
more problems than a big chain, as they don't have any real time data
connection to provide availability and room information. Either they send in
their information and hope someone enters it correctly, or they are provided
with access to a portal they can manage their own data in. If the local
property manager is only interested in getting credit for high value sales and
the small property owner doesn't have access to the portal, then likely the
manager can screw them over so that people wind up at the more valuable
properties. OTA's prefer data connections because that way the data is more up
to date. It also means any errors are the fault of the chain (unless the hotel
system itself has bugs).

By making Expedia aware of how their local managers are operating they might
actually get this fixed. No OTA wants this kind of bad publicity. Just the US
alone my employer (and its parent company) have nearly 300,000 hotels
available. Keeping the data current is a massive pain at that scale since at
the other end are individual people.

Also note that for most OTA's there are only a couple providers of hotel
photos and one dominant one, and we all hate them as they suck terribly.
Unless you are a speciality provider like Oyster or Hotel Tonight and can take
the few photos you need, or are Tripadvisor and can get customers to take
them, you are at the mercy of the photo provider.

So a quality bitching can get you better service (as a hotel provider) from an
OTA. Even better is make a deal with someone who provides small hotels with
data management (which does cost money) so that your room availability is all
electronic.

The hotel business is all about filling rooms. The average hotel hopes for 70%
rooms filled tonight. OTA's do provide a lot of hotel bookings so you can't do
without them. But if the local OTA hotel property manager sucks there are 4
major players you can deal with (plus all the speciality ones). Yes you have
to give them a commission (20%+ usually) but if you work with them correctly
they can fill your rooms.

~~~
dchinyee
What's the name of the dominant hotel photo provider? Any particular reason
why they suck so terribly? Just curious to see if it might be an easy problem
for a new player to solve.

------
snogglethorpe
Outrageous if true, though I'm inclined to blame Expedia's incompetence rather
than intentional misdirection...

A bit of a shame because I've found Expedia to be pretty decent for booking
flights (though that's mostly by way of comparison with other sites; most
flight booking sites are jaw-droppingly horrible...).

~~~
win_ini
Try Hipmunk.com.... best flight search I've seen. It the refers you to the
airline's page to complete the booking. No sketchy third-party to buy from.

It's visualization of flights schedules is awesome!

------
bhntr3
It would be great if this blog post were picked up by a legit news
organization, researched and fact checked, cross referenced with other stories
(like the French one) and published more widely as an expose.

This is bad for consumers and bad for hotels. I like small local hotels. I
want them to succeed. I want an easier way to connect with them. They are hard
to find on hotels.com, etc. and I always assumed it was because the owners
didn't maintain the listing, but it seems it's because expedia doesn't care.

~~~
desult
Here you go. [http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/28/3809328/one-small-
hotels-...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/28/3809328/one-small-hotels-long-
nightmare-with-expedia)

------
parasubvert
Been using Expedia for 14 years, though not exclusively. Contrary to the post,
they often post discounts unavailable elsewhere, particularly for combos. For
example recently, the regular rate at Wynn Las Vegas was around $200 a night
in December but with an Expedia flight it worked out to $140 a night. This is
the discount they usually give their mid level Red Card members, if I recall
correctly (upper get RFB).

I've also used Expedia to book a stay in Cancun a few years ago; they had a
number of mom and pop hotels listed with rich details, but Ultimately I got a
great combo rate at the Ritz Carlton (like $240 - it was about a week before
the season really began); this rate was not available on the Ritz website.

I have had some bad experiences with Expedia when requesting refunds or
changes, though this has improved over the past 2 years with more software
features and slightly better call center agents (ymmv).

Ultimately I'll book direct with the hotel or airline if I have a specific
reason to (schedule, FF points, upgrades, etc), but for easy price comparison
and research I tend to rely on Kayak and Expedia almost exclusively.

This posting has not changed my mind that they offer a good service - they
seem to have issues with their Latin American offices.

------
woof
This is a known problem and I see no reason not to believe every word Tony &
Cheri writes.

Check out this (poorly tranlated) article from Norway:

[http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&...](http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Freise.aftenposten.no%2Freise%2FHotelscom-
tilbyr-hotell-som-de-ikke-har-35865.html%23.UNnECaWwfZs)

------
white_devil
This is fucking disgusting, and these scumbags (together with tripadvisor)
have polluted Google's search results.

No matter what hotel you're googling for, your search results will be chock-
full of these bastards.

~~~
gniv
Don't lump them together. Tripadvisor has lots of high quality hotel reviews.
I can forgive a lot of annoying ads for that.

------
_delirium
> Secondly they do not offer discounted rates as many claim.

