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The hotel’s own website ought to be the cheapest place to book. One contract clause makes sure it never is. (Illustration by Dustin Elliott)
🏨 The same price everywhere you look — One of our readers checked a hotel’s website against Expedia and found the same rate in both places. A contract clause almost nobody has read put it there — and a new federal lawsuit says it’s raising your room rate even when you book direct. Our featured commentary article makes the case for ending it.
On Backchannel, Lynn Brown moved, updated every card she owns, and still watched her old address turn up on a checkout screen.
Confidentially: A lawsuit says Wayfair kept telling shoppers a sale was ending, then extended it the next morning, and Cyber Monday is three weeks out. I’ll have all the details over the wall. — Christopher Elliott
FEATURED ARTICLE
Let’s end the gotcha clause that’s making your hotel room more expensive
Hilary Azzaretti found a deal on a hotel’s website, then double-checked the price on Expedia. The rate was the same, and the booking site let her cancel up to two days before arrival. She booked with the middleman, and the hotel lost a guest it had every reason to want. Why can’t a hotel undercut the site that takes its commission?
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📌 Here’s what you missed this week
Catch up on the latest stories from the Elliott Report
Secret tunnels, breathing lamps: How Capella created a sustainable resort in Sydney
Anthony Metcalfe runs a 192-room hotel inside Sydney’s restored 1915 Department of Education building, where a shared tunnel between two heritage landmarks let the developer avoid a new excavation and the turndown gift comes from a female-owned business on Groote Eylandt. Seven years of restoration produced a luxury hotel that hands guests a QR code pointing them to somebody else’s coffee shop.
Samsung sent my broken projector back and called the case completed. Is there a way out?
William Hunt bought a $365 Samsung Freestyle projector that stopped working eight months into its one-year warranty. The authorized repair center found the unit defective and couldn’t source the parts, so Samsung closed the ticket, mailed the broken projector back and marked the service completed. Two months of calls, emails and an executive complaint produced nothing until he sent a demand letter citing the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act.
American Airlines promised me a $650 refund for bumping me. Why did it only give me a $250 credit?
Nicholle Acciarri was denied boarding on an oversold flight from New York to Cleveland, and a gate agent promised her a $650 check or reimbursement for a rental car. She rented the car, drove home and received a $250 flight credit that expires in a year. American Airlines now says an equipment downgrade disqualifies her, even after one supervisor found records showing she was eligible for $353.
UPS broke my flowerpots and now it’s stonewalling my refund. Can the A-Team help?
Linda Takvorian paid $377 to have two ceramic planters packed, insured and shipped from Massachusetts to California. One arrived shattered. A UPS Store employee promised a full refund within eight weeks, then was fired for giving bad information, leaving the store to offer $100 because the claim window had closed.
How useless extras are driving up your airfare
Phil Lockwood tracked every piece of garbage his family of five generated on a San Francisco to Manila flight and finished the trip with 17 plastic cups, five half-eaten sandwiches and five amenity kits, four of them torn open and abandoned. Research from the in-flight technology company Moment puts the share of passengers who prefer their own devices at 97%, and the seatback screens nobody asked for still add weight, fuel cost and a control box where your bag used to go.
Where’s the line between a consumer complaint — and crazy?
One reader filed more than 100 submissions on our help form in about a week, naming Apple, Chase, Equifax, Uber, Coca-Cola and FedEx, and asked for $8.4 million nearly every time. The form takes 30 to 50 requests a day, and sorting a frustrated customer from someone in distress turns out to be harder than three decades in this work would suggest.
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💬 What you’re saying on Backchannel
She told the credit card. She told the wallet. Nobody told the checkout.
Lynn Brown moved, updated the address on every credit card she owns, and checked her Apple Wallet before paying at a merchant’s site. The confirmation came back with her new billing address and her old shipping address, the merchant refused to change it and FedEx wanted $25.50 to reroute the package. Who owns a checkout mistake when three companies touched the order? Here’s our team’s advice on Backchannel.
OUR UNDERWRITER
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CONFIDENTIALLY
Information and insights for Elliott Confidential PRO subscribers
The sale ended at midnight. Then it ended again.
Wayfair’s “ends tonight” emails land it in court. Here’s how to spot a fake deadline before Cyber Monday
If an email swore the sale ended at midnight and the same offer turned up in your inbox the next morning, a federal court in Seattle is now looking at that.
If you’ve ever rushed to buy something because an email swore the sale ended at midnight, then found the same offer in your inbox the next morning, you weren’t imagining it.
A lawsuit against Wayfair claims the online furniture retailer made a habit of it.
The rest of this exclusive report is for members only.
Behind this line: whether a fake deadline breaks the law, and the Washington ruling that put a $500 price on every misleading subject line. Plus, the five things to do before Nov. 30.
A Members Only story like this runs in every issue, along with Backchannel and the vault. Annual membership is 35% off through this link, today only. (And we really mean it.)
The case, Luark v. Wayfair, is now in federal court in Seattle. A judge consolidated it in September with a nearly identical suit, Carrigan v. Wayfair.
The plaintiffs say Wayfair sent emails warning that sales were about to end, then extended those same sales. Around Cyber Monday last year, according to the complaint, a message saying Cyber Monday ended that night was followed the next day by one announcing Cyber Monday had been extended. None of the allegations have been proven.