How to get out of Priceline.com Reservations!!!!!!
Posted by Christina Schmidt on April 28, 2008
Seeing as I worked customer service for Priceline, here is your guide to getting out of the reservations, so long as the date of the reservation hasn’t passed:
Name Your Own Price Reservations (where PCLN chooses your itinerary):
- Airline: If you don’t like your flight times, and just booked the flight, just claim you entered in the wrong name, and you’ll only be charged $7.45/ticket, and they’ll cancel it (so long as the airline is NOT Jet Blue, Spirit, ExpressJet, or Air Tran). If it’s been more than a day after you booked the reservation, you can claim miscarriage, or missing child. No documentation is required, and they’ll cancel it for you!
- Hotel: If you call and say someone died, just say a family member died, and find a funeral home in the phone book and give the name and phone # of the funeral home, they’ll claim “upon verification, your reservation will be cancelled”, but they don’t verify any information, you’ll get a full refund.
- Rental Car: Claim that you meant to book a one way reservation (picking up and dropping off in different locations) and they’ll issue full refund
Retail Reservations (where you choose your itinerary):
- Airline: Unfortunately, if it’s been more than a day since you booked the reservation, your best bet is to call the airline (go by the first 3#’s of your ticket # to determine which to call should you have an itinerary with multiple airlines), because they are most likely the merchant, and PCLN will charge a service fee/ticket.
- Hotel: If the reservation is prepaid, claim you entered the wrong date, you’ll only be charged $25/room to cancel. (With these reservations where you choose your hotel, you’ll always have a fee of at least $25 to cancel, no matter how far away your reservation is, but some cancellation policies aren’t cancellable at all)
- Rental Car: These reservations are not prepaid, you should be able to cancel no problem
Samuel Koh said
This is an awesome guide! Does the same work for Priceline in Singapore or Hongkong?
And for the US Priceline – does it apply for international flights you wish to cancel?
lol great stuff! Thanks!
Church Car Wash and Yard Sale This Saturday in Pegram said
I honestly don’t know about Singapore and HongKong, but it should apply to the int’l flights, so long as Priceline is the merchant, which means it’s a NYOP ticket, for the most part. If, on your billing statement, it shows up as the airline charged your card, you’d have to deal directly with them.
jeanie001 said
Too bad that I made it saturday and tried a few days later to try your idea for putting in the wrong name. I should have read in detail, now they claim that I entered the name in wrong and they will not do anything. I called in quite a few times trying to get someone to refund it. Any ideas?? Thanks for the tips also!!
Your best option would be to call in and say you had a miscarriage (sounds awful, I know)…last time I checked, they won’t need any verification, if it’s a retail ticket (you picked your flight times), you should be able to make changes w/ the airline, but it won’t be refundable, but in most cases, they can place the ticket on hold for you to use @ a later date. Good Luck!
pedalpowersf said
Christina, you rock!
Your tip for canceling a car rental reservation worked perfectly. The priceline agent was very polite and processed the refund after briefly checking with her supervisor. She then gave me instructions on how to set up a one way car rental on the priceline site.
Can I send somehow send you a portion of the refund as a gesture of appreciation?
May good fortune be yours!