We were traveling to South Carolina and need to reserve a hotel room in North Carolina. We called a 800 number obtained through a google search for pet-friendly hotel in Fayetteville NC and a Comfort Inn was selected. The booking agent a third party called HBC Hotel reservations (by the way they are partnered with "Priceline".

When reconciling my Visa statement, I discovered that we were overcharged. The bill from the hotel reflected a rate of $62.92 with taxes included. The Visa bill indicated a charge of $86.86 a difference of $23.94. Which went to HBC Hotlel reservations. Is this the most recent venue for "highway robbery"???

We called the hotel first to see if there was a mistake and they told us that because we booked throught a third party that we must contact the third party to resolve the overcharge. Like reasonable people we did that. The reply from HBC hotel reservations was that the hotel charged us the "wholesale" price and should not have revealed that to the customer.

Long story short, we are out the money and HBC got a nice 13% booking fee. Not bad for a 2 minute call. How's that for stimulating the economy. Are they affiliatied with AIG??

Not a good night sleep as we thought!