Internet Hotel Reservations: The "Terms and Conditions" Trap.

A review of U.S. case law finds that the web-based approach used by most hotel companies to alert customers to the terms and conditions for making an inter- net reservation might not hold up in the event of a lawsuit. Most courts will enforce a so-called click wrap covenant when an individual makes a reservation or purchase on the company website. In the click wrap procedure, a reservation cannot be completed until the customer clicks the ‘agree’ button to the terms and conditions of sale. However, most hotel websites use a slightly different approach, known as ‘browse wrap,’ in which the terms and conditions are available on the site but the reservation can be completed without the customer's express assent. The terms and conditions usually dictate the controlling legal jurisdiction or mandate arbitration for disagreements, and thus it is in the hotel company's interest to demonstrate that would-be guests have read and definitively agreed to those terms and conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]