Cancellation Policy

ComplaintsHotelsHoliday Inn

Complaint

0
Rimas Butkys
Country: United States
I used the on-line system for Holiday Inn to book a reservation for trip about 2 months in advance. After selecting the city using a AAA rate, I was e-mailed a confirmation which was not what I selected on-line, so I immediately cancelled the reservation. Then I rebooked the reservation for the correct city. I then noticed that they ended up still charging me $600 for the previous reservation. They said that I had booked an advanced purchase rate (which just happened to be the same rate as the AAA rate) and that I could not get a refund for it. Imagine that, even though I cancelled it 2 minutes after getting the e-mail notification. This is compeletly a scam because they keep your money and then rebook to another customer.

Interesting also that the difference between the advance purchase rate and the regular rate was only a couple of dollars. Why would anyone try and save a couple of dollars and have those restrictions placed on them on a $600 reservation. A call to the hotel didn't help and they were down right rude. Since they are franchised chain, they don't really care what the corporate department says. I called them, and they said that they could not do anything either. This was after several calls, where no one would return any calls. I am a business traveler and can't imagine anyone being trated this way. I could even half understand it if I was trying to cancel a day before. The AAA rate or others you can cancel up to 6:00pm that same night.

So before you book another hotel with Holiday Inn, make sure that you understand what you are getting into. Not just the rate, but if you have an issue with a specific hotel, you will be at the mercy of the mom and pop shop. It is not like a Marriott or Hilton where you have some recourse.

Comments

123Next
  • 0
    Angry first time reservation
    | 1 reply
    I had the same problem yesterday! I booked a two night stay in paris andit stated on their website that it was 130€ and i purchased it and submit all my credit details and it wasnt until after the whole thing was confirmed that they told me the total was 261€ for the two nights!!! And apparently this is a "cheap" advance rate non refundable! So i called customer service immediately. They told me to call the paris hotel. Thats another £6.50 wasted on bills!
    Paris said they wont do anything because its nonrefundable. And three more calls later i still got no where! This is such a scam. When i called straight after the booking. I find it hard to believe that nobody in the whole of the holiday inn company cannot authorise a refund! Im never staying at their hotels again and will be telling everyone i know about the blatant disregard for their customers! With this company customer service goes out the window!
  • 0
    dj
    I had the same problem with HI Cloverdale in Surrey BC I thought I had booked CAA of which I am a member but  "somehow" it ended up on best rate. I cancelled 3 days before the arrival date and have been told there is no refund. The lesson I have learned as a senior and not too computer savvy (and there are lots of us who travel) don't use online booking as there are lots of unscrupulous folks like The Holliday Inn who will take advantage of you. It would also appear buy the comments on this site that even those with computer savvy were taken in by this scam.
  • 0
    J
    Exact same thing happened to me.  Selected the AAA rate King room, then the confirmation booked me into a Queen Hearding Aid room.  What the heck?  Then went in and changed it back to AAA King room again, and the next confirmation came back as Advance purchase non-refundable King room and they charged my credit card immediately.  Called Holiday Inn Express right away and they claim I selected the advance purchase room and they won't refund my money so too bad.  Feel really scammed that the reservation you get is not the one you selected.  Something is very wrong there.  Never booking with them again.
  • 0
    front desk Holiday inn
    | 3 replies
    Here is what you have to do, first stay calm and dont yell on the phone, when people yell at me on the phone the first thing i want to do is hang up on them i know if i do that they will call back and just go off. so i will place the phone down and wait for them to stop talking then just state the company line. blah blah blah sorry i cant give the refund, have a great day. call on between 9-5 ask for the accounting office then state ur case ask then to look up both resv numbers and cxl number then in a calm voice let them know what ur goal is
    most people dont realize that the front desk people have to deal with everthing under the sun. we are under paid over worked and ever person that has a problem starts off with "YOUR HOTEL" or " YOU did this to me" to be honest if u are very nice and very quick to tell us ur problem we are happy to help and sometimes if u ask we can give u some ideas on who u should talk to and the best time of day to get your way.

