Hotels.com: Travel Booking 4+

EXPEDIA’S OFFSPRING

This is a good app. Of the many app options to make reservations for hotel stays, this is the app that I keep on the forefront. I like the idea of narrowing the availability of hotels down to the area that I’m located in & once the hotels are done for the area the app will begin to venture to the outskirts of your location. Any questions or concerns pertaining to the booking are included on attached pages like room facts, requirements, small secrets, etc. The only thing that’s missing per hotel page is the actual hotel phone number but that’s easy to find through your web browser. Overall I recommend the app to many of my friends. Customer service is good, the agents are patient & give their REAL names, & will stay on the line until all concerns are dealt with; they make sure you don’t hang up unhappy, for the most part. The things that are out of their control like deposit reimbursement, a manager or hotel staff that refuses to honor the booking, a hotel that has overbooked but it doesn’t show on the app, etc. is just that, out of their control. But that’s just 10% vs. 90% of the issues and concerns that they can control or change.

After in update it’s become really painful

We tried to make some adjustments on our hotel reservation. Apparently we can’t do it anymore by ourselves and need to have the help of a “virtual agent”. A simple change of dates turned out to be a little more than what we bargained for. The agent suggested that we cancel and and then rebook the same hotel, which is also impossible without and agent. After 15 minutes of conversation we managed to cancel our booking, only to find out that to make new reservation was not a simple task either. We were charged (twice) but the payment page kept giving us an error message. Despite that, we were charged - twice! We never received an itinerary either. After that we were on Chat with an agent for at least 40 min then we were asked to send an attachment showing payment, which is not possible to do, at least on IOS for iPad. He sent an email to attach photos, and while we were figuring out how, one of the two charges was canceled by the vendor. After another long pause the agent on Chat said there wasn’t anything we could do than to try again in an hour. There is no way to involve a supervisor, and there apparently isn’t a customer service number anymore either . After that I felt like I need a good drink to stay strong and wait for another 7 to 10 business days to see if they cancel the second charge … W…?

Developer Response ,

Hello, thank you for letting us know. We’re so sorry you’re experiencing issues with the latest update. Our tech team is working hard to improve the new experience – please keep an eye out for upcoming improvements and features.

Poor functionality

With the latest update, this app has become almost unusable. “(Message”. Too many requests)” pops up when simply trying to open the app. The main loading screen freezes and stays, forcing me to close the app and restart regularly. “Sorry we could not connect to Hotels servers” And other error messages pop up when trying to complete simple tasks. All of these are happening in areas of good cell service. When issues arise I always check the functionality of other applications to make sure the issue isn’t rooted in a blanketing lack of reception. When I am able to login with my user name, the map function is buggy. Zooming in is almost impossible. Every time my finger leaves the screen it zooms back out. When I can finally select a hotel, and go to confirm payment I’m logged out of my user name and cannot log in via the app. I’m taken to the desktop version and forced to sign in and book there. Which is obviously a pain with the entire function for this application being created in the first place is to make it easier for mobile use on the go. Ive booked somewhere around 500 hotels in the last 10years of my life through this app and for the first time I’m considering, switching to a competing booking application. Not sure what is the hold up or why it has gone downhill in the last year, but it needs work fast.

Developer Response ,

We’re sorry you’re having issues with the latest update. We are working hard to improve the new experience and appreciate the feedback you’ve provided. Please keep an eye out for upcoming improvements and features.