The idea behind booking a hotel room or other travel through a site like Travelocity is that they’re supposed to, um, actually book the travel that you pay for. They didn’t manage to do that for the hotel room Graham tried to book in Maine. He booked nine weeks ahead, then learned that the reservation was imaginary two weeks before the trip.

We booked a hotel room in Bangor ME through Travelocity, only to find five weeks later – two weeks before the travel date – that Travelocity had failed to book the room. They had charged us $129 for the room and sent out a confirmation. The original hotel is now booked solid and the only other in the area is $230 per night. Travelocity refuses to cover the extra cost incurred by their mistake.

You can use an executive e-mail carpet bomb on Travelocity to get them to see your point of view. Another reader did that a few years ago, with great success.

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Four Reasons Not To Book Your Hotel Room Through A Third-Party Site

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