I booked a flight on priceline.com on 3 March 2010. On Easter Sunday my brother-in-law informed me that his flight had been changed so I looked and mine was also. Priceline knew about this and didnt inform me at all.The new flights would not work for me so I called the airlines and was told to contact priceline to make changes to my flights. The first person I talked to got rude with and wanted to charge me a fee to change when it wasnt me fault. So I asked for a supervisor and thats when he even got ruder and made me so mad I had to holler at him and he hungup on me. I called back and told the person who answered what had happened and I wanted a supervisor and she got someone on the line who was suppose to be one and wasnt. Someone called on my cell phone and said he was a supervisor and I asked the person on the other phone if they were a supervisor and they said no after they already told me they were. The person on the other phone did change my flight leaving with no problem but wouldnt change my return flight and kept telling to either take the flight that was already scheduled or change to a flight that left at 6:00 am. I told him neither one worked for me because the earlier flight I would still be out at sea and not at port yet and the later flight put me in at midnight and I needed to be home ealier to get my sons off to college. He kept telling me I had to take the earlier flight and I asked him how am I suppose to swim or are they going to pay for a helicopter from the ship. He immediatly wanted to refund my money instead of taking care of the problem. He told me that it would be 7 days to refund it. Today is the 13 of april and I still dont have it. They started this on 5 April and I heard on their phone that it would be 10 to 14 buisness days then was told by another priceline person that it could take up to 21 business days. This company is very unprofessional and it is all about them you dont even count hey have your money and dont care at all. Dont use priceline.com ever or you are looking for big problems!!!

Priceline is highly deceptive and very unfriendly. I carefully studied their tutorial -- selected a flight and car rental -- kept looking for the opportunity to submit a bid -- as I approached the end of the process I noted that I had 24 hours to cancel and receive a full refund. So I proceeded thinking that if I did not get the chance to submit a bid and ended up with a purchase I could cancel the order. I was not given the opportunity to submit a bid and ended up with a purchase.

I phoned Priceline to reverse the charges. They did so for the flight but refused on the car rental. I spoke with a supervisor who stone-walled me -- "we cannot reverse the car rental charge, but you got a discounted rate;" A LIE -- $48.17/day for a mid-size car versus $27 from Hotline.

I phoned American Express to dispute the charge. I was advised that Priceline played "hardball." The implication -- they receive many complaints, few of which are resolved in favor of the complainers. It would take 60 days to resolve the dispute -- I travel in 10 days. Pricelline is slow to post the charge and the dispute process cannot begin until it is posted. So I have been hosed -- but NEVER AGAIN PRICELINE!!

I booked a hotel room using priceline.com
When placing the order I checked the following requirements/amenities: Free breakfast, Free parking, Free Wi-Fi and Non-smoking.
I used their "name your own price" tab to place that order and gave them a $40 bid which surprisingly got accepted by Courtyard Oakland Downtown located at # 988 Broadway, Oakland, California 94607 USA Phone: 1-510-625-8282
When the price got accepted, and I was revealed the name of the hotel (you cannot review the hotel name until you make the payment), I immediately called the hotel to confirm that they have Free Parking, Free wireless and free breakfast and were a non-smoking facility. The first three requests were not honored and moreover, Parking was $19.85 per night. Since I checked the box "free parking", I assumed I'm not going to be matched with a hotel that has NO free parking in general. I called priceline to cancel, spoke to 3 different agents (Erin, her ID 5260179; Scott, ID 5260278 and one more person whose name I didn't write down) and one supervisor (Ashley, ID 5260317). I explained them that this option was checked at the time of booking, and had I known that there was NO free parking as advertised by priceline.com, I would have booked somewhere else with a better value (via AMEX hotel rewards program). After an hour on the phone with 4 different reps, and my AMEX Gold card membership service contacting priceline.com to help get a refund, they would STILL refuse to issue me a credit for the amount of the parking fee ($19.85) or refund the whole purchase telling me they have a "no refunds" policy. But no refunds should apply to only those purchases that were made in accordance to customer's specifications, i.e. they cannot place someone who chose hotel rating 3 stars and up into a 1 star motel. The way it works is they can only choose the name/location of the hotel, but their match has to be based on my requirements (like number of stars, approximate distance). Same with Free/Paid parking. Scott, ID 5260278 offered to settle the matter by issuing credit of $50 towards my next (very unlikely anyway) purchase. I asked him if it was “up to $50 dollars, or “actually $50”, he confirmed “Yes, ma’am, fifty flat”; and when I agreed to it, he told me the following: "I will send you a link that you will need to click on to redeem your $10 (ten!) dollars. I asked him to repeat the amount again, and he said $10. Then I asked him if he had said "$50" (fifty) just before then and he AGREED he had. He just apologized for the mistake!!! Again a lie. This conversation was recorded by priceline.com per my request, and I would like you to listen to it if you need to.
I told him no, he needed to put $50 dollars on my account towards the next purchase just like he had promised, and he refused to do so. He insisted on forwarding me some link with $10 dollars.
SO the bottom line - Free parking that was promised by priceline.com was NOT offered by the hotel. EVER. The hotel front desk person told me they always charged for parking, and the cheapest fee is $19.85.


In addition - No free breakfast was offered at the hotel as well.
Please, take proper action against this company as they're misleading people everyday! Even in their Terms & Conditions they have an "error based" refund policy which they did not honor.

