It’s rare I use third party booking travel sites (Expedia, Priceline, etc.) because I’ve been “burned” too many times.  Clearly, the stove wasn’t hot enough because I’m on fire again.

Here’s the scoop:  We (my husband, daughter and I) had an upcoming trip planned to Chicago the 1^st week of June to attend a graduation.  Naturally, I did the planning and booking for our hotel and rental car; this was back in January.  Turns out, after 5 months, I cannot go on the trip after all, but my husband and daughter are still going as planned.

Delta Airlines cancelled my free airline ticket (booked with SkyMiles) with NO questions asked, and returned the unused SkyMiles to my account instantly. (yay, Delta!)

Disclosure: There are affiliate links below, which means if you purchase I receive small compensation to keep this blog running.  

Grrr…this is where it gets ugly.

I called the hotel to modify the FULLY PAID reservation into my husband’s name.  Nope.  No-go.  This was absolutely “not allowed”per hotel policy because the reservation was “booked 3^rd party”.  The front desk gal that answered the phone advised me to call Priceline directly for any further assistance.  Priceline immediately advised that no changes, modifications or refunds were available. They were not budging.  No success there, so I moved onto calling the car rental company.

Nope. No-go. Absolutely NOT.  After explaining the situation to the rental car company, the agent promptly informed me “there isn’t a car rental company in the industry that will modify the name of an existing, paid reservation” (clearly, she did not know she was talking to a seasoned travel blogger that knew that was not accurate information). Nonetheless, she was not going to assist in any way and informed me that there was nothing they could do.

Our FULLY PAID hotel and rental car reservations are in my name, booked through Priceline.  Despite being married and having the same last name, neither the hotel, rental car company, or Priceline would allow me to transfer or modify the reservations into my husband’s name, nor will they refund us.

Note:  Reservations cannot have 2 names through Priceline, so there was no way for me to be proactive and put my husband’s name on the reservations in addition to my name at the time of booking; trust that I would always do this as a safe-fail if it were allowed.

To set the record straight I’m no travelin’ newbie, so I knew a refundable cancellation was unlikely….but to NOT change the name of the reservation to my husband just seems like poor customer service and a way to get an additional paid booking.

The pre-paid rental car reservation was a complete loss.  My husband will have to initiate an entirely new reservation in his own name.  And, this will officially be the last time I pre-pay for a rental car through a 3^rd party site.

As far as the hotel, I wasn’t backing down or losing additional hundreds of dollars.  Google has never let me down, nor have other travel bloggers so I went on a hunt for “how to get a refund on non-refundable reservations” and, BOOM! I found many blog posts about this exact debacle!  It was on.  I learned that if I called Priceline back and requested THEY call the hotel for “permission” to give a refund they would.  So, I called Priceline, used my calm zen voice, told them my situation AGAIN, then I specifically asked the customer service agent to call the hotel directly for permission to cancel and refund my reservation.  IT WORKED!  (don’t even try to make sense of the fact they would prefer to refund our money rather than keep our money and simply change the first name on the reservation to my husband…..head meet desk).

Long story short, through a round-a-bout, discombobulated way Priceline did cancel and refund our hotel, but we had to take the car rental loss completely.

Now, my husband has to search for a last minute, new hotel and rental car for travel during one of busiest weeks in Chicago.

Lesson: DON’T USE 3^RD PARTY BOOKING SITES UNLESS YOU HAVE LIMITLESS MONEY, OR YOUR RESERVATIONS ARE RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER AND YOU CAN REST ASSURED YOUR TRAVEL PLANS ARE NOT CHANGING!

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Happy Traveling!

-Serena