I was looking for a flight + hotel + rental car for a three-day business trip from Washington (DCA) to Ann Arbor (DTW) in mid-January. After more than an hour of having the Priceline site throw away information or produce different flight itineraries and hotels multiple times, I came up with a package that included only nonstop flights albeit at undesirable times. The price was not cheap but it was acceptable.

After I selected everything the Priceline site wanted me to select and entered all my demographic and credit card information, a pop-up box appeared on my screen as shown below:
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Signin……
Important Information About Your Package
We were unable to complete your Vacation Package booking; please contact us at 1-800-658-1496 to speak with a representative who can update you on the status of your request. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Your Priceline Package Request Number: 588-637-941-12

Vacation Help: 1-866-PRICELINE
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When I called the 800-658-1496 number shown, a recording told me that Priceline was very busy and I should get off the line if I wasn’t already in transit or starting a purchased trip within a week. I stayed on the line anyway and the next option was to press 1 to speak to a representative if I had a “Package Request Number.” I entered said number, and then was asked for the telephone number I had used in my attempted booking. If I hadn’t entered the right number, I would have been hosed right there – which would have been just as well, considering what a totally useless and galling experience it was to wait for and then speak to a Priceline representative who gave his name as Lycan.

Priceline had enticed me into wasting this call simply so that a human being could tell me that my attempted reservation had been “rejected.” Lycan speculated that the reason might be that my credit card had been refused (a business Amex???) or that some segment of my trip was unavailable. In any event, he apparently had no access to information on the actual reason for the rejection or the opportunity to complete the transaction on the telephone, which was what I had been expecting.

I asked to speak to a supervisor. Priceline’s system designers are clearly Catch-22 fans: if the website rejects your “request,” you have no booking, and without a booking, the Lycans of the Priceline world aren’t allowed to let you speak to a supervisor.

Why on earth not just tell me to beat it when I click on “submit” the itinerary? Why subject me, and their telephone people (wonder what part of the globe they are in) to a nuisance call where all Priceline wishes to disclose is that they rejected a request for a $1000 transaction, for no discernible reason?

I’ll have to be truly desperate before I ever try to use Priceline again. I’m urging all my relatives, friends and business associates to skip this customer-hostile company and I hope that the anonymous travelers out there also take heed.

Thanks for listening.