Booking.com review: never give your credit card details to booking.com 235

I'm somewhat comforted by reading these experiences of booking.com and realising we weren't the only ones to experience (1) a system riddled with security problems, poor management and antiquated (faxes with card details?!), (2) staff at booking.com who don't appear to have their customers' interests at heart, (3) effectively being accused of lying. I attempted to book 4 rooms at the Inter Hotel Arion in Limoges in August. Booking.com's website crashed during the process and so after re-visiting the website, I found another hotel in Limoges to stay at and booked it. I received an email confirmation for this second hotel and thought all was fine. However, on returning to the UK we found that the Inter Hotel Arion (the first hotel) had charged us for a 'no-show'. Then ensued days and days of emails and conversations with booking.com and the hotel. It appears they did not believe me when I told them that no email confirmation had been received and that their website did not issue me with any booking reference or PIN code for this first hotel. They contacted the hotel, who rejected the request for a re-fund. Booking.com did not want to discuss the logic of us wanting to stay in two separate hotels on the same night in the same place, booking 4 different rooms. HELLO? They were insistent that the booking for the first hotel had been successfully made and rejected my assertions that I did not receive a booking reference or email confirmation for this first hotel, even though i received one for the second. I felt I was being accused of lying, and it was not their fault I didn't fully investigate something I was unaware of happening...ie a booking being confirmed without my knowledge or any references. So I'm left with the impression booking.com has a malfunctioning system run by people who aren't willing to listen to simple logic. Of course, the 4 of us won't be using booking.com again, neither will our employees, friends or family.

Booking.com appears to be very sophisticated in how to get people's money with barely any accountability. I was scamed by being fooled into booking a hotel room in a city with the same name as the city I had entered into my search enging. There was NO identification of what country this "lookalike" city was in until I received the confirmation e-mail and was charged on my credit card. Booking.com was useless to try and deal with. Never again.

never go through booking.com! you get given a price on the website and that changes to whatever the hotel wants to charge you anyway so you might as well go direct. i recieved a confirmation email to say id paid and when i arrived the hotel told me that wasnt the case and because id booked it at an early date i had to pay an extra £30 really buggered me up. tried to call customer services to talk about it to get a load of small print mumbo jumbo by some snotty cow! my advice is just go direct to hotels may take a little while longer but at least you know your not going to get stitched up!

Booking.com are nothing short of scam artists. They advertised a camping site on their website that was to be open for the Euro soccer championships in Poland. I paid in full before I arrived, and low and behold, when I got there the campsite did not exist. Booking.com will not give me my money back. They are trying to tell me that my booking was moved to another site, but they never contacted me to tell me this. My partner and I were stranded in Poland and had to pay extra for a place to stay (no cheap feat during a soccer championship).
I also know someone who booked what they thought was a four star hotel via booking.com. It turned out booking.com used pictures from this hotel, but she was actually booked into the motel down the road. She showed up to the hotel, and they had no idea what reservation she was talking about.
Don't trust this site. They defraud their customers, and do not care as long as they have your money.

Key words - booking.com, complain, worst system, no responsibility

I know it is a long comment but i think it will useful to understand worst system on booking.com.

Booking.com is the worst travel agency in the world with no responsibility to their customers. Their system is to send the booking detail including customers' credit card detail to the hotel. Yes, it looks like the system is convenience to customers that put credit card for guarantee their booking with no charge and only pay the fee on arrival date. However, the system is good only for good hotel, not every hotel. The reason is the hotel can charge your credit card with the amount that you never know until the card is charged. And the worst point is you will not get the receipt from the hotel. Also booking.com will never know that hotel charges the customers until they get the confirmation from their customers. So, you think about you travel in the region and you book 2-4 hotels from booking.com and booking.com give your credit card detail to 2-4 hotels that they can charge your credit card any time. So, as I said before, if you book with good hotel, this system works but if you book with bad hotel, you will find bad experience like me.

Next, the next worst system is no refund policy to show because booking.com is not charged you money. So, it sounds good but in reality it is the worst. Thinking about you have to deal with refund policy from each hotel. It maybe 15 days, a month, or 2 months or u will never get your refund. Booking.com has no policy to protect their customer from refund policy.

Next, the next worst system of customer service, when you call booking.com customer service, you have to talk with new operator every time because they don't have the internal line. So, you have to explain your situation again and again. Moreover, you will get reply call when they said they will call u back. And no way to talk with the same operator.

For my case, I book the hotels with booking.com and it has no problem until I book "Youth Venice Home Hostel" by booking.com. After I book this hotel, the hotel charged my credit card immediately on the same day with the different name from hotel name. So, I call my bank to confirm about the charge and the answer is yes, it already charged. So, I contact hotel and booking.com and also make cancellation immediately. And the answer is it is not a charged, it is pre-authotized and it means only "block" the credit card. However, I confirm that it is a "Charged" not "Blocked" so I email 3-4 mails to booking.com but no one reply my mail.

