To wonder whether to trust the listings of apartments on booking ,com

[DrMadelineMaxwell]

As in, whether they are really available.

I'm in the middle of accommodation-booking-quandry.

Trying to find accommodation for a week in London by UCL for while DD is on a summer school there.

I have found 2 different apartments that look great value, about 12-15 mins away, in different directions. But neither of them have reviews yet and are new to booking ,com.

I did provisionally book one of them, but am still debtaing whether to cancel and go for a hotel instead. I'd get less room for the price, but closer. And I'd know for sure that they actually exist!

Part of me thinks the apartment is a fake listing. It has free cancellation possible until July, so no money taken upfront. But still.... I'm dithering. :)

We booked a house in gran canaria with no reviews. I was worried too(not like me at all), making dh worry and phone booking to check! It was all fine and other guests had been lots, just didnt write a review.

Booking.com regulate themselves well. If you pay up front they hold the money then pay the owner on the day you arrive. If the heard even a whiff of wrong doing they would pull the property and retain the funds to reimburse the customer.

So I would say it is as safe as can be.

Have you looked here? Lots of universities, including UCL rent out their student accommodation while it is empty over the summer.

www.ucl.ac.uk/residences

www.lsevacations.co.uk/Home.aspx?gclid=CjwKCAjw-bLVBRBMEiwAmKSB88SHd_xa6BiefIUkmcUNYRtWqhLOsbU6Q8h2NHN89avcjZ1bCQ2KPRoCM14QAvD_BwE

Booking com don’t hold the money and refund the customer if all goes wrong. I lost 2x£405 booking a B&Q through then and it took me over a year and threats of invoking lawyers before they refunded me.

@Sexykitten2005 Having worked for companies who use booking.com I can assure you they retained the money.

How did you lose the money for a B&B? Did you turn up and find it wasn't a b&b?

Well, that's my initial worry. That it's a bogus listing that doesn't actually exist. Or that the photos don't actually match what's on offer.

Paranoid. :)

No the owner pulled the payment twice and refuse to refund it. I actually didn’t stay there because when I turned up I was shown to a twin rather than the double I booked. I think the best part was the owner wife phoning all the local pubs to find her husband to come back and deal with the “troublemakers” who wanted what they had paid for.
It took over a year to get all of that money back. The owner threatened us all in the time, me, my DP, the customer service agent at booking com and her supervisor. He was a nasty little man

You could reverse image search the photos? See if the apartments are on other sites and whether they’ve been reviewed. Or Google the address to see if it’s legit?

No imagines show up anywhere else. And it's not listed on any other sites, so nothing to cross reference for reviews etc.

If you’re gut is telling you no, maybe look somewhere else for peace of mind.

Have you tried air bnb maybe? Likely to be more reviews there

Booking.com is a scam! They have a clone of my accommodation (original is on Airbnb) on their site, WITHOUT my consent.
Two "guests" showed up on my doorstep recently wanting to check in after they had a confirmed reservation in my accommodation!!!! Unbelievable.
Customer service is inexistent, therefore they put lots and lots of effort in fake customer reviews (the positive ones are the fake ones, haha).
Don't believe it, don't book with them, don't pay them, keep away from them. That's my advice...

I’ve been using booking.com several times a year for more than a decade and have never had any kind of problem.

I did once get quite nervous when I booked a £40 / night place in Morocco with no reviews that looked way to good to be true. It. Was. Awesome! We turned out to be their first ever guests and the owner had just wanted to get some review traffic. (He gave us a 3 room suite with a butler. For forty quid a night.).

If you’re worried, contact booking.com and ask how your money will be held / what happens if accommodation is fake. But really I wouldn’t worry. Sometimes good deals are real.

Hmmm. Very similar thing happy to me a week ago. Lovely apartments, great price. Booked and then got a weird email saying that the apartments had gone but how about this one instead and to contact apt owner directly. Not a chance, so I cancelled. Again, no reviews, nothing on reverse image search but just felt dodgy - too good to be true sort of dodgy. I’m going to cancel that credit card and inform booking.com, just in case they take any notice!

@snailhunter I wonder if it's anything to with this?
www.wired.co.uk/article/airbnb-scam-london

(Some properties on there were using booking, Expedia, Airbnb and one other site on a 3 month rotation to get around the maximum 90 days per year letting regulation).

As for booking dot com, have only had 2 problematic bookings with booking, one it turned out that the property was not in the location it said it was on bookings map, was outside the centre of a town when I specifically booked in the centre due to not having my own transport and limited public transport. Booking were helpful, contacted me by phone and refunded the booking in full. However due to limited accommodation and stay only being a few days away, I had to cancel my weekend away as there was nothing else central and within budget.

Second one I was charged twice for a booking, the booking was via booking but handled by a local agency on behalf of the accommodation provider. So 2 middlemen, each telling me to contact the other one - nightmare, booking not interested and said it was the other agencies problem, eventually got refunded months later after endless emails back and forth, by hassling the owner who negotiated with the agency on my behalf (as they would not respond to me as I had booked via booking).

(So always book direct if possible, booking charge a minimum of 15% commission to owners, which they obviously have to factor into their prices).

Also, anyone can list accommodation on booking, so for a new listing with no reviews, there is no guarantee it doesn't exist or is not part of a bait and switch scam... However on the whole I have found booking customer service to be far better than Airbnb...

We booked apartments twice on booking.com, neither as advertised. The second had a whole tribe of relatives using the same space that we were paying for. Booking.com did not exactly fall over itself to help. I find Airbnb more reliable.