Priceline is the only company I can think of that I refuse to do business with.

I had a similarly terrible experience in which I called the night before to confirm a hotel room in Boston that was paid for in advance. I was told by the hotel that the room was canceled by Priceline! No other rooms were available and Priceline denied any responsibility and made no effort to secure another room or provide a refund. Their customer service was wretched. Everyone shifted responsibility to someone else. No one provided a timely response. And no one had the authority or ability to make the situation right.

If you use Priceline, be prepared to make (pricey) alternative arrangements at the last minute.

On a positive note, I had a bad experience with the JetBlue website last week, and ended up at the airport with tickets booked for the wrong day.

I emailed their support, and instead of arguing with me, they wrote back "That sounds terrible! We hate that happened to you. Here's $100 credit for a future JetBlue flight."

As the author said, instead of being angry, I'm now looking forward to spending money with them again. Good customer service pays for itself.

If a consumer even has a HINT of a real complaint or a valid reason to chargeback, most CC companies will side with them which makes me think Priceline probably made a good case.

Particuarlly AMEX - Merchant's don't like AMEX because they typically charge considerably more to process their cards (up to 2x as much) as with Visa or MC.

Therefore AMEX pushes hard for their consumers to keep them demanding that merchants accept the card in the first place.

I used to love using Priceline because I could always get a slightly better hotel price than Hotwire.

Then they did me wrong similar to the OP and px. I won't do business with them again. Priceline's horrible customer service becomes evident once you try to get someone on the phone.

Remember, this is just a story, from the injured party's point of view. And its all hearsay to us.

and this is why customer service is king... especially when dealing with tech-savvy people.

I feel like that should be a question that the customer service reps should ask: "Do you know how to distribute poor customer service via the internet?"

Use a credit card that you can dispute the charge with.

Nice use of tabs. Although an accordion may have worked better. Or better yet, a timeline thingie showing an increasingly older and angrier William Shatner.