There may have been some point, between late fall and early winter, when hotels in Oregon realized they could make some serious money on the 2017 solar eclipse.
At that point some hotels began canceling existing reservations, according to some travelers, requesting hundreds of dollars more for the rooms they already booked. Since those complaints have gone public, managers of most of the accused hotels have been silent or else unapologetic on the matter, leaving unresolved conflict as the eclipse draws nearer.
There have been more than a dozen consumer complaints made against Oregon hotels in recent months, filed with the Oregon Department of Justice and posted in online forums, like travel website TripAdvisor. All claim to have booked rooms far in advance for the weekend of the eclipse, only to find their reservations cancelled, and the price for their rooms raised dramatically.
The Department of Justice is looking into the 10 complaints it's received, to see if any of the hotels have violated the Unlawful Trade Practices Act, which prohibits false advertising and deceptive marketing. If a hotel advertised a particular rate at which a consumer booked a room, then changed the terms, that could be considered a violation of the law, department spokeswoman Ellen Klem said.
"A hotel can charge whatever it likes," she said. "It just can't be deceptive in the advertising or the marketing."
It's rare that hotels are accused, she said, and rarer that they're fined. Each violation of the Unlawful Trade Practices Act can result in a fine of $25,000, though the law encourages negotiation over court settlements. But even if hotels have to pay those fines in full, they still could end up making a killing on the eclipse.
The path of the 2017 total solar eclipse across Oregon.
In all, at least nine hotels stand accused of cancelling reservations, from Lincoln City out to Baker City. Most complaints share a similar story: The traveler books a room far in advance for the eclipse at a regular rate, the hotel cancels the reservation near the end of 2016 and says the rate for the room has doubled, tripled or increased to as much as $1,000 per night.
It's not unusual for hotels to change their rates for special events, but the consumers who have complained say they feel punished for planning early, before those rates went up for the eclipse. Many hotels are blaming a glitch in their computer reservation systems, which either didn't update with the new rates, or didn't consider reservations made on third-party booking websites, like Expedia or Hotels.com. Others, however, are offering alternate explanations, or are declining to explain themselves at all.
Two complaints posted on TripAdvisor are aimed at the Stafford Inn in Prineville, both from people who were told that their reservations were canceled because of "new ownership" or "rebranding." After cancelling existing reservations for $160 to $170 per night, the hotel wanted $600 to $635 per night instead, according to the online complaints.
Stafford Inn manager Laurie Romine declined to explain their side of the story.
"The very same thing is going on all over the place," she said.
What very same thing?
"I'm not going to talk to you about it."
When KGW reporters showed up at another hotel that was the subject of multiple complaints, the Liberty Inn in Lincoln City, an employee told them, "everybody is doing it."
The Oregonian/OregonLive contacted nine accused hotels, and got comments from managers at four of them. The Liberty Inn, The Grand Hotel in Salem and the Inn at Otter Crest in Otter Rock did not respond to requests for comment.
An employee who answered the phone at the America's Best Inn in Lincoln City said she knew about the complaints, but hung up abruptly after saying the owner of the hotel was pulling into the parking lot.
At the Super 8 in Baker City, a woman who identified herself as the manager blamed the cancellation on a "system upgrade," and declined to comment further until she received the Department of Justice complaint directly.
A woman who answered the phone at at the R.R. Thompson House, a bed and breakfast in Carlton, declined to give her name, and said the complaint was a misunderstanding. She said the business didn't raise any rates, but asked for guests to book two additional nights to comply with the B&B's terms for weekends and special events - terms she said she didn't think to update more than 10 months in advance of the eclipse.
A woman who identified herself as the front desk manager at the Quality Suites in Keizer, the source of three complaints to the Department of Justice, also declined to give her name, but said that the cancellations there stemmed from a "system error" involving overbooking, and nothing else.
"It's just tough when you deal with anything going through a computer system," she said. "When a glitch happens in the system, we're just the ones that have to pass on the information."
A similar malfunction was blamed for at least one of the four reported cancellations at the Liberty Inn. Carolyn Westerback had booked two rooms there for the eclipse back in August, using Expedia to make the reservation. She had a confirmation number, so she felt confident, but when she called the front desk in March to check in on her reservation, a hotel employee said it didn't exist.
She called Expedia, but a customer service representative told her it was cancelled due to a "pricing upload error," and that they didn't have any solutions. As of the end of March, the booking website is still "actively investigating" the case, according to a company spokesperson. Westerback has since found another place to stay, but she's still upset at how things unfolded.
"I don't care what the hotels charge, I just want them to do it honestly, and not to cancel your reservation," she said. "It's a short-sighted business strategy."
Chad Hardy, manager of Sailor Jack's Oceanfront Inn in Lincoln City, is also pointing a finger at Expedia. He said three reservations came in for the eclipse 16 months in advance - about six months earlier than the hotel usually allows. He said he honored the reservations at the price they were booked, $99 per night, but is looking into Expedia's role in the mix-up.
"I have no idea how that happened," Hardy said. "They shouldn't have been able to book a room at all - period."
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It's not a stretch to guess that local hotels want to capitalize on the coming eclipse, even at the expense of existing reservations. It's a story line that accusers have swiftly latched onto, but does it have merit?
One Oregon hotel owner says it does - though he's quick to condemn the hotels that might have done it.
Court Priday owns the Inn at Cross Keys Station in Madras, as well as four other hotels around the state. He booked every room in his Madras hotel more than three years ago for the 2017 eclipse, after travel agency Continental Capers called up to strike a deal. He had no idea how popular the eclipse would become, he said, so he sold the rooms at a reasonable rate: $165 to $200 a night.
"We're probably going to leave a lot of money on the table," Priday said. "We're still going to do well, but I would say that's pretty jabbing."
But even with a signed contract, and even though Continental Capers paid 20 percent in advance, Priday said he could still break the reservations and re-book the rooms at a much higher rate, making up to $72,000 per night. He won't do that because he honors the agreement over potential profit, he said, but that kind of action wouldn't be out of the ordinary, and might even be within his rights as an Oregon business owner.
The Department of Justice declined to comment on the legality of specific tactics, citing the rarity of this kind of situation, and the department's case-by-case approach. And if the problem is as widespread as it appears to be, if indeed "everybody is doing it," it would make enforcement much more difficult.
"It does appear that we are in this situation to be these enforcers, and we are, but we can't sue the industry, we can't sue every hotel," Klem said.
That might mean the complaints will just boil down to a hard lesson for Oregon travelers: When it comes to hotel reservations, a confirmation number means squat.
--Jamie Hale | jhale@oregonian.com | @HaleJamesB
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