The night is young at midnight

At 12:30 am on the night of 15th February (16th morning) we checked into Hotel Ramada, National City, San Diego. We had chosen this hotel after vetting the reviews and were supposed to stay here for 3 nights. Except the front-desk informed us despite having a “confirmed” reservation they were oversold for the night, and there wasn’t much they could do about it. Aghast we asked what the resolution was and it started the classic lack of accountability battle as she pointed we needed to call Priceline.com and they’re in-charge of finding alternate accommodations for us. I am not sure how the third-parties make deals with hotels/ flights but let me get this straight- if I used Priceline’s website for making a confirmed reservation it’s their responsibility to make sure I get a place to stay there. If there’s an issue with the booking, they better fix it. So I did call the representative listening to dreadful sound of waiting music. As finally a representative addressed us, I told him the situation and asked him to find alternate nearby accommodation for us. The guy put us on hold again for a very long time. At the beginning of this period, the front-desk received a call from Priceline agent and they discussed the case. It seemed promising. After waiting for another 20 minutes, where I assumed he’s looking for hotel vacancies for us I was back on the line with some shocking words. The gist:

Rather than finding a place for us, they’d end up cancelling the entire three-day reservation. So now we don’t have a place for three nights. Customer representatives don’t have the authority to make reservations for us, and it’s our duty to find alternate accommodations. Worse, we would not be compensated for the cost of hotels. Out of the grand sum of $ 1365 (flight + hotel + car) we paid, the company would refund us just $237.15, as according to them that’s the hotel part of the reservation cost.

As you might be able to tell, this was bewildering. It’s 1:30 am, we don’t have an accommodation and now are effectively left by ourselves in the cold. Making a hotel reservation on the last day costs much higher than the initial booking cost, especially on a long weekend. None of these arguments convinced the representative at all that he should do anything more apart from customary “sorry for inconvenience”. He wouldn’t book alternate accommodation or cover our expenses for alternate accommodation, and if he wasn’t allowed to do either give us higher compensation for inconvinience hassle. When he continued with the lack of authority slogan, frustrated I asked for manager who’d have a higher authority. After being apparently transferred, waiting on phone for another 20 minutes the phone just muted on the other end. Ironically Ramada wasn’t oversold for the remainder of two nights, but regardless Priceline was now compelled to cancel the entire reservation.