Good, Bad Cyber-Trips

I enjoyed reading your “Cyber-Novice’s Search for Deals” article (May 30). Although I consider myself well experienced at using the Web, I found writer Susan Spano’s experiences educational and enlightening.

My wife works for American Airlines, so needless to say, we travel whenever we can. For this reason, I truly enjoy reading the Travel section!

We just returned from a week in Paris and a week in Interlaken, Switzerland. We often stay at middle-range or even budget hotels, since we would rather spend the money on dinners, etc.

STEVEN JONES

Seal Beach

I want to share with you an experience that we just had. My husband and I were talking about comparing prices for a trip that we were planning to Boston in July. We went to Priceline.com, https://www.priceline.com, and picked dates and entered a price. Later we got an e-mail that said they could not search for us unless we entered a credit card number. And then we got another e-mail that led me to believe we had 24 hours to accept a deal they had found for us. We weren’t ready to buy tickets and did not respond. We were just comparison shopping, we thought.

The next day, I read your article, looked at the ads in the Los Angeles Times, called Cheap Tickets and booked a flight for myself. My husband already had earned a ticket through our credit card.

Much to our surprise, a few days later, there was a letter from Priceline.com with two tickets to Boston charged to our credit card. We called Priceline.com and told them we had not intended to buy tickets. They were not willing to do anything. Now we have two tickets at a cost of $828 that we cannot use.

I feel that we were duped into thinking we were only looking and were sold something without our knowledge. I can’t believe that we are the first persons this has happened to.

Looking back, I wish we had read the screens closely. We went back to the site and did read carefully. It says that if they find tickets, they will be immediately charged to your credit card.

BONNIE ELSTEN

Long Beach