Hotels.com Hotels.com GP LLC Wake Up Ripped Off Dallas, Texas

Beware of Hotels.com if you are VAT registered business in the UK. Hotels.com is aggressively advertising on TV and elsewhere here in the UK but what they don't tell you is that they are NOT a booking agency. They charge your card themselves as soon as you book and because they are an American company, you will not get a VAT invoice and be able to claim VAT back.

I purchased 2 UK hotel reservations through the company. One was for 186. This should have been 155 net + 31 vat. Hotels.com sent me an email stating taxes of 31 which would have been correct but then claimed they could not issue an invoice because they don't charge VAT. What a load of crap! They may not charge VAT but I had to pay VAT to them as taxes which I should be able to claim back. The second was for 145. Again the email showed 24 taxes which is basically the VAT. So my business is out of pocket 55 because they are too stupid to understand how VAT works in the UK.

It is totally wrong and unaccepable that they do not tell you when you are booking through them that they are not a UK company and you will not get an invoice from them or from the hotel for your purchase. This is not how we do business here in the UK. This also means there is ZERO point using Hotels.com and you may as well book directly with the hotel or using a normal booking company.

The other thing is they claim to offer the cheapest deals. But this is a total lie because you are not comparing like with like when it comes to prices. All other booking agencies have to include the VAT on their booking prices. So booking through Hotels.com is 20% more expensive to a UK VAT-registered business.