    not posting this to be a jerk , just understand most of the front desk staff have no control over any sort of refunds  desk mangers have lots of stress and your problem will be put on the back burner talk to accounting dont get mad if u are bumped around a few times . its gonna happen
    • 0
      You are so wrong in what you have said. When I called and explained to the front desk that due to an auto accident we were unable to make the trip I was told there would be no refund even though it was two days before the reserved date. I asked to talk to a manager and was told that I was talking to the shift manager and would not get any further satisfaction talking to anyone else. When I asked what else I could do the shift manager said and I quote (nothing, It sucks to be you sir)
    • 0
      Jeff replies to front desk Holiday inn
      Why would an employee of Holiday Inn be on a complaint website?  How do you expect people to react when they find out they have been robbed of there hard earned money by a company using deceptive tactics? If you read the complaints, NONE of them were resolved in favor of the customer.  It doesn't matter if you are nice or not.
    • 0
      Terry replies to front desk Holiday inn
      Front desk doesnt cancel reservations..central reservations does and they really dont care..they will just laugh at you .
  • 0
    Adam
    How sad!  "Guests" have been getting screwed over since at least 08, and it's still going on today.  Holiday Inn Express is a cheap copy of the company that Kimmons Wilson started years ago.  Let your friends know about the scam and ask them to stay in other chains, or what few Mom and Pop inns that remain.  Who needs Holiday Inn or Holiday Inn Express??  Guests CAN force them to either change or go out of business. Don't put up with this garbage any more.
  • 0
    Candy Hilton
    First off I would go to the www.tripadvisor.com page and pull up the Holiday Inn Hotel that scammed you . You can put feedback on tripadvisor on how well or not so well each establishment treated you. You all need to do this. This is a scam. Most hotels work with people. This is VERY poor customer service. I agree with a previous post that all should do a class action suit.
  • 0
    JoieNsk
    I'm having the same issue right now with Holiday Inn in Moscow.  I chose AAA-rate, I checked it before literally pushing the button to finish my reservation: I checked the bed type, I checked the rate type and I read the cancellation policy. When I made a reservation and printed the confrimation, it said there that I got Advance Purchase Rate (which I never chose to begin with) - which is not cancellable. Also the bed type was different from the one I chose. It happened four days ago, I called them right after I made a reservation, they changed the bed type, gave me the case number, but then they told me that is up to the hotel to decide what to do, and the hotel should contact me in 48 hours. Noboby contacted me from the hotel, so I called them again today. But before that I decided I'd google the problem, and I found this page, wherepeople say this happens to them all the time! At leastnow I know I'm not crazy or something. I willproceedwith thistill I get any result.
  • 0
    JoieNsk
    I have an update: today I finally "won the battle": I got an e-mail from Holiday Inn, they changed my rate to AAA, as I initially was trying to book. So I can cancell it with no penalty. It took me all this time, and 6 or 7 calls to Holiday Inn Guest Relations. The hotel itself was no help at all: they contacted me in a week after my three calls to Holiday Inn Guest Relations here in US (instead of 48 hours they should have contacted me) - just to inform me that I had non-refundable rate, and there was nothing they can do to help me. But I can't say anything bad about the Guest Relations: all the representatives were very understanding and helpful, and if they promissed something, they would do it the way they promised. I think the deciding fact for them to beleive me was that I called right after I made the reservation and noticed mistake. Every representative would mention that fact. That proves again to myself, how important is to actually READ all the papers right away. They also sent my case to IT service, so hopefully something would be done to correct this problem with the reservation system.
  • 0
    RicPic
    My wife and I recently ran into some issues of our own with the Advanced Purchase rate with Holiday Inn. We booked a stay, and a few weeks later found out that my wife was pregnant. This was very exciting for us as my wife has a chronic disease and her chance of becoming pregnant was very low. She is currently being seen as a high risk pregnancy patient and cannot physically travel Portland, ME, where the hotel is located. I have spent the past two weeks explaining this story to countless people at the hotel (managers and other staff), Holiday Inn guest relations, and IHG guest services as well. I received various responses from a full refund to a full refund minus our first night's pay to an extension/hold on our stay for a future visit. As it currently stands I am left with only a hold on our stay for up to 1 year. My wife and I were so excited about becoming parents and now we are worrying about losing almost 800 dollars. I was recently told by the manager at the hotel that a medical emergency does not qualify for a refund, I have never been so disappointed and will stay clear of IHG hotels in the future. I will continue to fight for a refund as we will not be able to make a trip to Maine any time in the foreseeable future.
  • 0
    Pascal
    Going through the same situation right now. Looks like the complains have been ramping up since mid 2012.
    We have been doing reservations to Holiday inn for a long time (I used to travel for business) and I would not be surprised if they have changed something on their reservation system making this 'fine print' less obvious and catching a lot more people.
  • 0
    Andrey
    Same Holiday Inn SCAM here. I used special block rate for an upcoming conference in Blacksburg, VA at first, but then decided to extend it for another day and it did not work. Eventually, I decided to book with any rate and then call the hotel to apply the special rate afterwards. At no point was there any indication on ihg.com website that my credit card will be charged. I only confirmed the change (or so I thought at the time) in my reservation. What was my surprise when I called the hotel the next day and they told me the news: my card was charged for the entire stay and they can't do anything and I should call the holiday inn (and who are they, then?) So I called, was transfered to the executive office where they said they "support" the decision of the hotel. I will be filing complaints with BBB and dispute the charge with my credit card. SCUMBAGS!
  • 0
    Lew
    I made reservations for 7/19/2013 thru 7/20/2013 at the Holiday Inn Express “Bridge St, Swindon, Wiltshire SN1 1BT, United Kingdom” via the internet. I canceled my reservations on July 18th, 2013 via the internet and in return I was notified I would be charged a cancellation fee. When I checked my Government Travel Card I noticed I was charged 315.00 British pounds. I called the hotel to see why I was charged so much, I was informed I was charged for both nights due to their blackout zone. I don’t have an issue with being charged a cancelation fee, but I certainly do have an issue with being charged the total amount. They sent me an email explaining why I why charged the full amount!!


