Do NOT use Hotels.com unless you are staying at a major chain.

I'm in the travel nightmare of my life and Hotels.com is not offering any assistance with a reservation I made through them.  I am going to be in Chicago next week,  I booked a short stay apartment through Hotels.com on Sept 8.  There was nothing on the site when I booked warning me what a nightmare this reservation was going to be.

Normally, when I had booked through Hotels.com the charge for the rooms immediately gets put on the card, and I just swipe to confirm on check in. This time that did not happen. I called Hotels.com on the 10th and they informed me it would be charged at check in. OK. slightly annoying but I can deal.

On Wednesday at 4am I get an email - with a different reservation # then Hotels.com gave me and no reference to hotels.com asking me for my zip code so they could charge my card.  I was concerned that this might be a phishing scheme (the person's contact was from Armenia) and since I had a 14 hour day from hell at work, I could not call Hotels.com to verify.  I called them yesterday morning, and found out the email was legit - so I called the US number on the email and gave them my zip code.  I got a call back about 2 hours later that the charge was declined.  

I call my bank, there is a daily limit on my card of $1500. ( I understand with all the credit card fraud, why they would do this)  They extended it until midnight yesterday.  I called Ginosi back (Ginosi.com is the management company for Old Colony in Chicago) They said they would put it through again.

At 8pm yesterday, I checked again and the charge had not gone through.  I called to inform them that the extension would only last until midnight (which is according to Google 8am Armenian time) They said they would contact the finance office and let them know. At 11pm I called AGAIN and was told that the finance office was closed and they would send a note.  I emailed the information to the original person who contacted me, ,Hayk  and their reservation department explaining the problem.

I then tried a live chat with Hotels.com to see if they could mediate as a go between somehow. 

I skipped the whole section explaining the credit card problem since I wrote it out again up top.

At 12:02 I get an email from Lilit   Saying my problem has been forwarded to the finance department and will be under their care. (Oh and contact them any time for help) And the finance office is open until 5pm Armenian time (9am here)

 

At 2am I get an email from Hayk  saying my card declined again.  Yes it would it is after midnight, it would decline - the extension was only good until midnight I told your people that!!!  

I replied to both at 550am (about an hour an a half ago and neither has replied)  I tried their live chat an hour ago and no one has said anything from their end.

Supposedly this is an non cancelable reservation ( it was 30 a night cheaper that way)  so I can't just book somewhere else.  I'm not just going to keep calling my bank for extensions because that opens me up to fraud from other sources and I am not being assured by anyone that it will go through on time anyway.  I don't want to do an extension on Monday because I will be traveling and want to be able to use that card for other expenses .

If Hotels.com had made any indication that this was not a pay on booking reservation, that they were not the ones putting the payment through, or that the company they would make me deal with is in Armenia I would never have made this reservation!!!!

And the fact that both their phone people and their chat people are just willing to abandon me to a company that isn't responding is unacceptable.  A trip should not involve this must stress over the reservation. 

if you read this and have twitter or google plus - please use the link at the bottom to spread this for me. Thank you