Trustworthy!. Review on Hotels

I have been using Hotels.com on and off for the past 5 years or so. I haven't had to cancel a reservation only once or twice. But unfortunately after my most recent experience I will not be using them again. I booked a room through Hotels.com that had a cancellation policy of no fees if canceled within 24 hours of the check in date. I canceled 3 months before the check in date using the Hotels.com online cancellation tool. I received a message saying the reservation was cancelled and thought it was done.

However on the day that I would have checked in to the hotel I received a charge for one night. I contacted Hotels.com and thought that they would just get it credited back to my account since I clearly had the cancellation confirmation email and everything. The response that I received back from them was that they tried contacting the hotel but couldn't get through so I would have to deal with the hotel directly myself. What? I couldn't believe this. I booked it and cancelled it through Hotels.com but yet they want me to take care of the errant charge on my own.

I tried calling the hotel directly but the number I was given by Hotel.com was someone's personal number that didn't speak any English and had nothing to do with the hotel. So now I am left with having to dispute the charge with my credit card company. Needless to say I will not be using Hotels.com again. Interestingly enough I was looking for another forum here on TripAdvisor to post this information and there was one recently in the Support Forum(which was an incorrect place to post) but with several people's similar experiences to mine. So I am not the only one that this has happened to in the last few months. I am going to use Booking.com instead for all my reservations from now on. Haven't had any issues with them and I have used them several times.