So, I call them in the morning, they ask me to print the statement or take screen picture on my statement. So, I use internet banking to show the statement. After they receive my statement, they contact hotel and the hotel answer that they only block and will unblock in the future which is not indicate when the hotel will unblock. So, I reply mail to confirm that it is "Charged" not "Blocked". At the same time, I contact hotel to refund my account, and they ask me the bank name, also ask me to contact booking.com to contact him. So I do all as he wants.

In the evening same day, after I get reply back from booking.com that the transaction that I show them is "Unbilled transaction" with not the same hotel name so they ask me real transaction with hotel name. So, I call them and I said I will let my bank investigate this account as cheating transaction because if it not the hotel, I don't know who charged me. So, the operator call hotel for me and ask name of account and the answer is yes, it is a hotel group name. For unbilled transaction, booking.com said that it is not real charge and the real charge is billed transaction so they ask me billed transaction. However, booking.com is wrong. Unbilled transaction means the credit already charged but the time is not reach due date so it is unbilled transaction. I will make more clear. If you use credit card on 1st June and the cutting date is 15 June. From 1st to 15th June, It will show as unbill transaction and after 16th June, it will show as billed transaction. From this problem, the operator told me she will call hotel and ask that it is "Charged" or "Blocked" and she will call me back in 2 hours. So, I answer that "Charged" or "Blocked" is not main problem, coz the hotel just "Unblocked" or "Refund", the problem will solve. After that, I will her call for 2 hours but it is no call. And I also contact hotel and the answer is hotel already ask booking.com to refund my money so everything seems to be good ending.

On the next day, I call booking.com again and new operator pick me call. So, I gave her my booking and ask when I get refund and ask that last night is it has any record of operator talk with hotel about "Charged" or "Blocked" and when I get refund. And the answer is booking.com has no right to charge or refund the money, it is the hotel's right. Moreover, she ask me to give her confirmation charged by hotel from my bank. So, I explain her again all situation and it is third time and I ask when I get refund. She answer that She will call hotel and call me back.

Conclusion, what I want to share is my experience with the worst travel agency. It has many good travel agency in the world and I just want to say why I have to use booking.com. Also, I read many reviews of complain on booking.com and I can conclude that booking.com has no right to make refund and it also has to ask from hotel and what if hotel does not want to refund you and find many reasons. For example, when you cancel the booking, hotel said they don't receive your cancellation and charged your credit card as no-show. You have to contact hotel to solve this problem and also booking.com but if you use other travel agency, they will solve your problem for u. Thinking about you have to contact small hotel in other country compare with contact big travel agency. Which one is better?

I still wait call back from booking.com but I think they will not call back.

Hi

I booked a hotel through Booking.com about the end of February beginning of March. We were going to go to Porthleven in Cornwall for a week for which we had already booked a cottage for w/c saturday 19th May. However, as it was my 60th birthday this year and not particularly wanting to travel on a Saturday we decided to book the Cross House Hotel in Padstow for the night of Friday 18th May. We were looking forward to it but by about the end of April, although we had a reference number and an online booking confirmation, no deposit was taken.

I called the Hotel twice and left a message but they did not get back to me. I called Booking.com and they said they had no record of my booking. So we never went to Padstow but we did get a call from the hotel proprieter by the name of Nick on Friday 18th asking where we were. After a long conversation we left it that he was going to call Booking.com on the following Monday (21st). We never heard another thing and assumed everything had been cancelled.

So I was quite shocked when I came back from holiday to find that £135 had been taken from my bank account and had put me into an overdraft situation.

My anger is not just with Booking.com that gave me incorrect information but with the hotel for not letting me know the money was going to be taken. This is not just bad customer service it is daylight robbery and should not be allowed.

I rang Booking.com this morning as it was to them I gave my debit card details to them and they had passed it onto the hotel. They tried ringing the hotel but could only get the ansaphone. I have called 3 times and left 3 rather stern curt messages today but the proprieter has not had the decency to call me back. I really don't understand how these people are in a service based industry, if I treated our clients like that way we would not have a client bank, the repeat business and referrals that goes to make a good practice.

Shame on you Cross House Hotel!

Jan Bolton

I

Booking.com & Roomers hotel in Frankfurt, Germany charged me €480 as a "no-show" fee for a booking which I did not make.

There was no "no-show" - I didn't complete the booking. When I entered my credit card details to confirm the booking, the system said that the room had sold out and was no longer available at the quoted price. I was offered the choice of exactly the same room at a much higher rate or to refuse the booking. I declined and cancelled the booking.

I'd been looking for the room with my girlfriend who was equally as surprised and annoyed as I was - I'd spent a considerable amount of time looking for the room and I then had to start over to find alternative accommodation for the same dates. I ended up booking through a competing service.

I have contacted both Booking.com and Roomers and they refuse to reimburse me or to accept the possibility that their system could produce an error of any kind. They maintain their €480 (full cost of the booking) no-show charge, but there was no "no show" - I didn't complete the reservation. I received no confirmation, no reply, no email from either booking.com or from the Roomers hotel in Frankfurt, Germany.

My complaint is that Booking.com and the Roomers hotel have charged me €480 for a booking I did not make, which they refuse to reimburse.

Hello Booking.com,
what do you answer to the security flaw with credit card numbers sent in clear to the hotel?

