I was away on vacation to NY for the past few days. The purpose of the trip, mainly was to acquire a new passport in face of the current one expiring soon. In any case I used Expedia to search for a place to stay and was directed to a place in Queens area. This was perfect since there is a lot of Pakistani community living in Queens and one can feel at home in such a place. I landed in NY and got to the hotel. To my amazement it was nothing close to the one in the pictures. Small cornered building and even smaller corridors and rooms. It reminded me of out dorms in the medical school. The room was smaller than out apartment bedroom and it was crowded with furniture. Flat screen TV had some channels that did not work and the channel line up was very limited. Towels were old and not very clean. I guess they were washed but still had some stains on them.
The good thing about the hotel was that it was about 10 minute walk from the subway and the walk was safe even in late night as one had to pass through a residential area.
I was shocked when the receptionist placed a bill for me at check out. The bill was for three nights and four day stay and was around 207 dollars. The bill that I had paid through Expedia was 282 dollars. When I told the receptionist that I had already paid the bill she realized her mistake and quickly took the paper away from me and tore it into pieces. In essence Expedia had charged me around 80 extra dollars for the stay. Either this or the hotel is charging higher rates on Expedia. In any case I felt the fraud in the air and this was not nice. Left a bitter taste in my mouth and I am going to write to Expedia about this. Let us see what transpires through this.
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