I have been booking hotels in the US for 30 years already; and I have always been doing that through Expedia for the past 10 years. I have never had a problem upon check-in; everything always seems to be allright. Now the duty manager in this hotel tells me upon arrival - after traveling for 15 hours with a family of four - that my reservation got canceled..... because "the credit card they tried to charge a few days earlier got refused". What a bunch of baloney!! This is had never occurred before! Also, when finally we got booked into a different type of room (without the promised patio) than we had reserved (for the same price!!), I paid with the same credit card that supposedly got refused a few days earlier. And when they "canceled our reservation", they didn't let us know, but decided to tell us upon arrival, standing there jet lagged with 8 pieces of luggage.... no consideration, no sympathy, it was clearly made our own fault, because it was our credit card that didn't work.... Whatever!! No, you just cancel the reservation and confront a traveling family with it when they stand at your reception desk. Great way of dealing with customers... NOT! There had been no way they they could have warned us - according to the manager!!! - because they didn't have our details. The crap simply continues.... No of course they couldn't have contacted Expedia, and of course they couldn't have looked up our details in their own Marriott loyalty program database and of course...