26

Apr

Upgrade: Travel Better reported on his mistaken Priceline booking. He entered the wrong dates for a hotel reservation that he won, and managed to work with the hotel and Priceline to get them to shift his dates to what he originally wanted.

Just a few days ago I realized a similar boo boo myself, not on Priceline but with a similar prepaid, non-refundable booking at the Novotel Suvarnabhumi Airport hotel. Seems I had entered the exact right day – in the wrong month! I had booked for May instead of April, which is why the nice ladies at door 4 in the arrivals hall didn’t see me on their list of arrivals.

When I walked up to the checkin desk they couldn’t find my reservation either, so I handed them my printed confirmation. A little bit of typing, an embarrassed grin, and they pointed to me where I had booked the very same night for the following month.

Shoot, they could easily have made me eat that one! But I didn’t have a fight at all, the woman just said, “May I have your permission to move the reservation?” Why… yes you may! And a few keystrokes later my non-refundable, non-changeable booking had been changed to cover that very night. I was handed a key to my room and up I went.

It’s a good reminder though to always check and double check the dates you’re entering on a hotel or airline reservation, March could appear as May, June as July, and once you hit purchase you run the risk of losing a chunk of change.

That said, if you do make a mistake it never hurts to ask for forgiveness. And I’ve always had good luck with Expedia bookings, for what it’s worth, and their willingness to grant a “one-time exception” and cancel a booking made within 24 hours (I must have done this a dozen times, and they’ve told me they can do it with most air bookings though notably not with Airtran).

1 Comment

  1. Scholar in Training said,

    This is my worst nightmare, particularly since I’m usually the one that plans family trips and sometimes trips for friends. It’s no biggie if I screw up my own travel; I can deal with that. My big fear is arriving to Europe with the family and realizing we don’t have hotel reservations. :)

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