Online Travel Booking and Bidding Agencies - Priceline UK Customer Service?

Anybody have any experience in Priceline UK (.co.uk) customer service and whether they actually respond to email queries at all?

A couple of weeks ago on a trip to Manchester, UK I stayed in a number of hotels all booked through Priceline UK (since I don't have an American credit card nor billing address I can't use the US version). Most of the stays were fine and I was impressed by some of the hotels. However one of the hotels made me to pay for the room, claiming that there was no trace of any prepayment by PL or anybody else for that matter. Since this was in the early hours of the morning and I had an early flight to catch I couldn't really stay around any longer to argue, and had to pony up the 58 GBP room charge (which probably is a total of the 50 GBP winning bid and taxes and whatever extras PL tags in), figuring that PL will for sure sort it out for me. Obviously the room was already paid for 2 months in advance when I made the winning bet, as per Priceline's regular process.

Getting home I dig around the PL web site trying to find an email address for customer service. The only thing I could find was the feedback@...co.uk address, to which I send an email explaining what happened, all the necessary information (PL request number etc.) and the two alternatives I find satisfactory in order to resolve the issue (either PL refunds my original charge made when I won the bid or PL contacts the hotel in question and asks them to refund the duplicate room charge to my credit card). Happily I sent the email away and thought that they would get back to me ASAP.

Well, one and half weeks later there still wasn't any answer. I resubmitted exactly the same message by using the "Contact Us" form on the PL UK website - this was three days ago and still no answer or anything from them, apart from the autogenerated "We have received your message." email.


Is the customer service in PL (UK or in general) really this bad? Am I better off calling them and trying to argue on the phone or should I just dispute the PL charge with my bank and try to get them to do something regarding the issue? Does contacting PL in the US help at all, or are they completely separate entities?

This lack of customer service surprises me a lot, since in the last couple of years I've used PL UK dozens of times for hotel rooms, and so far everything has been extremely smooth, and I thought they were a good quality, smooth operation, but apparently not.

Sorry for the long-winded post, I tend to be comprehensive :)

Normally they answer with 2 business days, apart from that, you might try to call them.

all booked through Priceline UK (since I don't have an American credit card nor billing address I can't use the US version).

You can book through priceline.com from the UK - they do accept UK cards, I've booked using both my Nationwide VISA and Tesco Mastercard. You do however need to register on the priceline.com website and make you address and telephone number look as though it's in the USA. I simply use my UK address and format it as best as possible but use a genuine state (California) and ZIP code (94559) and all works fine.

When I've e mailed priceline in the UK before their responses have been pretty poor - standard cut and paste answers without seemingly reading the question. I do wonder where e mail response team is located as replies received don't seem to come from native English speakers.

I'd suggest giving Priceline in the UK a phone call (though your call gets routed to Priceline in the USA from memory). They were very helpful to me when I had to cancel a booking due to a family illness and also when I made a mistake on some dates (my own fault!). I find it much easier to explain something on the phone than to put it in writing.

Their number is 0800 074 5000.

I'd suggest having a copy of your reservation to hand (log into your account and take a print from My Trips) as you may need the reservation number (or the telephone number you gave when making the booking) to get through the telephone system.

One thing I always do is to take a copy of the reservation with me should I ever have any problems at check-in/check-out as the Priceline reservation confimation also has the hotel reservation reference on it.

Hope that this helps. Let us know how you get on.

Nigel

I simply use my UK address and format it as best as possible but use a genuine state (California) and ZIP code (94559) and all works fine.


Thanks, maybe I'll try this the next time. I tried it with my Finnish address (and obviously a Finnish cc as well) some years back and couldn't get it working. The US site would have a few advantages, especially the fact that the bids are made in USD, the same currency BFT et al use for quoting the winning bids - now I'm forced to make the conversion to GBP and I'm sure I'm loosing a little bit in the process. Are there any differences availabilitywise between the different countries?


Their number is 0800 074 5000.


Likewise, thanks. I did get an email from one of their "Travel Service Specialists" after 4 business days, apologising for the hotel not following the Priceline procedures and saying that they have contacted "the appropriate person at the hotel", requesting a refund for my CC for the room charge.

Let's see what happens, I'm willing to give them a week and if the refund doesn't show up on my CC (online-)statement I'll follow up.


One thing I always do is to take a copy of the reservation with me should I ever have any problems at check-in/check-out as the Priceline reservation confimation also has the hotel reservation reference on it.


I do, always carry these with me, but this was early in the morning - roughly 5.30 AM and there was a single clerk on duty, who clearly didn't really understand the PL concept at all - and wasn't really that interested in customer service or anything else for that matter.


Hope that this helps. Let us know how you get on.


It does, thanks a grat deal. I'll follow-up as soon as there's something to report.

Leaving for another PL stay tomorrow at the ZRH Marriott, hopefully this one works out OK.

Thanks, maybe I'll try this the next time. I tried it with my Finnish address (and obviously a Finnish cc as well) some years back and couldn't get it working. The US site would have a few advantages, especially the fact that the bids are made in USD, the same currency BFT et al use for quoting the winning bids - now I'm forced to make the conversion to GBP and I'm sure I'm loosing a little bit in the process. Are there any differences availabilitywise between the different countries?

When I put bids through on the .co.uk site but based my bids on information on the BFT and BB boards where most people use the .com site I've nearly always got the hotel that I was expecting.

I did read somewhere in the past that different Priceline operations in the world have different allocations/contracts, however I've not noticed this with the .co.uk and .com operations to any significant degree. However booking through the Hong Kong and Singapore sites does seem to bring up hotels that don't feature so much on .com and .co.uk

Nigel.