Never use Travelocity.

First the short version:

- They sold me a hotel room.
- They ensured me it was available and charged my credit card.
- The hotel then told me they've been sold out for months.
- Travelocity told me no rooms were available.
- No resolution.

Now the really long-winded version:
(Just stop reading now, and save yourself some time and never use Travelocity.)

I'm going to the annual Coachella festival in Indio, California at the end of April. A bunch of high school buddies and me will meet in Burbank and drive over to the Palm Desert area where we will go to our hotel and party down for a few nights. And then we'll go and see lots of fun bands like Bauhaus, New Order, Weezer, Wilco, Gang of Four, Fantomas, blah blah blah.

We divvied up the chores to get this thing done and I (stupidly) volunteered to get the hotel room. Everything around there that was affordable was sold out. I looked on Yahoo! Travel (which says Travelocity on it) and their site said they could book these cheaper hotels that were sold out on other sites. I booked it as fast as I could. Then I received my e-mail confirmation:

First line of e-mail:
YOUR TRIP TO INDIAN WELLS IS CONFIRMED

Page down:
YOUR TRIP HAS NOT BEEN CONFIRMED WITH THE HOTEL

Now how in the hell can that happen? Shouldn't a travel site not list a hotel that isn't available? Isn't that the whole reason you put in the dates you want to book there in the first place? Call me crazy.

So I call Yahoo! Travel and get somebody from halfway across the planet I'm sure, and she is of no help at all and basically tells me I should cancel my reservation. Great. Thanks for your help. I go to Travelocity's site and see that the room is still listed as available. Not wanting to make the same mistake, I pick up the phone and call Travelocity and tell the lady what happened to me at Yahoo! Travel and I saw that these rooms are still available. She took a look and ensured me that the rooms were available. I told her to book the rooms for me, and she did. She sent me an e-mail receipt with confirmation not like the earlier one, which contradicted itself.

I let it be for a month. Am I dumb or what? Then I decide to call the hotel and make sure that my reservation is there. The lady at the hotel gets all pissed at me and tells me I don't have any reservation, and she's been sold out since November. Great. So I call Travelocity and the fellow halfway across the globe tells me matter-of-factly that the reservation isn't confirmed.

This is the part where anyone who knows me can envision me completely blowing my lid and letting the motherfucker have it. He basically told me to cancel my reservation and book another one. Right. This is the part where anyone who knows me can envision me completely blowing my lid and letting the motherfucker have it. I asked for a manager. He told me that the managers were all busy and I'd have to hold for some time. This is the part where anyone who knows me can envision me completely blowing my lid and letting the motherfucker have it.

Anyways, there is still no resolution to this point and I'll probably be reserving a much more expensive hotel room much further away from the venue. All I can say is: Never use Travelocity.