Sunday, December 19, 2010

Protect Yourself When Making Room Reservations

Hi Friends,

We do a bit of traveling and most of our experiences have been really exciting and fun. We have had some rooms that were not really the greatest, but for the most part we have been happy in the end. Recently we had an experience with the Creekside Inn in Cambria that we thought we would share and maybe save you some heartache and money.

We had made reservations to stay for a couple nights at the Creekside Inn in Cambria to attend a family reunion. The little inn seemed like a nice place and they let us bring our Chihuahua's. The reservation process was easy enough, had to call them and go through the steps ... address, phone and all that. Credit card to hold the room.

The problem we had with the Creekside Inn in Cambria came when we needed to cancell our reservation because we were not going to be able to make the trip. Reservation had to be cancelled by phone, okay no problem. Then we looked at our account for the card used for the reservation. Bingo a charge for one room night by the Creekside Inn in Cambria. Called the inn and was told that we cancelled within the required (48 hour) limit. Not true so I asked them to remove the charge. Nope they said ... they would not return the money and we were free to dispute the charge, but we wouldn't win.

I called our Bank and they agreed to look into it. They received just a summary of what the Creekside Inn in Cambria had told me on the phone and said they could not reverse the charge. The explanation they gave was that the Creekside Inn in Cambria had provided enough evidence that the charge was justified. They also told us that when you make a reservation and give your card number to hold the room, that constitutes authorization to charge the card. After that you can not stop payment on the charge even if you are charged like we were.

The Creekside Inn in Cambria falsely charged our card based on false information given to our bank and us. We just wanted you to know this before you book any rooms for this Inn. The lady that cancelled our reservations was very rude and they wrongly took money from us. If you are travelling to Cambria, CA, stay someplace else. And when you give your credit card info out for a room reservation, understand that this might happen to you.

Our lesson learned...

We will probably avoid the small Mom and Pop Inns and stay at major brand Hotels and such to avoid the problems we had here. Mom and Pop can be sweet and nice, but can really be greedy in order to make a buck. Avoid the Creekside Inn in Cambria.

Happy Trails,

Don & Brenda

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