Thank you,
Viktoriia

Don't ever use them for hotels. Cars maybe. They lie about the star rating. We booked a four star hotel in Vegas and got the Westin that was a dump, dog piss all over, torn carpets, closed pool, etc. I knew the Westin was dump and called, asking just to change hotels; the barely english speaking customer service said screw you. In summary, it ruined our vacation. Advice, use the hotel websides you know of and book directly. Priceline is a disaster. YOUR HAVE BEEN WARNED!

I was a recent first-time customer of Priceline. My recent atrocious experience in booking a hotel room in San Francisco and the subsequent interactions with Priceline’s inept, ineffective and “sorry-excuse” for a customer service team has ensure that I will never use Priceline’s service again. I have chosen to write this message to highlight my issues with Priceline and to warn potential travelers to stay away from Priceline.

My nightmare began when I decided to give Priceline a try based on a recommendation from a friend. I went to the Priceline website on Thursday night (5/21/09) and made a $100-per day bid for a room in 3-star hotel in San Francisco over Memorial Day weekend. Within a minute of submitting my bid, I received a message that my bid was accepted by the Holiday Inn Golden Gateway hotel in downtown San Francisco (by the Civic Center).

On the Saturday morning (5/23/2009) on my way into San Francisco, I decided to give Holiday Inn Golden Gateway a call to check on the hotel room configuration (twin sharing or king/queen size bed). I spoke to the hotel representative who informed that my Priceline confirmation number was invalid and that there were no more rooms available. Confused and worried but still confident that Priceline would be able to straighten this confusion, I called the Priceline customer support number. Spoke to customer reservation specialist named Crystal and she called Holiday Inn Golden Gateway to find out the problem. She got back to me, explaining that she did not know why my confirmed reservation was not valid. She also mentioned that the hotel was overbooked and that Priceline can only give me a refund. I told that this was NOT ACCEPTABLE. I had a CONFIRMED reservation (not a “tentative”, not a “maybe” but a “CONFIRMED” reservation). I told Crystal that I expected a call ba
ck in an hour for a status update because I was on my way into San Francisco and I needed someone from Priceline to be on top of this.

At 12.15 pm, there was still no word from Crystal or any Priceline representative. I decided to call Priceline again. Spoke to another representative, Layla or Leila. I told her that I needed to talk to Crystal as she was helping me. Layla explained that there no way to transfer the call to Crystal and that she would help me instead. I had go through my issue with Layla again and had to wait while she contacted Holiday Inn Golden Gateway (which had already been done by Crystal). After 20-30 minutes on hold, Layla got back to me – giving me the same explanation as Crystal: Priceline does not know what happened to the confirmed reservation, the hotel was overbooked and Priceline can only provide a refund. Again – I explained my position: I am IN SAN FRANCISCO, I do not want a refund, I needed a hotel room. I told her that I do not really care where the fault lies but I am holding Priceline responsible because I received a confirmation number from Priceline. Layla said she w
ould call me back.

Later in the afternoon, Layla called me back that she had tried contacting the Holiday Inn Golden Gateway’s “sister” hotels and can get me a room for $180. I was fine with that as long as Priceline pays the difference ($80). She told me that I needed to pay $180 for the room and that it was not Priceline’s policy to pay for difference in the hotel room charges (even if it was Priceline’s mistake in the first place). I drove the point home that my accepted bid was confirmed for $100 which was what I have been charged and was willing to pay. I also mentioned that this mistake was ultimately Priceline’s fault and since it was Priceline’s responsibility in providing the confirmation, Priceline would need to ensure that I get a 3-star hotel room for $100 (the bid that was accepted by Holiday Inn and confirmed by Priceline). Layla was adamant that there was nothing Priceline can and will do except provide a refund. I told her that I wanted to speak to her supervisor.

She refused – explaining that I would need to go to the Priceline website and escalate my complaints there. After a few choice words (in the heat of the moment), I accepted the refund under protest. There I was – stuck at the Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco at 6.30pm on Memorial Day weekend without a hotel room (despite having a Priceline confirmed reservation at the Holiday Inn Golden Gateway).

I was very lucky to have some good friends in San Jose and drove 40 miles to bunk with them. I wonder what kind of MICKEY MOUSE operation is Priceline running? One that strands their customer in the middle of a foreign city, with a confirmed hotel reservation that is not even fit to be used as toilet paper and utilizing customer support resources from the Philippines who can’t even speak English well or slow enough for Priceline customers to understand (though they seemed very good at saying “Sorry”). Priceline and Holiday Inn were given a chance to go above and beyond to help a customer in need, a customer through no fault of his own was left in a lurch by Priceline and without a room by Holiday Inn BUT BOTH PRICELINE AND HOLIDAY INN FAILED MISERABLY.

I have been wondering if there has been some form of racial profiling from Priceline and Holiday Inn, especially with my Asian last name. How convenient that my confirmed reservation would mysteriously disappear or given away to another guest. I also found it convenient that a more expensive room ($180) would be made available to me while Priceline and Holiday Inn refuse to honor the $100 confirmed reservation. Perhaps the racial profile had Asians at a higher income bracket who could afford more expensive rooms. I sincerely hope not but I shall be looking more into this.

I have emailed the entire Priceline and IHG (parent company that owns Holiday Inn) management team. What I got as a response was another pathentic apology call from Paula (some executive communication resource). Stay clear of Priceline. Rubbish, useless, horrible are key words to decribe this pathetic company.