Welp. Friday the 13th got one last whack at my psyche. Yesterday, on the 13th, I reserved a room for K at the Houston airport for tonight just in case her flight was cancelled due to the air traffic control debacle. 24 hours ago that seemed like a good bet.
Turns out that her flight(s) on Southwest left today after all, albeit late. I made the reservation with the understanding that it was cancellable – it said so right on the room rate.
Long story short, I got scammed. I was in a hurry, on my phone, and didn’t notice the I was reserving the room on a 3rd party site, not Hilton. The 3rd party (a spinoff of Priceline) turned out to be “guestreservations.com”, and they intentionally scrape (copy) the room data, rates, and pictures off of Hilton’s website to make it look like you’re reserving direct. The URL I was working with was “https://www.guestreservations.com/hilton-garden-inn-houston-hobby-airport“, and it looked exactly like Hilton’s site. Especially on a phone.
So when I tried to cancel, I found that Hilton couldn’t/wouldn’t cancel it, and the guestreservations crooks had hidden a terms of service, different than Hilton’s, which did not allow me to cancel. 100% scam, crooked, misleading. I was pretty upset when I learned that I’m gonna get charged $175 by these crooks for a room we don’t need. I’ll challenge the charge via Chase, but who knows. What a mess.
This is pure consumer fraud, and it’s irritating as hell. Lessons learned: NEVER do business with Priceline or guestreservations or their ilk. Don’t make a reservation in a hurry, on your phone. And on F13, expect the worst.