Plaintiffs Seek Cert. in Expedia Hotel Booking Class Action Lawsuit

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

Two hotels have filed a motion to certify a class action lawsuit accusing Expedia Inc., Hotels.com GP LLC and Orbitz LLC of engaging in a “classic bait and switch marketing scheme” by redirecting consumers to book reservations at hotels that are unaffiliated with the travel-booking sites, but which provide the companies with a cut of the booking.

Last week, plaintiff hotels Buckeye Tree Lodge and Sequoia Village Inn LLC and 2020 O Street Corporation d/b/a The Mansion On O Street filed in California federal court a memorandum in support of its motion for Class certification.

They seek certification of a proposed Class that includes: “All hotels, lodges, inns, and motels located in the United States whose names appeared on Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Orbitz.com, or Travelocity.com (1) with whom Defendants did not have a booking agreement, or (2) with whom Defendants had a booking agreement to sell a specified number of rooms and whose names continued to appear on Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Orbitz.com, or Travelocity.com even after Defendants had sold the specified number of rooms, since August 17, 2012.”

The plaintiffs allege that the hotel booking sites make advertising bids for hotels on search engines, such as Google. When the hotel’s website is displayed in the search results, the defendants’ advertisements are often displayed above the website and purportedly show that rooms are available at the hotel, even when they have no rooms available to book.

“Expedia uses these advertisements as ‘bait’ to lure consumers away from the hotel’s website and onto the Websites, to try to switch the consumer to a hotel where Expedia has availability and can earn a commission from the booking,” the plaintiffs say in their motion seeking Class certification.

When an internet user clicks on the ad, Expedia displays other hotels in the area that have availability, “with alerts that create a sense of urgency to book as soon as possible,” the plaintiffs allege.

They claim that Expedia and the other defendants engage in false advertising by failing to disclose that they are not affiliated with certain hotels, such as the plaintiffs’ hotels, and that they do not actually have any information about the hotels’ vacancies. “And, Expedia never advises consumers that they should call the hotel directly for accurate vacancy information,” the plaintiffs say.

Buckeye Tree Lodge, a California hotel, filed the Expedia class action lawsuit in August 2016, later joining with The Mansion on O Street as plaintiffs. They filed an amended consolidated Expedia class action lawsuit in July, seeking to represent a nationwide Class and a California subclass.

A hearing has been scheduled for May 17, 2018.

The hotels are represented by James R. Patterson, Allison H. Goddard and Jacquelyn E. Quinn of Patterson Law Group APC; Pierce Gore of Pratt & Associates; Charles J. LaDuca; Joel Davidow and Alexandra C. Warren of Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca LLP; and Tony Richa of Richa Law Group PC.

The Expedia False Advertising Class Action Lawsuit is Buckeye Tree Lodge and Sequoia Village Inn LLC, et al. v. Expedia Inc., et al., Case No. 3:16-cv-04721, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

UPDATE: On March 13, 2019, a federal judge partially certified a Class of hotel businesses that were allegedly harmed by Expedia redirecting customers to hotels that provide a cut of the booking to the travel reservation giant.