Reservations.com Class Action Says Customers Hit with Undisclosed Fees

Hotel booking website Reservations.com has been surprising customers with unexpected fees, according to an Illinois plaintiff.

Plaintiff Michael Marko, bringing this lawsuit on behalf of his industrial equipment repair business Mike’s Inc., says that when he booked three hotel rooms through the defendant’s website Reservations.com, he was hit with an undisclosed fee of $14.99 per room.

He claims Reservations.com failed to disclose this fee at any point in the reservations process or in any of their marketing materials. He says his first awareness of this booking fee was when he saw it on his credit card statement.

At the same time, Marko claims, the defendant’s promotions assure the consumer they will save big money by booking through Reservations.com.

Reservations.com is a website run by defendant Benjamin & Brothers LLC. The company says its website has been used to book more than 2 million rooms at thousands of hotels worldwide.

Marko also complains he was unable to cancel a reservation made through Reservations.com. The website instructs users to see their confirmation email and the hotel’s own cancellation policy for instructions on how to cancel. But Marko says Reservations.com never sent them a confirmation email. And when he tried to cancel directly with the hotel, the hotel allegedly said the reservation would have to be cancelled through Reservations.com.

Several other customers of Reservations.com have been dissatisfied enough to post overwhelmingly negative reviews in a few different online forums, according to this Reservations.com class action lawsuit. Marko quotes several of these reviews, many of which express a desire to give the company a review lower than one or zero stars.

Several reviewers say they intended to book their rooms directly with the hotel and did not realize they were booking through a third-party service. Some say they booked a room using a website that looked like the hotel website but was actually Reservations.com – then ended up paying the $14.99 fee merely for having their booking routed through Reservations.com.

Reviewer after reviewer say they were never given notice of the $14.99 Reservations.com fee until after they had been billed for it.

Marko and Mike’s Inc. propose to represent two nationwide plaintiff Classes. One Class would consist of all U.S. persons and entities who booked a reservation through Reservations.com, either online or over the phone, and were charged a $14.99 booking fee. The second Class includes those who booked through Reservations.com and were unable to cancel their reservation.

The plaintiffs are asking the court to order the defendants to return all the fees at issue to the plaintiffs and the proposed Class. They also seek awards of actual, statutory and punitive damages, reimbursement of court costs and attorney fees, and pre-judgment interest at the maximum rate allowed by law.

Marko and Mike’s Inc. are represented by attorneys Jason K. Whittemore of Wagner McLaughlin PA and by Francis “Casey” Flynn, Jr. of The Law Office of Francis J. Flynn, Jr.

The Reservations.com Hidden Fees Class Action Lawsuit is Marko and Mike’s Inc. v. Benjamin & Brothers LLC, Case No. 6:17-cv-01725, in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

UPDATE: The Reservations.com Hidden Fees Class Action Lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed on June 27, 2018.  Top Class Actions will let our viewers know if a new complaint is filed.