Picking on Priceline.com

Today I booked our room in Saint Catharines ON as the first leg of our journey to Minnesota. I have been using Priceline.com for about 4 years now and have been generally satisfied with the results. We have stayed in better places for the same money as we would pay for those errr ahhh not  so great motels.


One thing about Priceline, when you negotiate a price you are committed. If the price is right, you are charged immediately. Went thru the normal negotiation bit going 3 stars at 60% off. PL came back and said if you are willing to pay an extra 19 dollars you would probably get a deal. If you don't then you can't submit another bid for 24 hours. Well their counter seemed reasonable and I accepted. Viola! we have a room at the Best Western in St Catharines.


Of course after I have committed I decided to see what Hotels.com and Expedia has. WTF they are $14 cheaper overall on the room. My whole attitude towards Priceline changed in an instant. Those bums !! I am not taking this lying down.


Find the place to write an email. Grab a screen print of Expedia, just so I have proof. Send off the email. I see a place to make a phone call to them. Oh this is gonna be good, probably 50 layers of menu selections and into the VOIP lost world.


Couple of questions and I am connected to Customer Service. "You call is very important to us....laddidadida. This is gonna hurt holding the phone. Then it was This is Curt blah blah, how can I help you. Well what a surprise less than 5 minutes from dialing a number to getting a person. (probably means my lottery tickets I bought yesterday are no good).


I present my case in a very firm tone. Tell them I have been using Priceline for 4 or 5 years. I am sure Curt has heard it all. Curt says do you mine if I put you on hold while I check this out. I said sure, I can wait. I am already convinced I am going to get a price concession and the money will be put back on my card.


Couple minutes go past and I am starring at the Expedia page, Curt comes back on the line , I see the add says for June 15 arrival which is Sunday and I booked June 14 a Saturday. Curt explains he checked out the prices and he finds both of those sites are for $140 without the taxes and fees and you paid $125. I start a bit of a stutter, I realized what might have gone wrong. I say Curt give me a sec. I change the date on the Expedia site.  1 4 0 not the 93 I was looking at.


Priceline has gone back to the high esteem I held them in and even went up a couple notches. Why because they were still cheaper, they were easy to get a hold of on the phone with a real person, and they took my complaint seriously. 

WAY TO GO PRICELINE !!