How are booking.com getting away with this??

[insecure738]

Me and my ex booked a holiday last June. We booked a hotel on booking.com, and we were due to go in September. There was no pre-payment, you pay at the property.

We split up that month and we cancelled - 3 months before the holiday. I got a confirmation email saying that it was within the window, that I won’t be charged.

Come September, I have £500 taken out of my account. It took me weeks to try and get it back, they kept saying they’ll “look into it” and kept asking for evidence even though I sent the screenshots multiple times. They then tried to tell me it was from another booking reference, which was untrue as I only had one booking on my account.

Anyway I finally got my money back from my bank Barclays in November who said they’d investigate it.
This morning, I had it taken out of my account again, as apparently Booking.com rejected the case. Barclays said they can’t do anymore about it.

So I’ve had £500 taken out, I’m now in my overdraft, and I am already struggling with bills and rent.

How do I even go about doing this?! I know I can go through citizens advice but it’ll take weeks and I quite frankly can’t afford to live at the moment :(

My D&SIL booked a hotel through booking.com, paying for it in advance. The day before they arrived, they received a message from Booking.com, telling them that the booking had been cancelled! They had to scrabble around to find alternative accommodation, paying considerably more than the original hotel.

Book.com were useless, if not devious and dishonest. They asked repeatedly for the same information, and bizarrely the reservation numbers and PINs of other people who had been affected by this cancellation. How would they know that?

In exasperation, having failed to be able to talk to anyone (the complaints line number rang then clicked off) they took it to the SCC. Booking.com did not respond to this summons before it ran out of date.

@postwarbulge what does SCC mean and what was the outcome of booking.com not responding to the summons?

I had a very similar experience with Booking.com, cancelled accommodation, refusal to refund deposits, asking for PIN number requests, numerous messages and going round in circles. I honestly gave up in the end. Nightmare!

Small claims court

We had a situation where Booking.com sold us a hotel suite that was occupied! So we arrived at the hotel (in an overseas country and with two small children) only to find that our fully paid for hotel room did not exist and furthermore that the hotel had absolutely no vacancies. We had to scramble to organise our own accommodation at no notice for that very night and subsequently for our 10 day holiday. Booking.com did eventually refund us but didn’t help us at all to secure accommodation and never uttered a word of an apology for the incredible stress they put us under. I’m sorry to hear your story OP. I hope it gets resolved.

AFAIK nothing happened about Booking.com not answering the SCC summons. Very disappointing!

We turned up to our accomodation booked through booking . com and we'd booked a room for a family of 5.
When we got there, the hotel said we couldnt stay in that room, as max capacity was 4, and we couldn't get a refund as it was not within cancellation window.
They showed us their side of booking which was for a 'family room of 2 +2' , I showed them my e mail confirmation which showed 2 adults plus 3 children.

We had to book an extra room, and thank Goodness they had availability otherwise we'd have been stuffed. I won't use them again when booking for my family.

Doesn't that mean they won? They should get a judgement by default and be awarded como?

*comp

as one would have thought but since the compensation would have to be paid by Booking.com, nothing was forthcoming. My D told me that she would have to apply, and pay for, an enforcement order.

But Booking.com is just a sales portal. The hotel themself loads the availability and pricing into it. Booking.com can't sell something that the hotel hasn't given them to sell.

No-one (including booking.com) disputed that it was booking.com which was at fault. In any event we most certainly were not at fault and we experienced a very stressful start to a holiday without any assistance whatsoever from booking.com.

I think they allow a considerable time lag between taking and confirming a booking and remitting confirmation of the booking to the property by which time the room could be gone. Anyway, never again will I use them after this experience.

This. I’m surprised they are still in business. I wouldn’t touch them with a bargepole.

Utterly useless. Just last week stayed in a Scottish hotel one night, quite posh. Booking.com said the £21 a head breakfast would be included if you agreed to make the reservation non-refundable which we did. Arrived, ate said breakfast, which was entirely gratuitous after a curry the night before but we’d paid…. Or so we thought. Go to checkout and billed £42 for the 2 breakfasts. Booking.com were basically making it up. Booking.con more like. Avoid.

This is so poor. Hope you can get it sorted.

I was going to say this too. I always check and I’ve never found it cheaper unless the hotel is doing a special offer like Black Friday or Winter special. Booking.com is also cheaper than the same property with Airbnb.

I’ve cancelled loads without issue but I guess there’s always a first time.

Didn’t you show the hotel your booking details. It will be their mistake. Booking.com won’t arbitrarily decide to throw in breakfast unless the hotel agreed to it.

What did the hotel say when you questioned it? You must have had a confirmation that you'd booked a BB rate?