Pooling Experience with Travelocity "Top Secret" Hotels About a month ago I booked a room in Reno for Thursday night with Travelocity under their advertised “Top Secret” Hotel Program. This is Travelocity’s venture into opaque hotels, allowing them to compete somewhat with Priceline and Hotwire. The Hotel I booked was described as a 4 star property with good customer ratings. Price was good, a resort fee (disclosed in advance and customary in Reno) was charged at check in. Hotel was the Peppermill. I asked the hotel desk agent about the “Secret” program, he said he was unaware of it. He assigned me a room in the Montego Bay section which he described as 2.5 star with parking near as in a motel. I told him that the room was described by Travelocity as 4 star. He said that higher rated rooms were available in other sections but for an additional fee. I had a busy schedule, no time to quibble, the room was adequate but was not as described. I’ve done “Secret” rooms for years in Europe thru LastMinute.com, that experience has always been positive and accurately rated. Travelocity later emailed me the usual evaluation, which I returned to them with very low ratings. I told them that I would delay posting my experience to this forum to give them an opportunity to research and respond. No response received. In my comments to Travelocity I reminded them that the “opaque” customer has to trust the ratings given by Travelocity. In this case I received a lower rated room than was advertised by Travelocity at the time of sale, a “bait and switch” tactic. So my initial impression of the Travelocity “Top Secret” Hotel Program is poor due to inaccuracy in ratings. Hoping to collect the experiences of others here so we can see if Travelocity learns how to run an opaque hotel program with the necessary accuracy.
