Back in Talent at about midnight last night.
Sure it’s a long trip from the East Coast but I can’t help but … scoff… at complaints about modern travel. I like to say to the travel whiners “tell it to the Donner Party“.
Go tell some 1850 pioneers that a mere 100 years in the future their dangerous treks of many months to get from the midwest to Oregon or California will take a few hours as groups of hundreds of people fly six miles above the earth in huge boxes of metal.
To cities all over the American West.
Many, many times each and every day of the year.
Early American travelers would have thought you were simply crazy.
If you’d added that during the flight you’d be served cold drinks and snacks, watch moving picture shows, and listen to music they would have locked you up.
Then you’d explain to them that people will constantly complain about this type of travel.
With that comment, you’d be shot.
and then if you were with the Donner Party you’d be ….
dinner.
Joe Duck 
Priceline.com truely sucks!!! Buyer beware, do not book anything with
these crooks! The Management won’t return calls. The word is getting around that Priceline provides the worst service at the best possible price. The tickets you buy are worthless. They are not transferable, non refundable. Policy
sucks. I’d like to start a class action suit against Priceline. Anyone
interested? Email me please. The no refund policy is questionable.
Consumers should be protected here. In anycase, I will make sure to
promote Priceline.com in the worst possible way for the rest of my
life! Caren, good posting, I am with you 100% of the way!
Consumers and Priceline.com shareholders please read below:
The simple math of Priceline.com’s business model.
1 screwed customer = $1,200. (average airline ticket) X 500 = $600,000
net profit for Priceline.com
In addition to this, Priceline.com resells your unused seat as
standby for major money! so add an extra $400,000.
They just profited a cool million by pissing off 500 people. Nice
business eh?
I’m going to bring this to the attention of the Priceline.com
shareholders meeting.
SPAM…are some links that I believe will be interested
Just another unhappy and very mad priceline customer.
I bought a hotel room in NYC that I thought was rated 4 stars by priceline but only 3 stars by AAA. That in itself explains the price difference. The real bad part of the experience was when I called the hotel to request a king size bed and they told me that would be a $60.00 per night upgrade. After being stonewalled by various “CUSTOMER SERVICE PEOPLE” I had to E-mail someone who told me I should have read the fine print which allows the hotels that discretion.
They are a totally deceptive organization run by thieves and con artists. They hid behind rigid and inflexible policies to disguise their fraudulent practices. I just hope that I can prevent this from happening to other people.
Dan Bloom
Tamarac, Fl.
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Hi,
I think I totaly just got screwed with Priceline.com!!! I put a bid in for $500, gave them all my credit card info, (thinking that I was going to get the best deal possible) I just did this today, for a flight from Phoenix to Buenas Aires, once I hit the purchase button it then took me to a check availability page, the price immediatley jumped froom by bidding price $500 to $ 3,000!!!!!!
I emailed them to cancel the whole thing. I am so freaked out now, I called my cc company and nothing has been posted yet because I did not choose a flight/or airline I wanted to go with. The price range was from 3,800 to 4,500!!!
Any advise or feed back you could give me??
AM going to lose just the bidding offer of $ 500??
HOw does this work?
Signed Scared and pissed off!!
Elisabeth
I just booked with priceline.com a few days ago.As soon as the transaction was finalized,my wife and I decided to extend our stay.As you know,there no way to talk to anyone at priceline so I called the hotel directly.They were glad to extend my stay at the rate that priceline charged me.
priceline charged me $685 for 2 rooms for 3 nights($100 per night & tax per room).The hotel etended my stay for an additional three nights at $69 per night….$31 LESS!
Priceline paid for the rooms with a credit card(I was told)at the street rate of $69 then charged me $100 thru a bid.
The manager of the hotel told me they had stopped dealing with priceline last year and she was surprised that they were able to book the rooms.However Best Western has a central booking phone # that price used and must have given a credit card over the phone just like any customer would.The bottom line is simple.Priceline took me for over $200…AND THERE’S NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT BUT COMPLAIN TO YOU.Needless to say I am angry and will never do business with them again.Infact…I don’t like William Shatner any more.
Priceline needs to be shut down!
I want to report my recent experience with Priceline.com. This was the first time I have ever used this company and it will be the LAST time.
During my recent visit to Orlando (2/22/07 – 3/1/07) I thought I would check out Priceline for a hotel reservation for our family. I bid on an alleged 3-star hotel offered by Priceline. It immediately returned what I know to be a shabby 2-star hotel as I was familiar with the property from past visits. I called immediately upon the “revealing” of the hotel to explain that they returned a 2-star hotel to my 3-star bid and I escalated my complaint to whomever, within the Priceline chain of command, I could find. I received no help, whatsoever and was sent a couple of “form letters” stating that I basically cannot make a complaint or change for any reason and this is clearly stated on their web site. They reiterated their claim that this was truly a 3-star hotel and I would have to “live with it”. I find it hard to believe that they can defraud an unsuspecting customer and then hide behind the generic disclaimer they post on their web site. I offered to accept another property, pay the difference to upgrade to a legitimate 3-star hotel or even accept some sort of credit on a car or other service for this trip or any time in the future. I was told “No Way!” I was even hung up on at one point.
