Travel Troubleshooter: Refund dispute with Priceline

Question: I booked a vacation package for three people to Hawaii through Priceline. The package cost $3,208 and included flight, hotel, and car. After making the reservation, I noticed a typographical error on one of the passengers' names and, seeing that I couldn't change this online, called a customer representative.

I was told the ticket would be canceled and asked whether I preferred to re-create the whole order or just part of it. I responded that it would probably be better for me to just re-create the whole order online, which I did.

This time, the total came to $3,213.

I now see that Priceline refunded only the cost of the flights ($1,531). After I called customer service and complained, the company said I had been told I was getting a refund only for the flights.

If I had known this, I obviously would not have gone ahead and rebooked the flights with the hotel and car as well. I asked Priceline if its calls were recorded and was told that they were, but that this particular recording was not available to me at that time.

- Ian Dennis,
San Francisco
Answer: This could have been avoided if Priceline had just played back the call, in which it allegedly says that you were getting a refund only for the airline tickets. Wouldn't it be great if a corporation automatically e-mailed you an MP3 file of your conversation after you hung up? Maybe there ought to be a law.

But I digress. This is why you want to create a paper trail when you're dealing with any company. Priceline couldn't deny something that a representative wrote, so if you could show them an e-mail in which they agreed to refund the entire package (and, by the way, $3,208 for a Hawaii package is a great deal), you'd have a much stronger case.

When a company digs its heels in, your options are limited. You can dispute the charges on your credit card or appeal to someone at the executive level. But you had exhausted at least one of those choices (the appeal), and disputing the charge was complicated because you still wanted to use the rest of the package.

I asked Priceline to look into this, and it sent me the same answer: No. It said you were told that only airfare would be refunded. I found this disappointing. I also concluded that Priceline had reviewed its phone conversation and determined everything happened exactly the way it said it had happened.

But a few hours later, I received a call from Priceline. It had reviewed its records on your incident and now agreed with you. Priceline refunded your entire package.