Screwed by Booking.com, please help?

[RicherThanYew]

Hello and apologies in advance for the length but I don't want to leave anything out. Last year on July 10th I booked and paid for a holiday (UK caravan park, South Wales) to take place during half term this year. I checked my account on Booking.com yesterday to double check the dates to book my annual leave and my booking has not been cancelled but deleted altogether. There is no proof of its existence and I was never sent a confirmation email, I have spent 11hrs checking all email accounts, my bank account, my search history and even screenshots of the booking to no avail. My bank has verified that I did pay the money to Booking.com but as the transaction is older than 120 days they can't help, they gave me details for Citizens Advice Burea who told me to raise a complaint with Booking.com but I have a string of 12 emails from them saying they can't help without a booking number or they send me their automated phone number for customer services which only helps people with confirmation numbers. I sent a complaint to them and tried raising a dispute but every email is the same: confirmation number. The financial ombudsman can't help, my bank can't help and Booking.com won't speak to me. Please please someone help as I've lost a £542 holiday and I'm about to lose my job so it was the one thing we had left to look forward to. Thank you.

Do you have another booking.com account through another email address? Maybe you're logged into the wrong one?

Did you pay by debit card or credit card?

If debit card then I think (check) you're out of time for making a claim for a refund from your bank as the deadline is 120 days. Could this be what the bank is referring to? I ask as the bank WILL be able to provide you with historic bank statements so you can prove payment was made.

If you paid via credit card then you can claim from your credit card company under s75 consumer credit act

I don’t really understand. When you booked, you would have been sent a confirmation email. Why do you not have that? That can’t have been deleted.

Have you tried logging in on the app rather than the website? I've just checked the app and there are three categories in the Booking tab - active, past and cancelled and after I refreshed the page it went back over a decade.

If not, what is the reference number on the bank transfer you found? Maybe that's the booking number? Or did you screenshot the booking in WhatsApp and send to anyone? Book it on your work email address and not personal address?

Can you email the caravan park directly and ask if they can find your booking and let you have the booking number and dates?

Contact the caravan park first. Hopefully what has happened is tha the booking still exists and all is fine but for some reason it isn’t showing on your booking.com page

Double check your booking.com account in both computer and app, could the booking be hidden under a past bookings page or something?

If caravan park have never heard of you, then basically you have paid booking.com money and not received anything back and need to write to their head of legal threatening to sue in smal claims court unless they either refund or honour the booking.

I once couldn’t find my booking and turned out I had 2 accounts.
what does your screenshot show? Is that not evidence enough for them?

@MoroccoMole Absolutely not. I have checked my works email just in case and there is absolutely nothing. I really have spent endless hours checking this just incase
@scaredofthefuture2024 Sadly I do not own a credit card, I paid by debit card and yes the 120 day limit is the reason they can't help.
@Verite1 No confirmation email, not deleted from my email account as it was never sent. I didn't query this as I didn't get a confirmation email the last time but the booking stayed on the app and all was fine.
@Avacardo2023 I have tried both the website and the app, my booking has disappeared and is not on active, past or cancelled.
@Avacardo2023 @Hazil you CLEVER clever old beans, I'll do that first thing thank you!!!

@FlamingoFloss I have sent my scree shot but I have had the exact same email back every single time I have emailed them just saying "Confirmation PIN", you can't even speak to them on the phone or online without it. 100% not a different or old Booking.com account, I have checked and checked. I'm on Genius(?) level 6 or something as I've used them a fair deal and this is my first problem. My only confusion is that the lodge I booked specifically said no need to pay upfront, pay on arrival but I was charged the same day. I didn't mind and didn't think about it again.

I had this with EasyJet.

If you have the exact details of your holiday, place, date and how many plus your card/ bank account, they are able to retrieve the information.

Armed with this, use the chat bot function via the App and get through to a real person... if you are lucky, they will call you on the phone number given with your booking. It's a way of of verification for your id, they will not ask for it.
Alternatively they might send a link to your account email, from there it's a similar process.

Good luck, you are relying on the willingness of the company to help you!

Hopefully the park can help. Booking.com did this to us with the hotel when we got married. Our venue didn't have accommodation so we booked a nearby hotel for DH for the night before and both of us the night of. He showed up and booking.com had cancelled our booking without him knowing and they were full up - because of our wedding. Thankfully the hotel sorted it out for us (although my brother and SIL had to go stay in a different hotel) but that was a stress we didn't need.

C

OP are you absolutely sure you booked on the actual real booking.com website? Is it possible that you could have clicked a link or something which took you through to a fake / scam website?

@QueenOfTheLabyrinth I am certain. I booked it on their app in fact.

Sorry if I'm being dense OP and I understand why 120 days means you can't challenge the booking with your bank but the bank should still be able to provide you with a statement for that month that will show the transaction?

I can go online and see statements back over the last 12 months

Have you managed to get to the bottom of this yet @RicherThanYew ?

Which bank is it that doesn't keep information for over 120 days? Do you have online banking , it should have statements for much longer than that

I think op means she cannot dispute the payment with the bank or reclaim after 120 days.

@milesmachine I can see on my statement that I paid Booking.com last year but banks don't get involved if more than 120 days have passed.
@Floralnomad Nope, it is not resolved. I have more than 30 emails from Booking.com all saying the same thing, they're happy to help me and just need a confirmation number or PIN which I don't have. I reply and tell them why I don't have those, they send me a phone number to ring that I'd automated only to customers with confirmation numbers. I have been on Twitter and been ignored, 3 tweets and 2 DMs. I have tried the conflict resolution button but it's exactly the same as the pointless emails. I honestly don't know what to do. I don't have another £542 to pay for a holiday and my family are gutted. This is so stressful, let it be a warning to everyone to stay far away from Booking.com

Have you heard back from the caravan park yet OP?

Can you ask Booking.com to resend your confirmation email?

Have you tried looking at the payment on your bank statement? The reference you added to the Booking.com payment is usually the booking reference number.

You can ask your bank to send you proof of payment for that transaction and send it to Booking.com. They will be able to trace the payment quite easily with full transaction details.

Am I the only person who obsessively checks the app in the week after I booked just to make sure it's really there!