I just got off the most incredible call with Hotels.com.
Here’s the scenario. While trying to book a hotel in Cabo San Lucas, the site kept giving me an error message to re-enter my credit card security code. I kept entering the number as requested and it would keep spitting it back to me.
I left the computer, hoping time would solve it. I came back after dinner and tried again and this time Hotels.com gave me a message that they have blocked this credit card from being used on hotels.com – use another credit card.
I called my credit card company (Amazon Visa – love the card and rewards) and they told me that there was no issue with my credit card and no authorization attempt by Hotels.com.
I then called Hotels.com (I’ve done this before and it hasn’t gone well). The first person I got shouldn’t be in customer service. Period. Rude and without a clue. I asked to be transferred to someone else. After going round and round with the second person, she explained that Hotels.com has a policy that it will not accept the same credit card if the same card has been used for another outstanding reservation with Hotels.com. Really? How is that possible? I can only have one open booked reservation on one credit card at a time?
I asked to speak to a manager. This was the worst part yet. This person insisted that I was wrong and that message couldn’t possibly display on their site because they have no ability to lock a credit card – that only a credit card company could do that. Of course, I still had the message on my screen and read it to him several times. To no avail. He wanted to just take my reservation over the phone to try himself, but I explained that I needed to do it online because I was using Upromise to get college rewards at 7%.
To that he responded that he’s worked at Hotels.com for 2 years and he’s never heard of such a thing and his company has no relationship with Upromise. Ohkayyy! I had heard enough at this point, but he, the manager, hung up on me.
This is really quite amazing because I have noticed for several years now what an effort companies are making to provide outstanding service. They will even tell you when they introduce themselves, “How can I provide you with outstanding service?!” Even cable companies and doctors offices are with the program.
Not Hotels.com. They won’t have any part of that.
So it happened again! Hotels.com had the best deal on a hotel (so I have to give them credit for that), but the site couldn’t process the credit card. After several attempts, the site said the credit card was blocked out. I called my credit card company (Amazon Visa) and the representative confirmed there were no issues with my card and they showed no authorization attempts by Hotels.com.
I called Hotels.com and a talked to a representative who stated that there must be a problem with my credit card. I explained that I had already called my credit card company. The representative didn’t want to look into it further. The response was “Why would we block your card? We’re trying to sell hotel rooms.” I then asked for the tech department. The response was, “we don’t have a tech department.” Well, that explains everything.
I switched cards and that worked fine and then I used my original credit card on another site and that credit card worked fine.