Recently, a service offering "hotel room upgrades through negotiation" on secondhand trading platforms has attracted attention. An investigation by CCTV reporters revealed that numerous hotel booking and upgrade application services are appearing on social media platforms, with sellers claiming to offer "50-80% discounts" and "employee rates," and that the hotels are mostly well-known international or domestic chain hotels.

While low-priced hotel booking services may seem like excellent value, they often conceal consumer risks. In the event of a dispute or if the seller becomes unreachable, consumers frequently incur high costs in seeking redress. How are hotel booking services provided by sellers legally classified? What kind of industry chain operates behind them?

Purchase low-priced ordering service

However, the seller's account was suspended.

In June of this year, Ms. Li from Shanxi purchased a hotel booking service from a seller on a second-hand trading platform, booking a double room at a hotel in Hong Kong for two nights. Hoping to save money through the seller, she ultimately missed out on a low-priced room.

Ms. Li: The agent I found didn't book the room for us immediately, so when I asked him again the next day, he said the room was sold out and he couldn't book it. He wasted 10 hours, and I had to rebook it myself, which cost me an extra 1,000 yuan to finally get the room booked.

Ms. Li explained that she booked the hotel through the seller for 1835 yuan, while the original price from the hotel would have been over 2200 yuan. Afterwards, the buyer and seller gave conflicting accounts, leading to a consumer dispute, which the platform has yet to resolve effectively. Although the seller refunded her in full, Ms. Li was not satisfied and argued that the seller should bear the loss.

Ms. Cao reported that on December 17th last year, she booked a resort hotel in Lijiang, Yunnan through a seller, paying a total of 4040 yuan, and planned to check in a month later. Unexpectedly, the seller's booking failed.

When Ms. Cao tried to contact the seller again, she discovered that the seller's account had been blocked by the platform, and the platform was unable to help her recover the money. Left with no other option, Ms. Cao reported the incident to the police.

Both Ms. Li and Ms. Cao stated that they had previously placed hotel booking orders through secondhand trading platforms multiple times without any problems and had indeed saved money.

A search on a secondhand platform revealed numerous sellers offering "hotel booking services," all involving well-known international or domestic hotel chains. Some sellers claimed the bookings were free, primarily for membership maintenance or points accumulation. Others offered a service fee of 2-3 yuan. Still others offered "negotiating room upgrades," charging based on the number of nights negotiated, ranging from 49.9 to 88 yuan per night.

A reporter, posing as a consumer, contacted several branded hotels. All of them stated that booking through secondhand platforms could not guarantee room upgrades or successful check-in. For the sake of personal information and transaction security, they recommended ordering through official channels.

Consumer disputes are emerging one after another

Low-price ordering services may harbor hidden risks.

An industry insider told reporters that most domestic hotels, driven by customer acquisition considerations, currently tacitly condone such "coupon-grabbing" behavior and lack effective control measures.

The Putuo District People's Procuratorate of Shanghai once handled a similar case. Zhong Wenting, assistant prosecutor of the Putuo District People's Procuratorate, explained that in this case, the transaction between the seller, Cui, and the buyer was outside the platform's supervision. The seller collected hotel room fees and deposits totaling over 30,000 yuan via WeChat.

Zhong Wenting: He cheated two people. He promised to book five nights of hotel accommodation for one buyer, but only booked one night; for the other buyer's order, he didn't book a single night. There's no explicit legal prohibition against booking hotels on behalf of others. If his actions infringe on the rights of others and violate relevant laws, he will certainly bear corresponding responsibility.

Tang Jiansheng, deputy secretary-general of the Shanghai Consumer Rights Protection Commission, believes that the essence of booking on behalf of others is to profit from the price difference between hotel members and ordinary individual guests, which is a person-to-person transaction.

In recent years, consumer disputes arising from ordering through third parties have emerged one after another.

Hu Gang, Deputy Secretary-General of the Legal Working Committee of the Internet Society of China and a member of the legal team of the China Consumers Association, stated that this behavior is suspected of constituting a breach of contract and carries the risk of illegality and even crime. Sellers are also prone to false advertising or fraudulent activities, potentially leading to fraud charges. If this type of order-taking service is carried out on a large scale and for a long period, it will disrupt the normal market order. Therefore, this type of order-taking service requires comprehensive regulation and precise measures. Illegal and criminal activities involving infringement of consumers' legitimate rights and interests, as well as fraud and false advertising, should be resolutely cracked down upon. (Source: China National Radio)