Reservation-Desk.com
Complaint 349235 Details

We were sitting in the parking lot of the Embassy Suites near the Portland, OR airport and wanted to check the cost and availability at the Hilton Garden Inn just down the road. Looking on my wife's cell phone we found the this website:

Garden Inn Portland Airport - Stay at Hilton Portland Airport.ReservationCounter.com/Hilton

When you click on this website it appears to be a Hilton Site with the Garden Inn address and a phone number. When you call this number and a person answers saying "Reservation Counter" you expect that you are talking to the Hotel you were looking at on the website. As we proceeded to make the reservation I even remarked to the person I was speaking with that we were a few minutes away and would be right down to the hotel. There was never any mention that we were not talking to a legitimate Hilton representative.

We made a two night reservation and I believe the base rate to be $98.00 per night. They claim to have the recording of the call and that the representative told me the total stay would be $257.10. I have asked for transcript of the call.

We checked right in at the Garden Inn thinking nothing of it that they had all the information. Should have thought something amiss as they wanted a card for incidentals but didn't. We spent two night there and returned home to Bellingham. The next day I saw a charge from the Hilton for $213.52 and a charge from Online Café for $257.10.

I called the Garden Inn directly and they quickly saw that the room had been paid for by a third party and reversed my charges. I had a few email exchanges with the Garden Inn manager and she was very helpful and interested in my situation. She contacted her sales manager and they both made calls to the number I called and were both led to believed they were talking to a Hilton Rep. I don't know what or if there is anything Hilton can do to get these misleading sites removed.

I have disputed the charge on my Capital One account and at present it has been reversed. I have been having some email exchanges with someone named Sarah at: [email protected]. At one point she told me the cost even with their fee was cheaper than I could have booked the room. But since the hotel mistakenly charged me for the room I knew that not to be true and in the next email she told me the hotel gives them the rates for the rooms they can sell and they have no control over the prices they are given. Why would I have knowingly paid a premium through them along with not getting my Honors points.

I am willing to submit copies of the emails to you should you wish to see them.

This is not a large amount of money but it must add up to huge dollars for them. I saw the same type website when I looked to book the Seattle Double Tree a couple weeks ago. I would like to be involved in putting a stop to this unscrupulous activity.

Thanks,

Gene Bogner