Hotels.com Scam alert 2022

Even if you are the wisest and most traveled person in the world the scammers will still attack and dent your armour.

I use Hotels.com a lot, I can get better prices in other places by searching endlessly but generally, the prices are good and the rewards are very useful for me.

Hotels.com is part of the huge Expedia empire and as such does offer some protection this came in very useful on our trip to the amazing Lamu island just off the Kenyan coats

we booked three nights in the Cabanas Lamu this place is how your best dreams imagine paradise to be.

As is normal with me I am doing one million things at once and missed some of the red flags.

after booking, I got a friendly email direct from the hotel to say there was a price increase of 34 euros this did pique my interest because why euros? then another email asking to please login to our hotel portal and you can specify collection from the airport and other special requests.

I did login and request collecting from the docks at the airport, this island has no cars or roads, even the airport has no roads only one fire engine and the aircraft parks on the dirt outside the terminal.

It asked for passport details etc so we could check in early, I didn’t give them or pay the extra and told them I will do it at the hotel when I arrive.

We get off the little Fokker 50 at the airport and are greeted by very friendly local people, we walk down the jetty and still no one is here to greet us from the hotel, another hotel’s representative knows the manager and rings her to ask where are they. An Australian woman says they have no arrivals today and then looks and says there are no bookings.. oh fuck what’s going on, she says here captain of the boat has gone home and that it is a 40 min speed boat journey to her hotel on the remote part of the island so best if we book in somewhere close and sort it out the next day, and they would like cash at the hotel.

We book quickly into another hotel I had already looked at and got a speed boat across the bay to Shela town, the Kijani hotel is amazing, so genuine on a beach that can’t be photographed because to do so would never capture what it is about.

so what’s the scam ?

we sit down for some food and I am angry and intrigued what has happened,The Aussie women manager of Cabanus Lamu says it’s not their problem and to call Hotels.com, so I begin an hour long call, we are in an amazing hotel in an amazing location so I am not worried about where we are going to stay but would like a refund at the minimum and just as important know what happened, I have used Hotels.com for many years and this is the first issue I have had with them.

Hotels.com call the number they have for the hotel, this is what I had already done, I had spoke with a woman on a call that was very poor and gave up, all subsequent calls got unanswered.

Hotels.com came to the same fate.

I then gave Hotels.com the mobile number of what I knew to 100% be the manager of Cabanus Lamu, after a chat they came back and said I have a booking on Hotels.com, and I have paid, but 100% the hotel knows nothing about it, Hotels.com refunded me 100% instantly, and instantly there and then I knew using Hotels.com was worth it, even without the bonus nights and having all my hotels managed in one place it now made sense to use them, this was no cheap hotel. I Whatsapped the manager and told her that her Hotels.com account has been hacked and the hotels.com details were directed to a scammer site, she said they have no Hotels.com account but do use Expedia.

so it looks like the scammers look for expensive hotels and then see what platforms they are not on and then make fake accounts copying all the genuine details and even have an automated booking system so they look real to Hotels.com

the prices are good, slightly better than anywhere else, not stupid low but just look good, Hotels.com offer gold members 10% discounts so this looked genuine, however, Cabanas don’t discount so their prices are the same everywhere else, but we don’t know this, and anyway I would book through Hotels.com for the pure convenience of it. The scammers got paid by Hotels.com, I don’t think they will get their money back.

The portal the scammers asked me to use asked for passport and other details ( not given) this is an extra layer of scamming, if I had paid the surcharge direct, then they would have my credit card details and passport details! good going scammers.

how can you spot this, well on other sites and if you are an infrequent user probably you cannot spot it, but be suspicious and don’t use the external portals away from the booking websites main website they ask you to use, Hotels.com have their own messaging system use that but that is also not perfect. If it’s a big important trip, message the hotel direct from their known website and confirm the booking, Hotels.com booking always go to the hotel as Expedia.com

This is the phone number and email the scammers used on hotels.com +105555555 which is nothing but on the emails from them they used +254 733 280 000, this number can be googled and comes up as various other hotels and on scam watch websites 🙁

the email used is bookings@hotelonline.co which also flashes up on scam watch sites

Interestingly I had never noticed this on the hotel.com messages

So I am sure they know about this type of scam, the refund was no issue for them so financially we are good, we could easily have had a nightmare with nowhere to say and we have been disappointed by not staying in our #1 choice of hotel even if the Kijani is a genuine gem that we may not have found otherwise.

There is no issue with Cabanas Lamu I am sure they are just as pissed at the scam as we are.

The lesson from this is, make sure that if you get unusual correspondence asking you to fill in details on other sites let your spiderman tingly senses guide you, go directly to the hotel, Not hotels.com because they don’t know it’s a scam either until you tell them. Get the hotels details from a known good source do not click links in emails even messages through hotels.com can be fake websites.

last note. 24 hours after the scam was alerted to Hotels.com, it is still live on their website!!

sleep tight my traveling friends.