Travel Troubleshooter: A booking error leads to a nonrefundable hotel room, or does it?

Glen Hartness books the wrong night at La Quinta through the Priceline app. Why won't Priceline refund the erroneous booking?

DEAR TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER: I’m trying to get a refund from Priceline for a booking that, on the surface, appears to be uneligible for a refund. However, it is hard for me to believe that Priceline can keep my money for this mistake.

Here’s what happened: I booked a room at La Quinta in Austin, Texas, for one night. While at the hotel that night, I decided to extend my stay another night and began the process of booking the next night through Priceline’s app on my mobile device.

I thought the time was just after midnight, and having used the Priceline app frequently (I’m a platinum-level member), I knew the dates for the booking would be auto-populated in the app form for the following night. But the actual time was just before midnight, so the dates were populated in the form for the current day.

As soon as I clicked the “confirm booking” button, I realized the mistake and called Priceline’s customer service to report the error and request a refund for that booking. A Priceline representative told me that he would need to first contact La Quinta before he could process the refund.

I immediately went downstairs to the front desk of the hotel to let them know what had happened. The front desk representative was happy to cancel the booking and provided me with a cancellation number. The representative also told me that no one from Priceline had contacted them and that the hotel had not received any money from Priceline for my erroneous booking.

As you might have guessed, Priceline is refusing to refund the money. This is not the type of situation that these nonrefundable rates were designed for. I notified the hotel and Priceline immediately, and the hotel agreed to cancel the reservation. Can you please help me get my $88 back?

— Glen Hartness, Austin, Texas

ANSWER: You booked a nonrefundable room rate at La Quinta through Priceline. What does nonrefundable mean? If you click on the link next to the booking, it’ll tell you: “This booking is nonrefundable and cannot be amended or modified. If you fail to arrive or cancel the booking, no refund will be given.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a provision for reversing an erroneous booking such as the one you made — but you already know that.

Years ago, when Priceline had started, a company insider confided that nonrefundable doesn’t really mean nonrefundable. If you make an honest mistake and call the company quickly, it can undo an erroneous reservation. Over time, though, Priceline has gotten stricter about its nonrefundability. And this brings us to the present day, when the company refuses to help an elite-level, frequent guest like you, even if you book a date that is obviously wrong and that the Priceline app shouldn’t have allowed.

You could have appealed this to one of the Priceline executives whose email addresses I publish on my consumer advocacy site, Elliott.org. A brief, polite email might have helped them see the absurdity of the situation.

Or maybe not. Sites like Priceline rely on artificial intelligence to handle customer service problems, and chances are, your complaint would have been routed to a chatbot of some kind that would have sent you another rejection.

I reached out to Priceline on your behalf. A representative responded to me directly.

“Priceline connected with Mr. Hartness directly to resolve the issue and is processing a refund for the mistaken reservation,” she said.

This is a good resolution. But what I’d really like to see is for Priceline to fix its app so that you can’t make this mistake in the future.

Christopher Elliott is the founder of Elliott Advocacy, a nonprofit organization that helps consumers solve their problems. Email him at chris@elliott.org or get help by contacting him at elliottadvocacy.org/help/.(c) 2024 Christopher ElliottDistributed by King Features Syndicate, Inc.