when things go wrong with a reservation...

WorldMark Bend's page on Expedia

Wholesalers do have their place in the travel world. Working through websites such as expedia, booking.com, and hotels.com can be very convenient for consumers. But do you really want to entrust your vacation to an impersonal website for whom customer service means you get to wait on hold until someone in a 800 call center somewhere in the world deigns to pick up your call?

Here's what can happen when disaster strikes. Read this story about Holly Parsons who made her reservation at WorldMark Bend four months before her intended stay, yet was walked due to overbooking by the hotel. Expedia's response? They informed that her reservation was cancelled ... and then refused to refund her money.

Expedia was hiding behind legalese. They argued that they owed no refund to their customer because their T&C's state there will be no refunds in the event of an overbooking "caused by external factors beyond the direct control of Expedia."

Hogwash. Expedia should be ashamed of itself, as if a supercomputer operated by a complex algorithm were able to feel shame. Expedia accepted their client's money in exchange for a specific product. When they were unable to provide that product through no fault of the client, they should have (a) advocated with the hotel on her behalf — e.g., you will not walk our client if you want us to sell our hotel, (b) proactively offered alternatives, and/or (c) promptly refunded any monies they were holding on behalf of their client. (By the way, Holly could have called her credit card company and disputed the charge.)

A personal travel advisor gives you many advantages over an impersonal computerized algorithm, otherwise known as an online travel agency (OTA). We know you. We've booked your past trips, we know with whom you're traveling, we learned your preferences, and we can give personal advice based on our own knowledge of your destination.

Things are less likely to go wrong. Hotels sometimes do overbook and have to walk guests; it's an unfortunate fact of life. Question: whose guests will be walked? Answer: the ones who booked through a wholesaler (to whom the hotel is paying a 20+% commission). Many of our preferred partner hotel relationships include a guarantee that the hotel will never walk one of our clients.

And if things should go wrong, I will be on the phone on your behalf, most likely with a sales manager whom I personally know. Your personal travel advisor provides you with this quality of service, all for the same price and often with Virtuoso amenities.

copyright (c) 2017 by Ourisman Travel LLC. All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell, a Virtuoso® Member. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.