    Dear Mr Durham ,



    On the 19th of July you were charged for your accommodation for two  nights this totalled to 315.00. this was due to our ‘ blackout zone’  for these dates which means we couldn’t refund any money as this was pre payed before the date of arrival  which would have been stated on the terms and conditions when booking these nights at our hotel .



    Kind regards,



    Hayley      



    Holiday Inn Express, Swindon City Centre

    Bridge Street

    Swindon

    SN1 1BT

    Tel:  +44(0) 1793 602 000

    Fax: +44(0) 1793 602 001

    Web: www.exhiswindon.co.uk
  • 0
    ZannieW
    If you reserve a room in advance and can't make it, Holiday Inn keeps your money.  But just because you reserve and pay for a room in advance, doesn't mean you will GET the room you reserved, and they STILL keep your money.  I stayed at the Holiday Inn Kalamazoo West, paid for the room weeks in advance, and the type of room we reserved wasn't available (it was indicated to us that it was available when we reserved it but seems that after we paid for it, they gave it to somebody else), no refund, we get what they give us regardless of what we paid for (and the front desk clerk was very rude and haughty to us when she explained their policy).  And for extra fun, when I reserved my room on line, within hours, somebody in the U.K. went on a spending spree with my credit card.  I have had this happen two times before this occurrance, but it was when this third time that it happened, it finally clicked and I saw a connection.  Each of the three times I've had issues with credit card fraud, it was immediately following making a reservation at an IHG hotel (International Hotel Group, of which Holiday Inn is a part of), two of which were Holiday Inns, that somebody went on a spending spree in the United Kingdom with my credit card.  My hotels were in the U.S., but the fraud was in the U.K.  Incidentally, IHG is based in the U.K., imagine that.  Both Holiday Inn and IHG were notified of the credit card fraud following my reservations with them and they have done NOTHING.  Fortunately my bank noticed the unsual overseas spending and put a stop to it before too much was spent.  Also, fortunately, my bank (not IHG or Holiday Inn) refunded the money that was stolen from me.  Though had to have my card cancelled and replaced each time.  To this day, neither IHG or Holiday Inn have refunded my bank or accepted any kind of responsibility for the repeated fraud at their hands.  This is NOT a company that is concerned about their customers - as long as they get THEIR money, that is all they are concerned about.  I've learned my lesson - Holiday Inn will NEVER get my money again.  It's LaQuinta for me from now on - never had any problems with cancellations, service or quality with LaQuinta.  The rooms are nicer, the service is friendlier, and I've never had an issue with credit card fraud when reserving with them.
  • 0
    SR
    I had the same exact problem with the Deerfield HI express. I tried to cancel my reservation and had no luck doing so. The general manager of the hotel and customer relations were awful. I travel extensively and have always stayed exclusively at IHG hotels. This experience has changed my mind about the company and they have lost a life long customer. My wife is a travelling consultant that is on the road 4 days a week and has also sworn off IHG (also her exclusive choice when on the road). We will only use up our free stays and no longer give them our money. This is the worst customer service experience I've ever had.
  • 0
    DeeTee
    So, I was planning a vacation with my family and I too went on the website.  It is very clear, in the same size font, the restrictions that come with advance purchase.  You have to even agree before confirming that you have read the cancellation information before the website will allow you to complete the reservation. You are given the option to verify your location, number of rooms, cost of the room, bed type, it's all there for review before selecting confirm.  I was able to scroll down and book a rate that was not so secure and very flexible.  I checked the box after reviewing all the information and my room was exactly the amount and type that I booked for.
  • 0
    MJ
    Same issue everyone else is having.  This time in St. Louis, MO.  It's not called Advanced Purchase Booking.  Now it is called, "Smartsaver Rate".  Eventually, they will have to start changing this policy if everyone will just be very vocal about this.  Social Media is a beautiful thing...
123Next

Post a new comment