I recently needed to book a hotel in Chicago last minute. I looked on the internet for quite a while and could not find a room anywhere. I stumbled upon this site and checked it out.
They claim to book hotels at a discounted rate. The catch is that you do not find out the name of the hotel until you book. They do give you the amenities as well as a general location. Given this info it seemed fine. I submitted my reservation and promptly got a confirmation email listing the hotel name. Since I was traveling within 24 hours it advised me to call to find out if my reservation was available. I waited several hours and called that evening. When I called to check a very rude representative told me that I would not know if I had the reservation until check in time the net day! Obviously this would not work as I was flying from NC. I asked to speak to her supervisor and she told me no that he would say the same thing she had so there was no reason. I insisted and she put me on hold. She came back shortly and told me I could not speak to a supervisor. I got off the phone with her and called back (thinking I would get a nicer representative). I got her again and asked for a supervisor. She told me they were an international company and that he had more important things to do than deal with me!. I than expressed my concern that I had booked this hotel with my credit card and did not feel comfortable that they were even a legit company. At this point I knew the hotel was the Wyndham. I aksed her for the phone and fax number of the hotel which she gave me. The phone number went straight to vm for someone at the Wyndham. I then called the front desk at the Wyndham and the woman gave me an alternate fax number to send the request to. I called Lastminutetravel back and once again got the same representative. I gave her the fax number. I shortly received a vm from the Wyndham confirming the fax as well as my reservation. I called the Wyndham back and directly spoke to them and once again received confirmation of my reservation. The next day I arrived at the Wyndham and when I went to check in was notified that tourico had cancelled my reservation that day at 1pm?? The hotel was now booked to capacity! Luckily the front desk had the fax and I had saved my vm from the Wyndham which I played for them. The manager called Tourico and the SAME representative I spoke with told her they had cancelled for non payment but in the same conversation told her my card would not be charged by them. The hotel manager found her rude and non helpful as well. She also found her excuses invalid. I sent tourico an email relaying my awful experience and never heard back from them. The hotel was actually great. She realocated me to a very nice hotel up the street for that night and gave me a much better rate on a room for the following two nights than tourico. I was also given 20% off dinner at their hotel.
She also told me they had only recently started using Tourico and had had similar problems on 3 other occasions. She was going to STOP business with them.
I would NEVER use this website again.

In year 2008 Lastminutetravel.com has a $1 Hotel room contest. They said you you joined their club you would get clues as to when to be online to try to get one of those $1 rooms. So I joined the club. Yet never ever got any sort of clue. I tried to dispute the charge. I never used their services for anything else. American Express sided with the vendor and I had to pay.

One year later, they auto rebill me American Express. I call to talk to them about it, get transferred over and over and over to someone else each time. Obviously noone is going to give a refund. Finally transferred again and was told I had to email [email protected]. So I did that, even though I had already talked to them on the phone. The email came back undeliverable, fatal errors. Its clear noone there has ANY intention of refunding anything! STAY AWAY!!! Use Hotwire, or use Priceline name your own price. It can work fine at times. Or check with hotel direct for any unadvertised specials. Travel is slow and you can often find them for the asking. But please be careful here. Once they get your card number you'd better watch out!