Booking.com fucked us on a hotel reservation.
We booked the hotel, got an email saying “Your reservation is confirmed, no need to call the hotel and confirm.”
We showed up at the hotel… Booking.com never confirmed it with them. Hotel was booked, we had no room.
So we sat in the parking lot for an hour talking to customer service. They did get us a room at a more expensive hotel and covered the difference in price, but Jesus, not a good look.
The first hotel told us Booking.com does this all the time.
Booking dot… (sigh) yeah.
Booked a place in Queenstown (New Zealand) on a long weekend via booking dot com. Tourist town, you know what it’s going to be like on a long weekend, and I had trouble finding a place a week out, it was a short notice trip.
Same, “no need to confirm!”
Arrive 5pm… nope, no room, fully booked due to the long weekend, nothing from booking dot com as far as the hotel is concerned.
Slog through booking dot com’s horrible script driven online chat, 90 minutes later, “oh noes we can’t find a place in Queenstown, here’s your money back plus a 5 percent off your next booking voucher for your trouble”.
6.30 pm in Queenstown on a long weekend.
After ringing through every accommodation provider I could find on Google I eventually found a place that had a four bed room for $450 for the night, vs the $150 I had originally planned.
And as a final irritation, the money that they naturally zapped out of my card in an instant at the time of booking took three weeks to be returned to my card.
Booking dot com, booking dot never again you fucks.
In general: Unless you are going through a rewards program, the booking sites are almost never worth using. Or, more pointedly, use them to find the popular hotels in the area. And then go to that hotel chain’s website to book it.
Ignoring that said booking sites will often steal your hotel chain points (and you can get the low tier which gives you early/late checkout REALLY easily), they don’t even have the special deals that the old travel agents had. So you are actually paying more.
Currently booking travel for a Japan trip and have consistently gotten MUCH cheaper prices just by going to the actual chain website.
And speaking of rewards program booking: I have found Hilton hotels are great for letting you just transfer that to your actual account. They seem to HATE all the booking sites and rewards programs. So if you just call them up asking if you can confirm your reservation and “get it in your app” so you can use mobile check in: you pretty much get the nights while still getting to use your credit card points.
I had a $1,000 booking.com gift card. :)
Also in Japan? Boy they sure seem to have trouble paying everyone. There’s no news about their financial status?
They also double dip on the other side, the amount they charge is not always the amount you click on. Several times they add a few bucks and you have to go thru hoops to get it back, most wouldn’t bother. But it would add up over a lot of accounts. Wouldn’t be surprised to see a class action spring up, no way it was just happening to me.
It looks like the case of 123milhas here in Brazil, it started like this until it went bankrupt
