Priceline.

Subject: Priceline Ripoff
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 15:02:22 -0600
From: John Savage john.savage@recon-net.com
Organization: RECON
To: madwand@madwand.org

The other day, I made a reservation for a hotel in Santa Fe, NM. The profile hotel I was looking for was one with a 3 star rating. Well, they booked me at a 2 star rating hotel. After further e-mails back and forth with them they were insisting that the rating was what I asked for. Well, not according to the Santa Fe Visitors Bureau and the hotel themselves, the hotel has a TWO star rating. They e-mailed me back again saying that it meets their rating system criteria as a 3 star hotel. Well, how in the hell can priceline come up with their own rating system, where the national recognized hotel rating system, what most people look for when picking hotel accommodations, says different. Well, they finally gave me a phone number to call, which again was another waste of time. There policy will bring them down as a non-responsive, scam, non-public service company going down the tubes. All in All, American Express is handling our claim, that if you don't receive a service, goods, etc. and cancel the reservation, them consumer laws say you don't have to pay for it. Therefore, AMX said they will handle our claim that the service we asked for was not fulfilled.

Good thing I had an American Express Card, their customer service handles things as this. We never received a billing through AMX,
they handled the whole incident for me. As long as I received a cancellation number directly from the hotel, Priceline couldn't bill my AMX for services not fulfilled. The funny thing to add is that the lady at American Express was dealing with a personal discrepancy with Priceline herself at the same time as I was.