"It's terrible." Ms. Wang, from Jinan, Shandong Province, could not help complaining to reporters about her experience of traveling to Weihai City, Shandong Province and staying in a hotel recently. Ms. Wang was attracted by the promotional images of a certain hotel, which featured "dark wooden furniture in the living room," "soft carpet on the floor," and "monochrome patterned ceramic tiles in the bathroom," after comparing many hotels on the Tongcheng XX mini program. She successfully booked the hotel. But when she checked in, she realized that the originally spacious and bright room was actually very small, and the facilities were outdated. The bathroom door and curtains were even broken. According to a survey conducted by reporters, many consumers have had similar experiences as Ms. Wang. During peak travel seasons and holidays, they book hotels through platforms and encounter problems such as "mismatched" hotel accommodations, "non cancellable" hotel bookings, and significant price increases. The reporter found through a third-party consumer service platform that there were over 180000 complaints related to "hotels". Some consumers lamented that it is "too difficult" to book hotels through platforms during peak tourist seasons and holidays and stay in comfortable hotels. Some consumers also have doubts: in the above situation, when merchants and platforms shift the blame to each other, who will protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers? In this regard, interviewed experts pointed out that the various chaos encountered by consumers when booking hotels through the platform is related to the insufficient review of merchant qualifications by the platform, and the mutual shirking of responsibilities between merchants and the platform does not protect consumer rights. Regulatory authorities can hold talks with platforms to urge them to strengthen the qualification review of merchants who have settled in, and consciously fulfill their primary responsibility of protecting consumer rights and interests. The picture shows that the hotel is luxurious but actually rudimentary. Ms. Wang said that her family is planning to take a train from Jinan to Weihai for tourism. Considering the convenience of check-in, they booked a hotel near Weihai Railway Station through the Tongcheng XX mini program. The online promotional interface shows that this hotel is located in a luxurious building, with clean public areas and a luxurious and spacious lobby. The hotel was renovated only a few years ago, with carpeted rooms and wooden furniture, and the decoration is clean and warm. However, based on the address navigation, Ms. Wang and her family found that the hotel was only on two floors of a building and did not have the luxurious lobby shown in the picture. The tables and chairs at the hotel reception desk were very old, and a corner of the table was missing. Upon checking in and entering the room, Ms. Wang noticed that there were significant differences between the facilities inside and the pictures, text, and other descriptions advertised on the platform: the room was not large, and as soon as the door was opened, the smell of the sewer could be heard, and the carpet also had a musty smell. The door lock of the bathroom is broken, the toilet seat is particularly narrow, and it faces the glass window. The curtains cannot be drawn. The contrast between the actual situation and the propaganda is too great Ms. Wang said that the daily price of such a hotel room is 597 yuan, and she booked it for 2 days. Feeling that it was not worth it, she immediately negotiated with the hotel front desk to check out and get a refund. The front desk said, "I have already checked in and cannot cancel. After further negotiations, the front desk stated that the hotel has not yet received the booked room rate and asked Ms. Wang to "find the platform instead of us". Ms. Wang called Tongcheng XX, and the platform customer service initially stated that "the same day's room fee needs to be deducted and refunded for one day's room fee". After she described in detail how inconsistent the actual situation of the hotel was with the platform's promotion and expressed her intention to file a complaint, the customer service representative suggested that she could compensate for a certain amount of mileage benefits. After Ms. Wang refused, the customer service replied, "We need to inform the high-level customer service and reply within 4 hours." However, Ms. Wang has been waiting for another reply. Helpless, Ms. Wang and her family left the hotel on their own and moved back to another hotel. When preparing to return to Jinan, the platform displayed that the order had ended and the same day's room fee could not be refunded. So Ms. Wang called the hotline of the market supervision department where the platform is located to file a complaint. Afterwards, the platform proactively contacted her and refunded half a day's room fee for that day. Ms. Fan from Shaoxing, Zhejiang has also encountered a similar experience. Ms. Fan booked a hotel near Hangzhou High speed Railway Station through another platform, with a room rate of 276 yuan per day. After checking in, it was discovered that the room had poor hygiene conditions and multiple items were unusable, which did not match the hotel description on the platform. Therefore, a refund was requested upon check-out. The hotel front desk stated that the cleaning staff have finished work and are unable to clean the room, and refused to check out and refund. After repeated communication with Ms. Fan, the hotel agreed to cancel the order online, but a fee of 80 yuan will be charged as she has already checked in. In this regard, Wang Yegang, an associate professor at the Law School of Central University of Finance and Economics, believes that the actual situation of the hotel is seriously inconsistent with the pictures, text descriptions, and other information provided on the platform in advance, and such "wrong goods" constitute a breach of contract. Consumers have the right to request a refund. In the case of consumer refund, the main party responsible for the refund obligation should be the hotel operator. However, if the room rate is still stored on the platform, after the contract is terminated, the platform should refund the room rate to the consumer. The arbitrary setting of non cancellable terms is considered an invalid format, and many consumers have been criticized by the cancellation terms of their hotel reservations. During this year's May Day holiday, Ms. Ying from Xi'an, Shaanxi originally planned to travel to Chongqing. On April 29th, she booked a homestay in the area. The next day, due to a change in her itinerary, she returned the homestay on the platform and was charged 50% of the room fee as a penalty. Why do I have to pay a penalty for booking and canceling within 24 hours, and there are still 3 days left until check-in, and the amount is so high Ms. Ying was very confused about this. After communicating with customer service, they told her that the platform's order rules state that free cancellation is required within 30 minutes of placing an order, and 50% of the room fee will be charged if the order exceeds 30 minutes. Ms. Ying said that she later logged into the platform to open the order and looked carefully before seeing the words "free cancellation