Hotline.com Charged me $25 for cancelling a hotel reservation minutes after I made it Internet

I hope that my opinion and experiences will help future travelers. Buyer beware if you book your hotel room at a website(not singling anyone out) instead of through the hotel directly.

You think you are getting a bargain but in some cases you may be paying more and the hotel you are staying at is losing! When you book on these sites if you want a non smoking room 9 times out of 10 you will probably not get a non smoking. The website will give you whatever room type is available but neglect to let you know that. There are also cancellation fees which can be avoided when you book directly at most hotels if you cancel within their hotel specific cancellation policies or in your case incorrect dates.

Any special requests? You can forget about those ie. first floor,poolside etc hotels seldom receive them or the whole request is cut off due to lack of space. The hotel information on these sites may not display accurate information and even pictures of another hotel may be present in place of the real hotel pictures as some seldom update their sites.

Hotels really have no control over some of these sites unless they pay thousands of dollars to become a paid member or in their program (which most hotels cannot afford or would rather spend the money on the hotel itself)

Some "prepaid" reservations through websites are marked up for the consumers and the hotels get reimbursed for much less plus hotels have to pay a $5.00 internet booking fee and or a commission for each reservation received via these sites. The reason why so many hotels are listed on these sights is for our guests we dont want you to have to search through page after page to find the hotel you want in the location you want which also may result as a loss of business to a hotel.

If a hotel is not a paid hotel member or in the program a hotel will not be listed until the last few pages of a city search even if the hotel is the closest to the location you want to be at.
If you do a hotel search on say Cleveland Ohio it will pull up all hotels from much farther and even other states that have paid or are involved with this program and those left behind that are actually in Cleveland or around Cleveland and may be listed last #56 out of 57 because they are not paid or involved with the program.

If you are a guest that has booked through some of these websites please do not take it out on the front desk clerks-we do our best and have no control over this and try to accomidate you as much as we are able to. We average 2-3 guests a day not happy with their internet reservations. If you see a rate offered on the internet call the hotel directly and double check on it and mention what you see on the net without negativity and ask if you can get that deal directly with the hotel. You may find that the hotel(I cannot speak for all) will offer you a better deal or give you the same rate that you saw on the site minus the aggrivation you will experience at checkin when you don't receive what you want due to availability.

I'm hoping hotels will honor rates listed for your hotel on websites and encourage guests to book directly with the hotel! You may lose a little at first but you will see the difference and save more in the end with a happy guest who will return continuously. I have handed several business cards out and asked the guests if they require future accomidations to call me directly and I will offer them a slightly lower rate or match what they see on a website for my hotel! This is working and they are calling the hotel and booking direct. The game needs to end because the only ones losing are the guest and the operator.