@mike2660 wrote:
I received a $1021 charge for a hotel reservation from Southwest Hotels Concierge that was cancelled 20 minutes after it was booked. And now they're saying it was never cancelled. Has anyone else experienced this? I've submitted a case to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). If you've had the same experience please add your experience and comments and any information you can provide to the current case profile. Reference the Southwest Hotels Concierge / Rocket Travel / Agoda case on the https://www.ic3.gov/ website.
And beware of ever using Southwest Hotels Concierge or Auto rental links when booking flights. Apparently they are all 3rd party vendors that Southwest claims to have no affiliation with or control over how they conduct business.
Hello-
I'm a regular user of Southwest Hotels/Rocket Miles and have had no major issues with this service. SW Concierge is usually very efficient at resolving issues. It's possible your inquiry to SW Concierge was not articulated correctly to the rep which is why they couldn't initially help you. I would try contacting them again via the email address supplied in your original reservation.
Before emailing them again, I would first confirm whether the $1021 transaction in question still in "pending" or "authorization" status on your credit card statement. If it's still in pending/authorization status, I would give it a full 24 hours to see if it clears which would indicate the transaction was later voided. It's possible this could be the reason why the hotel is not "refunding" any money.
If the transaction is fully posted, in your email, I would document that you attempted to make a reservation at the specified hotel and received a confirmation number but then 20 minutes later received a notice of cancellation. I would supply them with screenshots or PDF's of the cancellation notice you received, reservation confirmation email, and your current credit card Account Activity that documents that your booking payment refund is still outstanding. That way, SW Hotels has record that you are due back your payment.
One side note: I did have one occurrence where I attempted to make a reservation through SW Hotels but the booking failed following payment authorization when the Booking.com engine was not able to communicate directly with the hotel's reservation database to record my booking. The amount of the booking was held as an authorization on my credit card statement for about 24 hours before it was released as the transaction was later voided. I ended up shopping and booking another hotel.
Hope this helps!