I made a hotel booking wit www.hotel.com with the stated policy on their site stating that a non refundable first night will be deducted from my account for the first night stay and I could cancel the rest if necessary. To my surprise the full many nights’ stay amount was deducted from my account. I also received an email later stating that the whole reservation is non refundable. I will not use booking.com again and shall only book with hotels direct.

I will also send a formal letter of complaint to the management, local and national, to the hotel concerned. I also think this practice is illegal and will be following up on this line of enquiry and shall report back here to let other people know what happened. I am also considering sending this information to UK national papers from them to investigate practices of this nature so that the UK general public is made aware of these practices.

Robbed by booking.com!

I made a reservation with them using an Internet cafe Dubai. The browser was slow so I clicked booknow twice by mistake. Realising what had happened, I called them immediately in London to point out the mistake. They were unhelpful to say the least and passed the buck to the hotel. I called the hotel and they passed the buck back to the site. I arrived at the hotel and they said the site should have cancelled one of the rooms. Obviously it's not in their interest as they get commission on both reservations! Waste of time! Robbers!

I used about three different hotel booking sites when we were planning our trip to Europe. I only used Booking.com for one hotel (in Amsterdam). After we stayed at the hotel and went on to our next destination, we discovered credit card fraud on the card (we paid via Booking.com for the room and used it at the hotel to cover our incidentals).
We never used our card anywhere else on the trip (we are pretty careful how and where we used our credit cards in Europe).
The credit card fraud that happened on our card was a charge for another hotel in Amsterdam (for the same dates we were in Amsterdam too!).
I am not sure whether Booking.com had charged us for another hotel or if our card was compromised (at the hotel or by Booking.com). We had the bank cancel our card and investigate the matter.
I won't be using this website ever again because we did not have any issues with the other sites we used.

I just have one complaint about Booking.com.
We booked a hotel this Summer, and I saw our reservation-fax from Booking.com to the hotel.
They still send a FAX to the hotel with your creditcard-details in clear writing.

Dear All,
as it seem not new, also me been overcharged by a hotel going to prague, and for 19 days those who called themselves customer service team wasnt able to do anything, and that i should take it with the hotel to get the difference refunded when i arrive to the hotel tomorrow. who's with me to report this site to the travel association in the countries where they operate. and if not working let's create a page on face book to ban them to abuse our credit card as they are doing with no regulations.

I agree with youu too. They are useless. Not worth booking through them. I never will again.

Booking.com tried to rob me in a very sophisticated way, first it stated that some hotels required no information for short reservation, than it just retrieved my old credit card information and charged 80 peer cent of the price, please be careful as the company is not to be fully trusted

theur consumer care is also horrible, do not expect them to resolve the problem just call the banks and ask what you can do

I'm about to make a booking at Booking.com for a hotel in Cork. I have no intention of cancelling this booking as there will be no changes in my travel plans (I am quite certain). Do you think I am still at risk to being scammed? I'm paying with a visa debit card (in other words, there are not unlimited funds on the card so I can't be overcharged as is possible with a credit card). Do you think this is safe? I'd appreciate it if someone could contact me in response as I'm booking my birthday weekend away. My email is sandjounintemari@hotmail.com

that's a scam...shame on them... never order again

I was also robbed by booking.com and Leonardo Hotel in Charleroi and strongly suggest you avoid this scam of a website like the plague. After the Leonardo Hotel in Charleroi overcharged me I inquired into booking.com why the posted rate was not being followed. They told me they would look into it and get back to me. In the interim they billed my credit card the full amount. When they told me they didn't know why it was higher but thought it might be 'due to taxes' I cancelled my reservation with Leonardo Hotel in Charleroi. However, as my booking was last minute and the final information on the rate was not provided to me until after the deadline to get my money back had passed, they told me that the cancellation policy was violated and it was too late. Oh, and why was I charged more you ask? They told me that I had elected to apply for the 'flexible' option where you can cancel anytime which was untrue. So, in the end they billed me for an option that should have protected me from late cancellation and still did not honour that! Do not use this website.

I have got cancellation´s confirmation on my reservation( booking.com) at the hotel in London. There is no charge for cancellation. But I am still charged for five nights according to my credit card´s details. To whom can I complaint to get my money back? Thanks

I have used Booking.com several times when making hotel reservations and so far (knock on wood) no major problems to note. However, when cancelling I make it a habit to call Booking.com directly to make the cancellation and also to make sure I get a notice of cancellation email for my records. As noted in some of the postings, it is always difficult to obtain a refund after the fact, so be proactive and not depend entirely on Booking.com or the hotel in question. That been said, last month I stayed at the Swissotel in Istanbul and when reviewing the bill upon check out, I noticed that they had charged me €99.00 more than they should have. Luckily, I had the email confirmation with the rate quoted by Booking.com so we managed to sort it out in short order. If I didn't have the confirmation with me as proof, then I would have had to pay the hotel rate and try and sort it out later which could prove very difficult.

www.ctrip.com is a better site to book hotels in China . Most hotels do not require deposits ahead of time. Price is usually cheaper than US sites.