In Denmark at least, I have found that they typically _do_ offer discounted
rates that the hotel's own website doesn't offer, especially for smaller
hotels during periods of lower demand. If you're booking off-season at the
last minute, I've found discounts on hotels.com of 40-60% relative to what the
online-booking system of the hotel's own website was showing. One example
where I've stayed a few times (<http://www.hotel-maritime.dk/>) was offering
€50/night via hotels.com in late January 2012, at a time when their own
website was listing €80/night. It's frequent enough that I advise my friends
visiting Copenhagen to always check a hotel's rate on hotels.com before
booking through the hotel's website, in case there's a substantial difference.

~~~
lessnonymous
The price advertised at a hotel is called the "Rack Rate". Never pay that.
Phone the hotel and get a real price from them. It's a weird system, but
you'll get the same price as an OTA is offering. Often less, if you ask and
quote the OTA price.

~~~
_delirium
I guess I could do that, but I generally prefer to book on the internet.
Phones tend to result in dealing with international phone calls, being on
hold, reading credit-card numbers over the phone, and that kind of hassle.
Plus, the discovery/comparison-shopping experience is considerably worse. Some
hotels offer the same discounted rates through their own websites, and I do
book with them directly if they do. If they don't, but somewhere else on the
internet _does_ offer the discounted rates, then I prefer that option to
calling.

------
prostoalex
>>> "a long, detailed list describing our rooms"

Hint: a red flag right there. You're selling what's perceived as standardized
commodity. If a long and detailed list made the job of corporate copy-and-
paster hard, imagine potential customer confusion.

------
aneth4
I don't use Expedia as I've found their service to be horrible, and their
technology in the early days had all kinds of issues with losing session and
the like, so I abandoned them 10+ years ago.

I do use Orbitz. I'm not sure if they are guilty of the same sins, but I've
generally found their service to be adequate. I book directly with airlines
when it makes sense and doesn't take too much effort - but most hotel booking
sites are horrible and prices are usually higher.

It would be great if an open platform like AirBNB emerged for hotels - perhaps
AirBNB itself.

------
calbear81
> It wasn’t cheap, as Expedia takes 25 % of every booking made through their
> sites–a fact that hotels are forbidden by Expedia to disclose to guests.

This is forbidden to be disclosed because business contract details are
covered under an NDA they signed with Expedia. 25% is their negotiated
commission but it will vary by partner and hence they don't want that being
disclosed to be used as leverage in negotiations with other hotels.

> For the most availability, best prices and service, always book directly
> with a hotel.

This may be the case with the Luna Blue, but is definitely not what we at Room
77 see in the marketplace. We're connecting with the GDS and pretty much every
major OTA in the US (Expedia, Orbitz, Booking.com, Priceline, etc.) and what
we're seeing is increasing price fragmentation in the marketplace. This is why
we fundamentally believe that metasearch is a better model for the consumer
since prices and availability do vary.

> Secondly they do not offer discounted rates as many claim.

As someone else mentioned, even if a rate is not discounted against the rate
the hotel has directly, it may be a promotion against the regular rate and you
have to factor in the loyalty programs that exist on many OTA sites
(Hotels.com book 10 get 1 free, Agoda 4% rewards, etc.). The most probable
reason that an OTA has a lower rate is that the room availability has changed.
For example, a hotel has two types of rooms (A & B) may have presold a
percentage to Expedia and if the hotel has sold their own allocation of room
type A and only has room type B left, the lowest price the hotel has for ANY
room is the price of room type B. Expedia may then show a lower price for a
hotel because they still have room type A available to sell to travelers since
they own that percentage of inventory that was presold to them.

The core value proposition of booking through an online agency wasn't really
addressed by Tony and Cheri which is that people by and large don't want to
shop a single hotel's price and availability. When I want to go to Playa del
Carmen, I want to see ALL options I have in an area and compare hotels and
rates and the easiest way to do that is through an OTA or a metasearch engine.

Booking directly through a hotel has it's own advantages which include: 1)
payment is usually not required until you arrive at the hotel, 2) you earn the
hotel's loyalty points if they have a program, and 3) the hotel will
prioritize your booking for upgrades, etc. since they didn't have to pay a
large commission.

From my perspective working at a metasearch company, we want to provide
maximum choice and availability of options/inventory so we show both direct
hotel inventory and OTA inventory and let consumers decide which one they want
to choose.

------
raverbashing
Dear small business hotel

Yes, Expedia sucks, but here's what you should do

YOU make your website and booking system available on the web. Make people
able to google your hotel and get there. (Edit: this seems to be already in
place)

If I search your hotel on Expedia and it shows no dates available, I begin to
suspect Expedia, or your integration of systems with them.

And if they really say your hotel is going out of business, get a lawyer.
Edit: get a lawyer NOW

------
cyberp
I stopped booking with Expedia when there was a problem with an incorrect
flight time. Delta said they couldn't do anything and I'd have to resolve with
Expedia. Expedia said they couldn't do anything, and I'd have to resolve with
Delta. I had a clearly nonsensical flight plan (I was scheduled to be at the
destination for 1 hour), and no way to resolve it. I gave up on both
businesses.

------
jonknee
It sounds like they aren't very savvy business people, but when I'm looking to
stay somewhere that does not matter. A 16 room boutique hotel is never going
to get a ton of attention from a large travel agency, there's no profit in it.
They'd be better off marketing directly to their target demographic and trying
for word of mouth / repeat business.

