ATLANTA — Concerns are building that hotels may be trying to take advantage of guests coming to Atlanta for the Super Bowl - to make more than a few extra bucks.
Two viewers contacted 11Alive in the last 24 hours with one claiming his hotel was trying to jack up the price after he made reservations months ago. The other said his hotel tried to switch him to a less desirable location because it had overbooked.
Tens of thousands of people are coming to Atlanta for Super Bowl LIII and outside of needing a ticket, a place to stay is the next thing on the checklist. But what if you find out that the reservation you booked is no longer available - or the price has doubled or quadrupled after you got a confirmation?
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Atlanta room rates are expected to triple during Super Bowl weekend according to new data from analysts from STR. A regular room that would be $90 is going for $270 - and others are going for a lot more than that.
But here's where things get dicey: One excited Patriots fan, Mike Jackman, said he booked two rooms eight months ago for $523. Friday, he said he got an email that his card didn't go through and would now have to pay the new rate of $4,800 for the same period.
"What I'm worried about is there's many other people in this situation and that's not a good thing," he said. "I love Atlanta. It's one of my favorite cities and that's not a good image that a business would be gouging people like that."
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Another visitor, Michael, who is working as a Super Bowl stagehand, also contacted 11Alive. He said he was booted from his original hotel after making a reservation. He said he was told the entire hotel was already booked by a corporation.
11Alive reached out to the hotels but aren't naming them because we want to give them a chance to respond. However, under one website's terms and conditions, it says the "information may contain technical inaccuracies and typographical errors, including but not limited to inaccuracies related to pricing or availability" and that the hotel "reserves the right to make the changes, corrections, cancellations and/or improvements ... at any time without notice, including after confirmation of a transaction."
Now, in the first case, Jackman said he booked another hotel and said even if the original comes back around, he's out of hundreds of dollars for canceling the room once it switched.