The reservation request was simple, one night in a clean hotel, with a decent bed, at a great price. Like millions of online hotel hunters I had done my due diligence, digging through every possible travel site from Kayak to Travelocity, and settling on Priceline. I’ve had a few bouts with their customer service reps in the past, but I needed a cheap room and they were my best shot. Plus I had an ace in the hole, a $40 voucher for my next hotel room purchased through Priceline’s “name your price” blind-bid option.
The only way to save money with Priceline in general requires bidding, and I have often wondered if the hassle is worth the $50 that you save or the peace of mind that you lose. It’s a risky business, but I took a chance.
The city was loaded with 2 and 3 star hotels ranging in price from $60 to $90 a night at worst. My Priceline voucher was clear, make a bid and they would automatically offer the hotels an additional $40. In this scenario a $60 single night bid, would become a $100 bid. Hoping for a nice room I went ahead and bid $50 plus my voucher. The most expensive hotel in the vicinity was charging $90 a night. After clicking through pages of verifications and confirmations, a reassuring screen appeared confirming that I was indeed offering $90 per night. After a few moments I received disappointing news, no one had accepted my bid. I was stunned. How can an offer that beats the going rate not find a single taker? That $40 voucher was quickly beginning to look like a sham. No, I thought, maybe I’m just shooting too high; maybe I should have tried for a 2 star and hoped for a 3. Once again I made my bid, and once again, I was shot down.
Within moments Priceline’s eight-hundred-number was being conjured by my magic cell phone, and in true Priceline fashion it took an hour of phone-tree-hell before I realized reaching a real live person is impossible without having already made a purchase. In desperation I went back to the Priceline web-page and opened the instant messaging program provided by the company. I began by typing my situation out for the customer service representative, but before I could finish typing I was dropped, apparently my paltry 58 words per minute wasn’t fast enough, these people are busy, they have things to do. Frustration began to set it.
Preparation was the key. Burn me once shame on you, but burn me twice … I don’t think so. I refused to make the same mistake twice. With a deep cleansing breath I wrote the entire situation out in Microsoft Word and copied it to my clipboard. Moments later I had rejoined the instant messenger.
This time I was promptly put into a 20 minutes queue before a seemingly cordial customer service representative greeted me with a canned “Hi, my name is (Insert name here). How may I help you today?” At which point I nailed him with a 500 word essay on my exact problem. About 15 minutes later he finished reading my entire complaint and the excuses began to flow.
I won’t bore you with all of the bologna that plastered my monitor. At one point he told me that the $40 would only be applied after I won the bid, but luckily I had previously opened the page explaining exactly how the voucher worked. I pasted it in for his approval. At another point he told me that the voucher wouldn’t work on a one night stay, and once again I was prepared, and promptly pasted in the correct information. He finally said that Priceline can’t force a hotel to take my bid, but that wasn’t my issue, my issue was that if I had offered $90 for a night without using the Priceline voucher, I would have won a room.
More than anything I simply wanted to hear him say, you’re right. The thing about Priceline as a company is that they are never wrong. They never actually admit to having done anything. In fact, they rarely, if ever, display any sort of regret at all.
In the end Priceline and I danced around a serious subject that was somehow never addressed. How can Priceline be trusted when, if my story is representative, its practices are shady? Hours of online research produced a handful of old class action lawsuits, but I couldn’t find anything currently in the process. How is that possible?
From my experience it seems as if Priceline has lost sight of itself. While researching I found the complaints against Priceline eerily consistent. The consensus seems to be, when Priceline works, it works great, but if you have any problems what so ever, don’t expect a resolution. Priceline’s policy seems to hinge upon the buyer beware mantra. They have enough small print to assure that you can never fault them. If anything goes wrong, they don’t have your back. I don’t trust them anymore.
My conversation with the Priceline representative ended with him clarifying that he could do absolutely nothing and that I needed to call the 1-800 number. I tried to explain that without having already placed an order there was no way to get through the phone-tree. He followed my response by reiterating that I needed to call the 800 number. I let him know Priceline just lost a customer, and bid him adieu.
Buried under loads of money and celebrity endorsements sits a company that’s more concerned with its bottom line than its customer base. Officially I am boycotting Priceline, and I’ll bet I’m not the only one. I wonder if there are any class action lawsuits going.
Shawn Swanson - 6 years of professional blogging, including writing and editing for www.raaarr.com and content writing at www.wishihadthat.com.
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