Hotels.com and Expedia.com -any experience booking with them?

[Cardimum]

Hi, I was hoping I could get some advice from seasoned travellers on here.

Hotels.com and Expedia.com have pretty bad reviews on Trustpilot but I am aware that many people usually only post negative experiences. I've seen a good deal for a hotel and am tempted to book but just wanted to check other people's experiences using them -good or bad.

Thanks in advance.

I’ve booked with both in the past with no problems, of course I may have just been lucky!

It's best to book direct if it's the same rate anyway, but I've not had issues with expedia.

Both totally fine. We had a drama with a cancelled flight through Expedia once but there wasn't really much that could have been done about it.

Used both, hotels . Com is my preferred way to book

You can easily do yourself what they offer customers. If you book direct you've got more comeback if there is a problem. With the likes of third party agents (they are not travel agents in the usual sense of the word) if you have a problem you're on your own. Not all their holidays either are ATOL protected.

I’ve used booking.com for at least 10 years, hotels in the UK, Spain, Jersey, Isles of Scilly, France, Hong Kong & Japan. I can honestly say that I’ve never had any problems. But as another poster said you can sometimes get a better rate by booking with a hotel directly, it’s not hard to find their details online.

I tend to source hotels via booking. com and TripAdvisor but then book direct via hotel's own website.

I usually use hotels.com and booking.com. I often find that the hotel's own website is more expensive! And sometimes they don't have the rooms available, maybe booking.com and hotels.com pre-reserve some of them, I'm not sure how that works.

This is the way. If you book with an online travel agent like Hotels or Expedia you might turn up and there's a problem (overbooked) or you can't turn up (cancellation, illness) the hotel can't help you, you'll need to deal direct on their expensive and understaffed helplines when you most need help, they will find any spurious reason not to refund you and if they do your money could take ages to return to your account. Their terms and conditions & websites are complex on purpose. The hotel details and room types & amenities aren't always correct. For 5% savings it's not worth the hassle.
Figure out the locations and names of places you like from Booking or TripAdvisor then go to the hotel websites direct. If you ask nicely they might even price match!

Avoid Expedia like the plague. Fine if everything goes to plan, but when it doesn’t they are a nightmare for sorting things out.

Like booking a room for two adults and two children, with a booking confirmation stating this and the hotel says you can only have three people in a room. Log onto the hotel website and it does very clearly state maximum three to a room. Couldn’t get hold of Expedia for several hours and even then they said it was my mistake (despite having it in black and white on the booking!!!).

NEVER again.

Thank you all for your replies.

I tried to book directly with the hotel but what they quoted me was much higher than the price quoted by Hotels.com. I did send a screenshot and asked if they would price match but they never replied back.

I've double checked Hotel.com reviews on Trustpilot and they appear to fall in 2 categories: no refund given when cancelling booking (my quote says non-refundable anyway) and problems with the hotel not matching description on Hotels.com website (but I think it's best to always double-check hotel reviews on TripAdvisor anyway).

I think I might take a chance with Hotels.com and will report back next month! Thank you wise ones of MN for your advice(!).😊

I've been using Hotels.com for probably ten years now without a single issue ever. And I travel extensively. Only used Expedia once and that trip was canceled for Covid but had no issues getting a refund.

Hi folks just thought I'd give an update now that I've returned from my trip. 😊

Booking with Hotels.com was absolutely fine. The only niggle I had was that after a few days of booking, I contacted the hotel for them to confirm the booking however, they said they had no record of it and to contact Hotels.com who then gave me the 'hotel's reference number' for the confirmation and said the reference number that they had sent me via email was just for Hotels.com usage.

I really think Hotels.com should be issuing the booked hotel's reference number as standard instead of the customer having to chase for it. Other than that I was really pleased. I got 35% off Hotels.com's price via site membership and ended up with a really good price for a 5* all inclusive compared to other sites.

So I would definitely recommend them with the following caveats:

-Research the hotel on TripAdvisor and if the English is bit robotic/misspelt words and reviews look samey, they may be dodgy reviews so give those ones a wide berth. Search reviews by 'food poisoning', 'bed bug' and make a judgement if you feel they are old reviews and the issues seem to have been sorted out in recent years.
-Always confirm the booking directly with the hotel after giving it a few days for the info to load on to their databases. Print the hotel's confirmation just in case.

