Hotels.com and Holiday Inn Sucks

I will never ever use Hotels.com and Holiday Inn again.  This is the second time that they have screwed me.  Each time it was a lie to get me to use their hotels.  This last time took whatever patience that I had. 

I had to go to Washington DC for a meeting and I wanted to be near Union Station.  A quarter mile walk would be OK.  They told me about an Holiday Inn Express 1/4 mile from the station.  Before I booked it, I asked if I could cancel.  "Sure" was the reply.  What they did not tell me was that it was not refundable.  I booked the hotel. 

After some independent research (other than Hotels.com) about the location of the hotel which was a day later, I find that the hotel is 3 miles from the Station.  I called to cancel.  "Sure you can cancel but you will not get a refund."  "We do not do that."

Holiday Inn was not much help either.  They put it back on to Hotels.com. 

Hotels(dot)com lied to me about their cancellation policy and how far the hotel was from Union Station. 

Hotels(dot)com took no responsibility for the lies and my extreme inconvenience.  They put it all on Holiday Inn. 

Holiday Inn conspired in allowing this scam to go on by bringing in unsuspecting customers to a place they do not want to go.  Corporate put the blame on the local franchisee.  Corporate allowed this to happen and takes no responsibility for it happening.  My question to corporate was, "Do you allow your local affiliates to lie to the public through third party vendor with impunity?"  No answer from Corporate.  Corporate treated all my requests like I was a number that they respond to.  "Who is this person who does not travel very much to complain?  We can ignore him and make him jump through our bureaucracy. "

I spoke with Kent Fox, senior corporate relations person, via telephone. He, too, pushed me to his friends in Washington.  When I have people who work for me, I personally handle complaints rather than shift responsibility.  He had to get permission to give me their Senior Manager before he would give me his phone number.  So much for being helpful.  I asked him for his profession email address so that I could send him some information and he gave me the corporate email address (see above.)

Let see how this customer no service works.  Hotels.com lies to me for Holiday Inn.  Hotels.com tell me that it is Holiday Inns problem.  I call Holiday Inn, they tell me it is their friends in Washington problem.  Who will the friends in Washington blame?

If I needed a hotel three miles from Union Station in a offbeat path of DC, this would have been a great hotel.  I didn't but had no choice but to take it at the last minute or pay up or else. 

Hotels.com Sucks.