William Farrer thought he’d booked two rooms at the Hyatt Regency in New Orleans directly through the hotel’s website. Minutes later, he discovered he’d actually paid $3,228 to a third-party booking site — and the reservation was suddenly “nonrefundable.”
What followed was a seven-month battle with Getaroom, Bank of America, and a maze of customer service dead-ends. Finally, he turned to my advocacy team for help.
“Can you help me get a refund?” he asked.
This case raises a few important questions for travelers:
- Can companies change refund policies after charging you?
- Do credit card chargebacks work for nonrefundable hotel rooms?
- What’s wrong with these third-party travel websites?
But let’s start with what went wrong.
“I acted within minutes”
Farrer had heard the horror stories about booking through a third-party travel site, so he wanted to book his room directly with the Hyatt Regency New Orleans. And he thought he was on the Hyatt site when he made his reservation.
“I went online and typed ‘New Orleans Hyatt Regency,” he told me. “I clicked on the first link, believing it was the Hyatt Regency in New Orleans.”
It wasn’t.
Still, before he finished his reservation, he double-checked the terms, which stated that the room was “refundable for a limited period.”
Seconds after the transaction, he received an email from a company called Getaroom: His payment was processed in full, and the booking was now “nonrefundable.”
Huh?
Getaroom is a subsidiary of Priceline — most definitely not a direct booking. Farrer had apparently done a search for the hotel and landed on a site that appeared to be the Hyatt website.
I tried to duplicate the steps Farrer took to land on the Getaroom site, but I couldn’t. Of course, 7 months is an eternity online, and search engine rankings can shift. It’s not inconceivable that Getaroom was the first search result for the Hyatt Regency New Orleans 7 months ago.
That’s a problem, and it’s a reminder to never, ever trust a search engine like Google. Always double-check the search result and make sure it’s a trusted site. It’s incredibly easy to get a third-party site to rank highly on a search engine, whether it’s legitimate or scammy.
Farrer immediately called to cancel.
“I acted within minutes,” he says.
Little known fact: Most online agencies have a grace period of a few minutes to correct even a nonrefundable booking.
Getaroom’s reps confirmed the cancellation but refused a refund, citing a “hotel policy” he’d never agreed to. So he filed a credit card dispute under the Fair Credit Billing Act. But Bank of America denied his credit card dispute three times, siding with Getaroom’s claim.
And that’s when he turned to us for help.
Can companies change refund policies after charging you?
No — if they advertise a refundable rate, they’re bound by it. This is something established in common law but specifically addressed in the Federal Trade Commission’s new Click to Cancel rule. It requires clear disclosure of terms before your purchase and it prohibits companies from failing to “clearly and conspicuously” disclose material terms before a transaction.
Farrer’s confirmation screen promised refundability, but Getaroom’s follow-up email flipped the script.
I might speculate that Getaroom did disclose the nonrefundability of the room, but it’s doubtful. There’s no screen shot, unfortunately. But also, Farrer is a retired attorney and is accustomed to fine print. I believe he read the terms correctly, even if he trusted Google a little too much.
During the dispute, Getaroom claimed its partners set its refund policies. Farrer disagrees. He says the platform is legally responsible for accurate advertising. If they say “refundable,” they can’t blame the hotel later. I’m consumer advocate, not a lawyer, and I agree with his assessment.
This wouldn’t have been a problem if Farrer had taken a screenshot of the reservation. I realize that’s a hassle, but it would have made this case a slam-dunk. So if there’s one takeaway from this case, it’s to screenshot everything.
Still, why didn’t Bank of America side with Farrer?
Do credit card chargebacks work for nonrefundable hotel rooms?
In theory, yes. The Fair Credit Billing Act lets you dispute charges for undelivered services. But as Farrer learned, banks often rubber-stamp corporate responses.
Bank of America rejected his dispute because Getaroom claimed the transaction was nonrefundable — despite Farrer’s contradictory assertion.
Banks side with merchants about 50 percent of the time in travel disputes. The merchant’s response is key to who wins or loses the dispute. Getaroom would have had to send screenshots showing the refundability terms to get Bank of America to side with them. Priceline keeps that information, and if it can show that it sent that information to Farrer, it will likely prevail every time.
On the other hand — and not to harp on Farrer — if he had proof of refundability to show Bank of America, then he probably would have won the dispute.
Even so, the transaction was confusing. Getaroom sent Farrer an initial email saying that the reservation was refundable. (“Each room in this reservation is refundable for a limited time.”) But then it sent him another email saying the room was nonrefundable.
That was enough for our team to get involved.
What’s wrong with these third-party travel websites?
Farrer’s booking actually involved four entities, according to his paperwork: Getaroom, Priceline, Reservations.com, and Hyatt.
“I still don’t know who actually had my money,” he says.
This fragmentation allows travel companies to play “hot potato” with refund requests, bouncing you between companies when you want your money back. It’s one of many things that are problematic with this type of booking.
Third-party websites can also do other tricky things, like impose their own set of refund policies on top of the refund policies of a hotel, or vice versa. Then they can claim the room is nonrefundable and send rigged documentation to a bank that it finally gives up and denies the chargeback.
That’s why it’s always a good idea to book directly on the hotel website.
“These third party hotel room vendors try very hard to hide who they really are and use ‘noreply’ email addresses to respond to complaints or issues, leaving consumers in the dark about what to do next,” Farrer says.
Farrer’s experience has inspired me to look into the “noreply” email problem. It’s something our team sees every day when we try to advocate for consumers and it’s something I’ve experienced myself. Why do businesses bother sending you a message when you can’t even reply? (Stay tuned for my report.)
Good news: We found your money!
The answer to Farrer’s question about who has his money is simple. He paid Getaroom, so Getaroom has it. Or Priceline, since technically it’s a subsidiary of Getaroom. Then again, maybe the hotel already has it?
Oh, this is confusing.
Our advocate, Dwayne Coward, reached out to Priceline to help us untangle this one.
Priceline responded by refunding the entire $3,228 to Farrer’s Bank of America credit card. Why did it wait so long? Because he filed a credit card dispute, it told him.
“That’s complete BS,” Farrer told me. “But I’m elated that the third-party vendor has now agreed to a full refund and we can put this nightmare behind us.”
Farrer believes Priceline’s position is completely without merit given the language in its “reservation confirmation” which clearly states each room is refundable.
“It’s just awful Priceline put me through all the time and trouble these last 7 months trying to get it and then my bank to honor my dispute since Priceline would not refund my prepaid deposit,” he added. “I’m pretty sure most consumers would not be as tenacious. I will also be closing my Bank of America credit card account after many years since the bank was more interested in supporting Priceline than me.”