The other 'risky booking' I did was with Pegasus Airlines as their Trustpilot reviews are frankly dire. Again everything went smoothly but for one small niggle:

You can only check in 24 hours beforehand and there's an option to connect to wi-fi for in-flight entertainment via your device (phone/tablet) which cost around £8 for 3 people. I was supposed to be sent a code for this but was never sent it and it was too late to chase it as the flight was due the next morning.

However, the same option was given once we were sat in the plane so I could have just paid and connected to it on the plane so if you're going to pay for wi-fi on Pegasus don't pre-book and pay for it on the plane. Again, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Pegasus Airlines.

Funnily enough I've always avoided booking with the above companies in the past because of their Trustpilot reviews but I think I'll be a bit more open-minded about well-known companies with similar scores in future 😅.

"The only niggle I had was that after a few days of booking, I contacted the hotel for them to confirm the booking"

There's no need to do this though. That's why you booked through a third party, so that they deal with all of that. You could've used the hotels.com message system if you really wanted to. It's a great site and the fact you get stamps for free stays puts it way above similar booking sites.

I've used both regularly. Expedia is a bit frustrating when something goes wrong, but that said they do pick up the phone and they did suitably compensate me when I had issues. I continue to use both.

Sorry should have read through!

We recently had a total nightmare with Expedia after years of using them without issues.
They had failed to actually book flights that they took our money for and gave us confirmation numbers and emails etc for.
This didn't become clear until we tried to check in because everything showed up on our app.

It took 15 hours on the phone over several evenings to resolve. They admitted it was their responsibility but because flights were now much more expensive no one would authorize them.
All they cared about was working out who was responsible for the failure internally.

This was the USA site but I now wouldn't touch them.

@lakesummer See my post from today with the exact same issue!!!!

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/holidays/4820935-expedia-a-warning

@lakesummer @DibbleDooDah oh no that sounds really stressful 😕. I think they're meant to be Hotels.com sister site and have just as bad reviews on Trustpilot 👀. I won't be using Expedia in future then(!) although I'm ok with Hotels.com for now.

@HomeB most travelling websites advise to confirm directly with the hotel if you book through a third party agent. I've been lucky enough to have travelled extensively and unfortunately have had a few occasions where the hotel have claimed they don't have a record of our booking upon our arrival. This has not only happened as you may expect in developing countries such as Egypt but even in so-called 'upmarket' destinations such as Abu Dhabi and Dubai and when booked with reputable agents such as Travel Republic.

The last thing you want after a lengthy flight with cranky young kids and when your phone battery is low is for the hotel to say you need to contact the agent and for the agent to insist they must have the booking with no one taking accountability. What has happened in the past is that reception staff have appeared sheepish when they miraculously find the booking once I've produced the paperwork showing their colleague's email confirmation. If you look at Hotels.com reviews, this exact situation has happened to other travellers hence the bad reviews.

Imo it's worth a minute of your time writing an email to the hotel for confirmation for peace of mind. I guess I wouldn't be so diligent if I were travelling with adults but it's a different ball game when young kids/toddlers are involved.

I've travelled extensively and use hotels.com a lot. What I'm saying is that you were the one who caused the confusion, your room was there but instead of using the correct process (the messaging service via the app or website) they were unable to locate you.

And I wouldn't touch travel republic with someone else's barge pole. Reputable my arse, they're awful.

We’ve used Hotels.com for many years, both for work and holidays, and not had any issues. I rarely find that the hotel is cheaper on its own website, but always check. I often put a request on the booking form so that the hotel comes back to me to confirm. Also made very good use of the free nights.

For flights we always book direct with the airline, one of DH’s colleagues used Expedia for work flights and it was no end of trouble getting refunds when flights were cancelled.

I've used Expedia a lot over the years. Never had any issues. But they're not the cheapest I find.

I use Booking.com and find them excellent!

Booking .com were awful during the first round of covid cancellations. I have used them once since but try not to