I have had great luck with Hotwire (an Expedia subsidiary) and have discovered
many neat hotels with it. I live in Florida and frequently book hotel room on
the various beaches for easy short vacations, the only motivator is location
and price (if nothing is available, I don't go). I have booked directly at
some of the places I found, but if it weren't for their being on Hotwire I
never would have found them.

Also, the cost savings with Hotwire is frequently massive (50% off is not
uncommon)--I haven't been able to book directly for cheaper (the trick is
Hotwire doesn't tell you the exact hotel before you book, so if you want to
ensure the same property you need to direct book and pay more).

~~~
zevyoura
I also have had good experiences with Hotwire. One helpful note: if you do a
little looking around on the internet, it's usually pretty easy to figure out
which hotel they're offering based on location and amenities.

------
buster
To be honest, i'll still book where it's cheapest. Usually i use a lot of
those sites, including tripadvisor, etc. to check for accomodations and in the
end i'll book where it's cheapest. I'll check on google maps for hotels, check
online pricing, but in the end.. when the hotel itself is more expensive (plus
expedia and co offer me a good meta search not only one hotel!).. why should i
pay more for "less"?!

Never had problems with expedia&co myself but i rarely need to cancel/change
reservations.

It's not my fault that the whole hotel business doesn't seem to be capable
enough to do this on their own.

------
saosebastiao
Friendly PSA from someone who has dealt with lying businessmen and customer
service reps: record all your conversations. Be careful to notify them that
you are recording the conversation if you live in a two-party consent state.

In fact, letting them know you are recording them is a great way to get them
to take you seriously. I've gotten a phone call from a VP of a company,
wishing to "settle our differences" to my satisfaction once word got to him
that I had recorded a conversation with a beligerent rep.

------
adambenayoun
I wonder if we can repay them and play the same game they are playing. Maybe
if many of us reblog/post and link to that amazing detailed blog post with the
anchor text being "advertise with expedia" - maybe when new hotels who will
want to advertise with Expedia (and google about it) will be able to read
about that horrible experience.

------
michaelhoffman
Since this was posted on 5 December and has a fair amount of attention now,
I'm surprised that Expedia hasn't officially responded yet. Maybe because so
much of the attention has come in the past couple of days. I sent them a Tweet
asking what was going on, and I notice someone posted this on their Facebook
Page.

~~~
benatkin
One does not simply post something on a business's Facebook page. Either the
page has to share it or the viewer has to make two clicks to see it.

~~~
michaelhoffman
Well, it's there[1] and a bunch of people seem to have seen it. Expedia has
replied to posts made by others after this one but they seem to be ignoring
this.

[1] <https://www.facebook.com/naptown/posts/295460857241207>

------
liranja
Well, that's exactly why we created <http://live.Roomixer.com> A Guest
Exchange marketplace where Guest Rejections can be bought and sold. If hotels
would cooperate with other hotels there would be less work for Expedia!

------
monksy
You don't want to book airline tickets with Expedia. If they are cheaper, they
are only slightly cheaper, and you'll have to deal with Expedia when things go
wrong. The airline gives a minor discount due to pushing over customer service
to Expedia.

------
sethg
Expedia is (allegedly) lying about one of their “partner” hotels in a way that
drives customers away from the hotel. Isn’t this the kind of thing that a
lawyer would call “tortious interference with business relationships”?

------
ilaksh
If Expedia is misrepresenting the status of the smaller hotels and cutting
them out then I think that is a type of fraud or collusion with the bigger
hotels. It is at the least, a policy that is antagonistic to competition.

------
gritsscholar
Given the owner's complaint, I find it odd that when I clicked the Room &
Amenities link at the bottom of lunabluehotel.com, the link was dead, or at
least, timing out repeatedly.

------
drpgq
Well that explains some of the weirdness I've seen for hotels that Expedia
said were booked out where it didn't seem likely (dead season).

------
vlenin
I've never booked with Expedia because they have never offered a better price
than I can get from the travel agent in my neighbourhood.

------
kqr2
What are good alternatives to expedia that provide good customer service and
are also friendly to small businesses?

------
usaphp
I will NEVER book from Expedia, the end!!!

------
lucian303
Since their rep double booked the room I had already booked online (which I
told him) and I released expedia points weren't worth shit, I've been using
hotels.com. Free night every 10. That's pretty sweet. (Note, I have no
affiliation w/ hotels.com or whatever, it's just what works for me).

Wish I hadn't wasted all those nights getting expedia points worth what $10
bux maybe after 20+ nights?

Fuck that.

------
antonpug
I disagree with this post. Never had any issues with expedia. Always use them
for air/hotel bookings and they are awesome. They do a really good job
filtering out the junk "non-chain" hotels and making clear to the buyer that
what they are getting it high quality.

~~~
Hates_
You disagree from the point of an end customer. If you have no hotel
preference and are mis-directed away from certain partners to those that pay
better commission then to you it has been a good experience. Just because they
have got you good bookings, does not mean they haven't lied and screwed people
over in the process.

