hotels.com Horrible cancellation policy when booking error is made, site does not confirm dates well enough = bad combination Internet

Same complaint as another user on here.  Their site filled in the date field for me i guess with the next available booking.date.  It was friday night and i booked a room for that night but unbeknownst to me it was for sunday not friday.  I called them after i made my booking to stretch my friday stay to saturday using my free night as i had just booked my tenth night.  They didnt catch that i was not booked for friday on the phone and wouldnt let me book my free night until my stay was completed so i went to the hotel.

Got to the hotel and realized the problem and they were sold out all friday and saturday so they could not switch my booking.  They told me hotels.com had to rebook somewhere else to get a refund.  I called hotels.com and notified them of what happened and started looking for a new destination with the agent (an hour after the original booking).  The call got dropped and due to long hold times i gave up on rebooking and just went home instead.

Next day i checked my email and there was no confirmation of the cancellation, so i called them just in case to make sure.  They said they called the hotel and spoke with the supervisor and that the hotel would not allow me to cancel.  The supervisor was there when i had tried to check in so i tried calling him myself.  He was not there and would not be for four hours.  They lied to me.  The hotel told me that the cancellation policy was hotels.com not them and i had to deal with them.

I called back and talked to a supervisor at hotels.com and said how is it that you have a record that i called an hour after the booking, talked ro an agent about finding another hotel and im calling you now and you refuse to kill the booking due to this error.  She just referred me to their cancellation policy on their website and said she could not help me.

Now i am stuck with a $150 hotel room tomorrow on a sunday night, i cant even give this booking away i tried giving it to family,.friends, and coworkers and nobody will take it for free, let alone buy it.  Its obviously an error and they knew about this from an hour after the transaction.

This company needs to :

1) ask you the booking date not fill it in with whatever they are filling it in with.  Or at least fill it in with todays date not some arbitrary other date.

2) make you confirm the date so you know when you are booking for for absolutely sure.  This is an absolute must if they have such a brutal cancellation policy even when the date was obviously an error.

3) have more compassion when a booking error is made.  According to their policy the cancellation window for my booking ended 2.5 hours before i even bought it.  They need to be a bit more flexible, my booking was only $150 its not like i was looking for thousands in reversals at the last minute.