Booking a flight online with booking.com

[Richielogic]

During the second week of September, I used a popular flight comparison site to find a flight to Canada for my family and it recommended a flight on Canadian Airways from London Heathrow using booking.com

I went to this site and added the details, and it confirmed a price of just over £5,500, it then asked for all the passenger details and then went to the payment screen, I entered my debit card, and it then went to 2D authentication, and I confirmed same on my mobile. Within 10 seconds the site confirmed payment but immediately returned a screen saying, “sorry we could not complete your order at this time, IF you have been charged the funds will be refunded to you” The same message was sent to my email address.

To my horror, they had taken the money from my bank account. Now we are not talking about a booking made and then later cancelled we are talking an online order NOT completed immediately but still charged for. The order was not completed, and they should not have taken payment.

I then had a battle on my hands getting my money back, the helpline telling me they had no record of the payment, then telling me I would get a refund in due course. As far as I was concerned it was theft and I wanted to involve the police.

I had to borrow money from my dad to book another flight as I had been cleaned out. My bank told me I had to wait 30 days to claim against visa for the money booking.com had taken and that process could take up to a further 90 days. I followed that process and completed all the paperwork and had to send the bank the email from back in September.

Yesterday, I got my money back because of the splendid work the bank did via Visa claims. But my point is that Booking.com had sat on my money for months and had it not been for help from my dad I would have also lost money on my hotel accommodation in Canada due to me being unable to fund another flight cost out myself.

Nothing anyone can do about the above, but I wanted to bring attention to it. I have since been on the Trustpilot site and found this situation has happened to others so best avoid, frankly.

Personally, i think it's outrageous that this situation can occur, i have never experienced it with any other website. Normally if an order is not completed you are not charged. Beware.

Never book flights through a 3rd party, always through the airline, then if anything does go wrong you not having to deal with what you have.

Glad you got your money back.

Hello
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I had a similar experience with Expedia, although they made it even harder as there’s no email address for customer support so everything is done by phone. Deliberately, I assume, so there’s no paper trail.

I will only ever book direct or through somewhere like Trailfinders now.

Glad you got your money back, but yes, pp advice is sound. I fly a lot, and have never yet found any 3rd party website cheaper than the actual airline. For hotels, yes, absolutely, generally use Booking, occasionally Expedia, usually cheaper than the actual hotel website, but flights, nope.

That's terrible. I won't use them in the future.