My wife and I were discussing the room that I booked 11 months ago for the Nationals. At the time I made the reservation, a buddy of mine was going with me so I booked a room with 2 double beds. Well, she was feeling left out and told me she wanted to go so I kicked my buddy to the curb and told her I'd rather go with her. (He had something else come up anyways.) Now that she was going she wanted to make sure the room was up to speed so she asked me if it had a microwave, refrigerator, coffee maker, etc. She also wanted a single king size bed. I promptly handed her the confirmation email and told her to call them and see if she could get what she wanted. Turns out the motel says they don't have any reservations next week for us and that they are totally booked. She gave them the confirmation number and so fourth but still no luck. I called Booking.Com to see what was up. They contacted Quality Inn and said they have two hours to find us something else or they (Quality Inn) would be responsible for any price difference it might cost us to find another room. That was about an hour ago and I'm not holding my breath.
I'm so pissed that I planned so far in advance and now have nothing to show for it. If anyone knows of a room available or is planning on cancelling a reservation please let me know. If it's not up to the wife's expectations I guess she'll either stay home or have to deal with it. One way or another I will be at the show next week!

Rick

 

I've been on the internet and phone for the last two hours. I found a room but it's 11 miles from the show. Hoping to find something closer to the action. This blows!

Rick

 

You do everything right and way in advance and that happens, that is very bad. I hope it works out for you! I have a list of over flow hotels if you need it.

 

Thank you Brenda. Please forward the list when you get a chance.

Rick

 

Here they are Rick: Comfort Inn 423-443-0059, Sleep Inn 423-279-1811, La Quinta 423 323-0500, Quality Inn 423-230-0534 and I may have just had an opening in the Hampton Inn as well, if it opens up for sure I will let you know. We recently had two cancellations at the Hampton Inn so check with them too, that is the host hotel for the H/OCA 423-247-3888.

 

Please let me know if the Hampton opens up. That's right where I would like to be.

Rick

 

Mine's still good. This is why I always go thru hotel chain's reservation system or preferably the individual hotel. I just don't trust sites like Booking, Expedia or Hotels. com. Expedia fouled us up bad for a Carlisle event a few years back.

 

Lesson learned. I will never book through them again.

Rick

 

Check you PM Rick

 

Responded....Thanks so much


Rick

 

Let's not overreact here. Never is a long time.

I think the problem is that, when booking a hotel for a special event, like Carlisle or the OCA Nationals, you DO want to go through the hotel's reservations system, rather than a third-party booking site. The special rates and rooms set aside for attendees of the Nationals were available only if you called the hotel. Whatever reservation you made through Booking.com was apparently kicked out by the hotel, and you were never notified. This is bad, and you are the victim of a glitch in their system.

But the lesson here is what I said. For everyday, run-of-the-mill hotel stays, booking.com, Expedia, Travelocity, hotels.com, etc., all of which I use ALL the time, are fine, and I've never had a problem. But I've also never used any of them to book a room at a hotel where a special event was going on and I was trying to get that event's special rate and reserved block of rooms. For that, as I said, you call the hotel directly as the OCA Nationals registration instructions always says to do.

 

Good points but...

With your logic, you would need to know about every special event going on prior to booking your room. What happened to me could have happened to anyone booking a room 10 months in advance not knowing anything about a car show.

At the time I made the reservation, I didn't realize there was a list of overflow motels that may or may not of had rooms blocked out for the show. I just Googled local motels once I checked the host motel and saw that it was booked.

You're right, never is a long time. I probably will use a third party booking agent in the future. Booking.Com told me to send them my receipt for my lodging and they would reimburse the difference in cost for the motel we are staying at. If they don't follow through on that, then I won't use them in the future.


Rick

 

As of yesterday,the host hotel had rooms available. I went online and checked and they had some available. However,the rate is higher because the OCA block rate is no longer available. I had been looking for a room there but when I checked my Hampton cancellation policy,I had to cancel before June 21 to avoid a penalty I'm keeping my Hampton room and I had a buddy call and say it's real close to the host hotel and is easy to get to because of a back road. The host hotel rate is now charging $195 per day.

 

First, there is no doubt that you were wronged by booking.com. Ten months prior is well after that hotel became the host hotel for the OCA event, and this should have prevented you or anyone from making a reservation there through a third party site because apparently the OCA has taken over the entire hotel.

Second, it's rare, I think very rare, that an event at a hotel takes up the entire hotel as the OCA has done in this case. Hotels host events all the time where a block of rooms is set aside for attendees of that event (weddings, conferences, short courses, etc.). Stay at any large hotel, like a Hyatt or a Sheraton, near an airport or in the downtown area of a city, and there are always events, usually more than one, listed on their "today's events" display in the lobby. These hotels make their livelihood hosting these events. But these hotels always have rooms available to the general public as well. It's only the very largest events that set aside every room in the hotel as was done in this case.

So I wouldn't stop using the third party sites. Events that take over the entire hotel are very rare. When they DO occur, sites like booking.com should be aware of them, and, as should have happened in your case, you should have been told by booking.com that there was "no availability" for the dates you selected. This may also be partly a fault of the hotel itself for not informing booking.com and all the others about the event on these dates. There might already be some fighting going on behind the scenes between the hotel and booking.com and any of the third party sites that might have booked rooms there for the dates of the show when they shouldn't have been able to. The result is that people like you get caught in the middle.


I certainly don't disagree with you here. You were wronged by booking.com. They need to make good with you, and, if they don't, I wouldn't use them again, either. But I wouldn't stop using third party hotel booking sites altogether based on this one incident.

 

Ouch!....I'm going to stick with the suite we have at Holiday Inn. The reservationist that I talked to last week went out of her way to get us a room. She quoted me a little over $800.00 for (4) nights but told me to call back today and speak to her manager about lowering the rate. Just got off the phone with the manager and she reduced it down to $582.00. I'm a happy camper now.

Fair enough. I will be forwarding my invoice to Booking.Com as soon as I check out. We'll see if they hold true to their word.

Rick