Why you should never book with Travelocity

Michael Luo
Jul 24, 2017 · 3 min read

Travelocity has this “ugly” scheme where you can book hotels but does not charge you, the HOTEL you booked with actually charges you, which is slightly different than say Booking.com or Expedia (Travelocity is owned by Expedia). In the Expedia case, you will see an “Expedia” charge. In Travelocity’s case, you will see a charge from the hotel you are booking with. This is an important distinction as you will see later in this story.

If you have a problem with billing, Travelocity CANNOT deal with it since they hand the billing problems off to the hotel.

So I booked ONE room with Travelocity for a total of $385.20 and unfortunately, I could not make this reservation. So I cancelled for a partial refund. Fine, I’m ok with that. What I didn’t expect is that there were actually TWO reservations under my name somehow. But wait.

I only see one reservation under my upcoming trips?

And one (unrelated) under my History. But when I called Travelocity, I actually had a “hidden” reservation under my phone number that for some reason, didn’t show up on the website. Looking through my email confirmation, I had NO confirmation of a second reservation. I called the hotel and these were the two confirmation numbers: 73672557 and 73693647.

However, I got charged TWICE for $385.20. (The two $192.60 charges are half refunds on each of the reservations).

I’ve called Travelocity multiple times and they ADMIT it’s a mistake on their part and they have tried to get a refund for me. Only problem? The hotel is the one that has to issue the refund since they charged me. And the hotel won’t do that because to them, they got 2 reservations from Travelocity (The hotel actually said both reservations came from “Expedia” but thats just the parent company of Travelocity). So really, it’s a Travelocity problem. I’ve put in a dispute with my credit card and we will see what happens but honestly, I feel bad for the hotel. It was not their fault at all and Travelocity (probably a bug in their system) is screwing over somebody.

If Travelocity is the who actually charges the credit card, they would be able to resolve this situation with them taking a hit, since I believe it to be Travelocity’s fault. But nope, they put the processing charge on the hotel’s side. And they make you call the hotel and figure it out with them (who can’t really do anything besides what they’re told).

So to recap: Travelocity mistakenly doubled my reservation and I wasn’t able to see it. Tried to cancel, partial refund on BOTH reservations. I only made one reservation. Travelocity sent the hotel a second reservation (that I did NOT make). Can’t do anything about second reservation. Travelocity can’t “force” the hotel to refund me. Either hotel is stuck with lost wages or I’m stuck with an extra charge.

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