within 30 minutes", and the payment interface did not specify how to charge for refunds after 30 minutes. In the end, under the coordination of a third-party consumer service platform, Ms. Ying accepted the plan of deducting 10% of the room fee and demanded back 40% of the room fee beyond the so-called "rules". The reporter found that different platforms have different conditions for canceling reservations. Some hotels can cancel reservations before 5:00 pm on the day of check-in; Some hotels require free cancellation within 30 minutes of order confirmation, and cancellations cannot be made after the deadline; Some hotels only indicate 'non cancellable'. Some hotels also require a penalty of 20% of the room rate or higher for cancellation beyond the free cancellation period. It is worth noting that some of these cancellation conditions can be directly seen on the payment interface, while others are more "hidden" and need to be carefully searched for in the relevant terms. In Wang Yegang's view, hotel reservation cancellation conditions belong to standard terms, and merchants should remind consumers in a prominent way to pay attention, otherwise consumers have the right to claim that they do not become part of the contract. Even if consumers accept the restrictions of this condition, if the contract needs to be terminated due to changes in itinerary or other reasons, they can still consider terminating the contract through judicial means. Zhao Zhongkui, an associate professor at the School of Economics and Law of Southwest University of Political Science and Law, believes that the operator's arbitrary setting of conditions such as "irrevocability" without considering legal termination of the contract due to force majeure is a typical "tyrannical clause" that excludes consumer rights and increases consumer liability, and is an invalid clause. If the "non cancellable" condition set by the operator is based on the premise of providing more favorable hotel booking prices and other concession conditions, then it is usually not considered invalid in judicial practice. In addition to the chaos mentioned above, it has become customary for some hotels to significantly increase their prices during holidays and festivals. According to the information provided by Ms. Wang, her previous experience of "mismatched goods" resulted in hotel same room prices during holidays being more than three times higher than usual. Even during cultural events such as concerts, hotel prices in some places can skyrocket. I once attended a concert in Changzhou, Jiangsu. A fast hotel that usually costs over 120 yuan per night skyrocketed to over 1300 yuan per night on the day of the concert, with prices increasing more than tenfold. The prices of star rated hotels were even more expensive A music enthusiast in Shanghai told reporters that many fans who go to concerts can only sleep in shared rooms. Not long ago, the super typhoon "Capricorn" hit Hainan and other places, causing brief water and power outages in some areas of Haikou, and many residents chose to stay in hotels. However, according to residents' feedback, some hotels in Haikou have experienced price increases. One of the apartment hotels usually sells rooms at a price of 87 yuan to 275.19 yuan per room per night. On September 7th and 8th, the price increased to 604.8 yuan to 1043.4 yuan per room per night, a 7-fold increase in price overnight. Despite the tight demand for guest rooms during holidays and other periods, is it legal to raise the price of such floor seating? The reporter found that as early as 2010, the National Development and Reform Commission and three other departments jointly issued the "Opinions on Regulating the Market Prices of Hotel Rooms", requiring that temporary price intervention measures such as maximum price limits can be implemented in tourist hotspots and surrounding areas of large event venues in accordance with the law to ensure the basic stability of hotel room prices. In addition, some provinces and cities have also issued compliance guidelines for price behavior in the hotel industry, regulating and providing reasonable guidance for hotel operators' price behavior. The interviewed experts believe that although hotel prices belong to the market pricing category, price increases during special periods should still be limited. Zhao Zhongkui said that according to the Price Law, the Administrative Penalty Regulations for Price Violations, and other regulations, if hotel operators illegally inflate hotel prices and push hotel prices to rise too quickly or excessively, the competent department may order them to make corrections, confiscate illegal gains, impose fines, order them to suspend business for rectification, or even revoke their business license depending on the situation. In practice, some hotels have been punished by market regulatory authorities for price issues. In August of this year, the market supervision department of Guiyang City, Guizhou Province, announced a typical case of illegal hotel pricing. A certain hotel's behavior of significantly raising prices during a local music festival held on August 3 violated the relevant provisions of the Price Law and constituted an illegal act of price gouging. The hotel is expected to be fined a total of 112300 yuan; On September 11th, the Hainan Provincial Market Supervision Bureau exposed 11 cases of suspected price violations, and has issued administrative penalty notices for 4 cases of hotel price manipulation. Experts interviewed believe that it is necessary for relevant regulatory authorities and booking platforms to work together to regulate the various irregularities encountered by consumers when booking hotels through platforms, such as "wrong stock", inability to cancel, and price hikes. Yang Shangdong, an associate professor at the School of Administrative Law of Southwest University of Political Science and Law, believes that the "mismatch" of hotel check-in environment is related to the insufficient review of merchant qualifications by the platform, and the mutual shirking of responsibilities between merchants and platform parties, which fails to protect consumer rights. In this regard, regulatory authorities can hold talks with platforms to urge them to strengthen the qualification review of merchants who have settled in, and consciously fulfill their primary responsibility of protecting consumer rights and interests. Recently, the Guangdong Provincial Consumer Council organized a survey on hotel pre cancellation rules on online travel platforms. At present, the Guangdong Provincial Consumer Council has conducted interviews with the six platforms involved in the investigation. All six platforms have stated that they will further expand more high-quality hotel resources that can be cancelled, and some of these platforms will gradually guide hotels to implement refund and reform policies such as "tiered cancellation". In Zhao Zhongkui's opinion, there is usually a certain time difference for consumers from hotel booking to check-in. During this period, in addition to statutory termination of the contract due to force majeure, there are also some reasonable subjective and objective factors that may affect consumers' check-in. If these factors are not considered and the risk of canceling an order is solely borne by the consumer, it would be unfair