Report Abuse

“Bookit.com, cheap for a reason”

written by ecualumni on 01/09/2011

We booked a hotel in Myrtle Beach (Atlantica Resorts) in the middle of July 2011. We booked this hotel in April. We thought we were getting a great deal b/c we booked a 2bdr 2 ba oceanfront condo for about $100 less than the hotel's rate.

We arrived at the hotel around 2pm and hotel check in time was 3pm. We only hoped they would let us check in early. After telling the front desk clerk my name she quickly replied with "I don't have your reservation". After I asked how this could happen, she went on to explain that bookit.com cancelled the reservation. She then told me that they had just sold the last room and I would have to call bookit and deal with them.

I am not kidding, I was on hold with bookit.com for at least an hour before I heard a real person's voice. Each time after about 10 minutes of being on hold the call would just hang up on you. I understand that it was a Friday afternoon in the middle of summer, but having to wait that long to speak to someone is POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE. Once I actually spoke to someone they put me on hold for another 10-15 minutes to "figure out the problem". When bookit's customer service representative finally came back on the line she explained that the hotel cancelled the reservation b/c they didn't receive payment from bookit.com. She stressed that it was the hotel's fault b/c they should not have sent me a confirmation # if they never received payment for the room. This is true, but she never did explain to me why bookit.com never sent the hotel my payment.

After about another 20 minutes of being on hold, I was connected to someone who would try to relocate me to a bookit.com participating hotel. Somehow in the big city of Myrtle Beach, SC, there was only one hotel available. This hotel was not oceanfront. While I had spent the past 2 hours on hold and speaking to bookit, my mom and my husband had found another oceanfront hotel that had a few rooms available. I asked bookit if they could transfer the money that I had paid them to another hotel. They said no. I explained to bookit that I booked an oceanfront hotel and I would not settle for a non-oceanfront one. They only apologized. So I then asked if I could just get a full refund of my money. They said that would take 7 - 14 business days. So after paying $851.70 to bookit.com months ago I was supposed to magically come up with more money to pay for another hotel room.

To make things even worse, the next day I got an e-mail from bookit stating that I would receive a refund of $581.68. What happened to the other $270.02?? I immediately called bookit again and spoke with a woman who stated she would look into the matter and call me back that day. Of course I never heard from this woman again. After a few days went by I went on bookit's website and sent a message. No one ever called me. A few days later I spoke to someone else who explained to me that bookit charged me cancellations fees and that's why it was not a full refund. So I had to go through the whole scenario again with this person and explain to them that NO, I would not pay cancellation fees when it was YOUR FAULT. Finally, after speaking with his manager I was told that I would get my full refund and I did within a few days.

The main problem I have with bookit is their customer service and they way they do business. It is incredibly difficult to get through to them. Your placed on hold for ridiculous amounts of time and several times I was hung up on only to start the whole process over again. It is totally unacceptable that they can screw up your hotel reservation but you have to wait 2 weeks for a refund. The hotel I booked with said that they have problems with bookit all the time.