Expedia & Hotels Run By Morons

[GoodScout]

I'm one of the few B&Bs in the area that list with Hotels/Expedia/Etc through a GDS, and up until this weekend I've felt pretty smart about it. But given one headache with one booking, I'm now convinced it's not worth the headaches.
The short version: Had a guest who booked 3 nights thru one of these sites and then had to shift his trip one day. I was OK with this even though it was a holiday week, and told him to call expedia and have them make the change. Simple enough, right?
He's called them twice, one time for an hour. I've been on the phone with them twice for a total of two hours over the past two days. They can't get their $h!t together and just make the change. And as a result, now I have a room booked for a day the guest doesn't want, but I can't free it up on my Rezo system because the GDS has it locked in. So for being a good guy, I'm eating a $299 room night I could have sold.
Here's what I should have done, and will now do in the future, and strongly suggest anyone else in a similar situation do, even though it technically may violate your agreements:
1) I will ALWAYS tell the guest to just cancel the reservation with Expedia/Hotels/Etc.
2) GDS will call to ask about the cancellation fee. I'll tell them I'll waive it. Why? Because,
3) I will have told the guest to rebook ON MY WEBSITE after the cancellation and then I'll NOT pay Hotels their 25% percent commission
Before, I was willing to play by the rules. Now, screw them. They can treat their guests like crap, but I don't have to be a party to it. My guests mean more to me than they do to them apparently.
/EndRant

 

[Arks]

Before, I was willing to play by the rules.

Do you think there's much penalty for NOT playing by the rules? Would they go to the trouble to enforce some contract or something?
I think I have a similar arrangement with booking dot com

 

[Generic]

Why didn't you call Expedia Partner support to get it fixed immediately?

 

[Morticia]

We've been around the block with these systems a couple of times and you're right, fixing it yourself is sometimes the best way.
But. Why is your online booking system blocked from taking a new reservation for the now-free night? I don't understand that part. Why can't you book that room directly thru your own site?
You can't book it thru GDS, I get that because they've screwed it up, but why can't you book that room thru your own site and make up the money? Even tho you're pretty much even right now anyway, right?

 

[GoodScout]

We've been around the block with these systems a couple of times and you're right, fixing it yourself is sometimes the best way.
But. Why is your online booking system blocked from taking a new reservation for the now-free night? I don't understand that part. Why can't you book that room directly thru your own site?
You can't book it thru GDS, I get that because they've screwed it up, but why can't you book that room thru your own site and make up the money? Even tho you're pretty much even right now anyway, right?.

When you get a GDS booking on RezoGT it prevents you from making any changes to it. An incredibly annoying feature.

 

[GoodScout]

Why didn't you call Expedia Partner support to get it fixed immediately?.

Tried. They had to contact customer, which apparently they handed off to their guest customer service team, then try and contact me again. Main problem seems to be that the CS people who deal with guests and the CS team that deal with innkeepers don't communicate. There's not a single-stop person who can fix it.

 

[Generic]

Why didn't you call Expedia Partner support to get it fixed immediately?.

Tried. They had to contact customer, which apparently they handed off to their guest customer service team, then try and contact me again. Main problem seems to be that the CS people who deal with guests and the CS team that deal with innkeepers don't communicate. There's not a single-stop person who can fix it.
.

Expedia Partner support can call the customer. This is absolutely silly.
But if you need a work around. Make a fake room, not available for online booking. Move the customer to the room. Block off the room days needed in the original room.

 

[souslechene]

If they do not do their job properly, there is no reason to pay the commission. Do not feel bad for going direct in these cases.
Otherwise, play by the rules.
No problems with Booking.com. Excellent service to both customer and owner.
Couldn't you just increase the allotment of that room to make it available again ?

 

[Joey Camb]

I can move any booking anywhere on my PMS - wouldn't matter what they had booked. -