I made a last minute hotel booking on September 5 for my stay in South Lake Tahoe for September 6 through hotels.com. The booking went through fine but a couple of hours later I received an email from hotels.com saying the room type I was trying to book for was sold out. That said they had automatically booked me for another room type!

I called the hotel and they said the room I was trying to book was indeed available and that there must be a bug in the hotels.com system. I replied to the hotels.com email saying I want to cancel my booking but got no response. I then called them to cancel the room and they said they will get back to me within 24-48 hours. I argued that my stay was within 24 hours but they said they would need at least 24-48 hours to resolve the issue.

I went to the hotel and the person at the reception booked me the room of my liking. She also called the hotels.com rep and informed him that the hotels.com reservation was cancelled and that they wont be charged for it. The hotels.com rep said I should be receiving a refund on my credit card in 3-4 days.

After about 10 days, I still hadn't received the refund so I called them again to check on the status. The hotels.com rep said there were no notes on my booking regarding the refund and said that someone would get back to me in 24-48 hours with more details. They never returned the call.

I call back again after a week or so and told the rep I am thoroughly disappointed with the customer service I have received in this case. She said the refund on my booking was flagged and was not sure why no one called to informed me about this. She put me on hold, called the hotel and verified that hotels.com was not charged for the reservation. She said everything was now cleared and that I should see the refund on my credit card soon.

2 weeks passed and there still was no refund on my credit card. This time I was really frustrated, I called them back and asked to speak to the manager. I threatened to file a chargeback with my credit card company if they don't resolve my case soon. The manager promised I would receive a call back within a couple of hours. This was a week back.

I am thoroughly disappointed with the customer service I have received from hotels.com. Today I have been left with no choice but to file a chargeback with my credit card company.

Anyone faced similar issues on hotels.com? I will keep you guys posted on my case.