My family did end up going to Orlando and we did stay in this hotel for a single night (Radisson Worldgate) and it was even worse than I had thought. We had to pay extra just to get comfortable beds to sleep in. A complaint of mine was that a 3-star hotel defines itself, in part, as one offering the services of a 3-star hotel, including very comfortable and quality sleep accomodations. It is my opinion that having to pay extra as an upgrade to receive comfortable beds invalidates this 3-star claim for starters. Another feature of a 3-star hotel would be to have around the clock desk personnel. We checked in very early on 2/23 and it took forever to get front desk help. There was nobody around. The room was filthy and dingy and smelled of mildew and cigarette smoke. There were insects in the bathtub, hair in the sink, dirty towels and stained and damaged furniture. I paid extra for their sleep number beds (they apparently don’t come with a Priceline reservation) and found that the mechanism for these beds were loud and squeeked every time we attempted an adjustment. The last straw was when my children awoke with a rash covering their legs. I suspected bed bugs, but can’t confirm this. ( I based this on my insect findings in the bathtub). Also, of their two alleged beatiful pools advertised by Priceline, one was entirely out of commission, there were bugs and leaves and dirt in the pool and it was unswimmable and literally closed. Lastly, the scariest part of this hotel is that it is located in a congested Orlando (Kissimmee) location and the back door lock wasn’t working and I witnessed many “visitors” whom I suspect were not registered guests streaming in and out of the hotel through that door. I was appalled at how blatantly unsafe this was. It wasn’t until after we returned from the trip did I read through the reviews on various web sites regarding this hotel. I discovered that this particular hotel used to be affiliated with the Marriott chain and was listed as a 3-star hotel, but I understand
that the Marriott removed them from the 3-star “classification”.
What bothers me most is that I discovered that Priceline even had a significant number of terrible reviews on it’s own web site, mostly including allegations from many angry people that this hotel wasn’t a 3-star and Priceline shouldn’t advertise it as such, but continues to do so and entice people to bid on it as a 3-star, tricking them into thinking they are bidding on a higher quality place then what they’ll be stuck with! In our case, the hotel staff wasn’t even willing to help us upgrade or move to their sister hotel down the street because they consider Priceline “reservations” to not be at the same customer level as their direct customers and they are instructed to not alter Priceline reservations in any way. Needless to say, in order to salvage our week-long vacation, we had no choice but to find another hotel in which to stay and then worry about battling this out later.
The unfortunate thing is that we didn’t really low-ball Priceline with our bid. I offered a bid that I thought would be a good deal, consistent with a 3-star accomodation.
If there are any class-action suits or groups that I can support with regard to the business practices of Priceline, please let me know. Of course, I can report them to the BBB of my state as well as the AG’s office and I can attempt to argue it with my credit card company, but I feel it is extremely important that I help others and help put an end to this fraudulent company. They really prey on the average and, many times, naive traveler. Had they relied primarily on corporate business, they wouldn’t be around for long, but it’s hard for the average Joe to have any luck with resolving conflicts through them.
I want to be reimbursed by Priceline for the six nights that I did NOT stay at the Radisson Worldgate on the grounds of deceptive business practices.
It was supposed to be an enjoyable weekend, a well deserved girls getaway, now before I continue I want to tell you a little about the people in my party that stayed at the hotel. Five siters, all married all with two or more kids all over thirty. So now that you know we are not a bunch of co ed’s I will start. I reserved Via internet in which they were great, but when i went to check in the lady at the frint desk was so rude, called me a liar within two minutes of arriving. I had made reservations for four people and at the last minute my sister we’ll call her Sue desided to come but she couldnt get a room unitl the next night so I checked in and told her there is five instead of four and she said I was a liar because I reserved only for four and that she didnt have any room available for the following evening so theres no way Sue could have reservations. I then took a deep breath told her she’d made them the day before and then she asked for her name to confirm thet there was indeed someone under that name with reservations. As i left the office she said that she has camera’s every where and that she will watch me every move and that there will be extra charges on my credit card if any more people showed up. I would have told her to keep her damn room but there was no rooms available any where else. It was a dive hotel but we knew we wouldnt be there much and we wasnt. Saturday night came and we got back to our room’s around midnight, at which time I locked my key in the room and had to call the front office. She told me that someone in my room must have a key and that it wasnt her problem and hung up on me, I have never met anyone so rude in my life!! My sister called back and they began arguing, my sister insisting that we paid for the room it’s her job to assist us, to make a long story straight I went down got a key from her husband he said he was going to call the police on us if we called again, and the next morning when we checked out she said that we are NEVER to come back that we were the worst people she has ever had and that we were like a bad smell?? I couldnt speak, I was dumb founded, we were good guests. I have no idea what she would do if I brought my husband and four kids now that’s trouble!! My one siter Amy told her off, Amy being the normally shy backward one let her have it and told her we would write AAA and everyone we could think of, and we left so Never stay at the Castle Inn in San Francisco, the owners are horrible mean people….opposite of customer service… Sincerely-Dawna