Booking.com
reviews and complaints

Made the mistake of using the Booking.com website in September 2014 to book a hotel in Wells, U.K, for a family wedding. A few hotels came up in the search and all were more or less the same price (expensive !). I chose our hotel as the website had nice pictures and good advertisements/reviews and for the money I paid I believed the hotel would live up to it's prices charged. I arrived at the hotel had a dreadful experience, mould, bad smells, horrible interior, small room, carpet in an old outdated bathroom and last but not least a matchstick in my breakfast !

When I returned I sent Booking.com an email advising of our experience and what was advertised through their website, they replied stating the hotel had offered us 1 free night, off season, to which I replied; I would not be returning there anytime as the hotel is badly in need of renovation, flights would needed to be booked and money would need to be changed from euro to sterling.

I added I was somewhat confused with the reply from customer service at Booking.com as my query was with the website. The main reason I booked through the Booking.com website was, I believed I would get value for money, large choice of hotels and a honest, separate opinion indifferent to any official hotel website; as it a known fact any official hotel websites will always add photo's and description's that will show them in most faltering light.

There reply was the hotel was solely responsible and thanks for the feedback !

I will not however be using the services of Booking.com again due to inaccurate information shown on the website and the misleading and false advertisement when describing what Booking.com offers and advise others to do the same.

I booked a room through booking.com. It seemed legit. I even received an email confirmation of my reservation. I showed up at the hotel and they did not have a reservation for me. After telling the front desk where I booked my room, I told them booking.com and they informed me that they have problems with this website and even requested they remove their hotel from their site. Luckily I was able to find another room at a nearby hotel as the hotel I THOUGHT I had a reservation at had no vacancies! I will never use this site again!

Dear Booking.com,

A couple of months ago I have submitted a complaint after I and my kid were rejected (due to no rooms available) by our pre-booked hotel in Beijing and we were left without accommodation at 3 am. Your customer service swore there was nothing wrong with my booking, that it reached the hotel thus it was likely someone in the hotel who mishandled my reservation. You offered to cover the extra expenses that resulted from this situation that I greatly appreciated, although I didn't have any receipts to present and frankly I rather suffered from moral damage than from financial losses.
Ok.
Recently I decided to give it a try and book another hotel through Booking.com, this time 1 night in El Paso on October the 6th, the booking # [protected].

We intended to check-in in the afternoon, however our plane from Orlando was stuck in Houston airport due to the hurricane. I called El Paso Inn several times during that day to inform that we were late, and with my last call I confirmed that we would arrive/ check in at 10-11pm, as our flight departure time was finally confirmed.

After we arrived to El Paso Inn the owner of the hotel informed me that my reservation was cancelled by Booking.com. I also found an e-mail from Booking.com informing me about cancellation. It said that the hotel tried to charge my card and the transaction was rejected.

As before in Beijing, it was only me and my 4 years old kid, and we arrived late to the city we have never been to before, relying on the hotel reservation we had made before our trip. If the reservation is not prepaid and the Booking.com offered it to be paid directly at the hotel then why my card was charged before the end of the day? Why don't you advise your customers that the hotel can charge their cards before they even have a chance to show-up to the hotels and pay for the room by themselves?
Why don't you advise your customers that there is a risk of cancellation from your side for such and such reasons?

Luckily that night I didn't have to wander around a dark city with my son looking for a room since El Paso Inn had one available for us.

I travel a lot, never had a no-show in any hotels I booked and never had such an unpleasant experience like I did with Booking.com, you have a lot of things you need to work on as so far you're way too unreliable!

Thank you

After booking through Booking.com a hotel in Paris, Hotel du Brabant I cancelled by emailing this company and also I thought to make sure, the hotel itself; the staff member who spoke poor English, assured me that it was cancelled. I have just received my credit card bill and have been charged £ 95.65 for no show, after several days waiting for booking.com to get back to me " to email the hotel" I am still waiting. Does anybody know if its possible to go through the Small Claims court to recover this money?

I booked a hotel through booking.com which I had gone on line. I made a reservation at another hotel for the same date and went on the day before to print the confirmation. At no time did I see that I had two registrations pending. Seems as though the first hotel I booked was never cancelled and never showed up on my booking.com account when I printed confirmation. Needless to dsay they day after my reservation date I was sent a no show email from the reservation I cancelled. I will never use this site again and will go with the more mainstream sites. There web design in no way alerted me to the fact I had two reservations pending when I went to print my confirmation for the hotel I intended to stay at. What a scam

I have used booking.com many times for my trips despite the reviews they have, I have mad booking to Radius International Hotel Kuala Lumpur through Booking.com and I went on the same day of My Check-In and the hotel were not able to find me a room as they informed Booking.com that he credit card used at the time of booking was invalid, i was not informed by any one, and i have to find a hotel on late night to accommodate my wife & I and hardly find it .
The Big Comedy after the hotel confirm the credit card is invalid and despite I was in hotel in my date of the Check-in, the hotel has charged back my credit card with the full stay, i have been in comminucation with the hotel and booking.com over than 45 Days till now they were not able to refund the amount,
DON'T USE THIS SITE THEY WILL DO ANYTHING TO TAKE YOUR MONEY. I will never use booking.com again. . The customer service is rude and not helpful at all. Simply they not care about you !

I am absolutely disgusted with Booking.com. We recently booked an apartment in Peniscola, Spain through them. We have 2 young children so not wanting to take any chances booked through them thinking they were a reputable company. The apartment we decided on was chosen solely due to the photos - a pretty white walled two story high building in a line of terraced apartments and several photos of an outstanding pool with waterslides. About 1 month before going we asked my father who lives in Spain to just pop along and check it out. He visited the agent, Apartmentos 3000, and they gave him an address. He tried to locate it but it didnt exist. He went back in the next week and the lady was very obtuse, gave him some wishy washy directions and sent him off again. Still no luck, he even asked a local policeman who hadnt heard of the address. He went in a final time which was one week before we were due to fly and was then told by the same last that actually it was allocation on arrival and that therefore she could not give him an address. She said that we would have known this at time of booking - there was absolutely nothing on the Booking.com website to indicate this. He asked at this point about the pool. She said that none of the apartments had a pool but that we would have access to a nearby water park. He asked her to confirm that it was free and she said yes. I called Booking.com at this point and they tried to tell me that it was obvious there would be several apartments as we were booking through an agent. I tried to argue this point as even google maps gave an exact point of the supposed apartment. They also said re the misleading photos that it was similar to a Hotel not being able to give you a photo of the exact room you would be staying in! They werent really much help at all. I noticed the next day that additional photos not previously on the website had miraculously appeared which showed other apartment blocks. I have fed this back to Booking.com but they just said the agent is responsible for uploading their own photos and again nothing was done. My father picked up the keys on our day of arrival as we were flying in after office hours. When we arrived at the apartment we found no bed linen and therefore all had to sleep the first night on beds that were very dirty and unhygenic looking. The apartment was surprise surprise one of the ones which had appeared as a new photo. It was tired and tatty which was what we had expected based on the recent events. The next day I went to the office to complain, the same lady who my father had dealt with on all occasions wasnt really that concerned with my problems. Further more when I asked about the pool she told me it wasnt free, we had to pay 5euros per person per day - this is the same rate that applies to anyone that goes there. When I told her it was included in our deal she produced some free passes which turned out to be expired when we tried to use them. We tried not to let it ruin our holiday but it did. The only thing that I saw as positive was the thought that when we got home we would be able to get Booking.com to do some thing about it. I wrote a complaint letter similar to this detailed everything. I included several photos, including one of the expired passes plus a screen shot of the website before the additional photos of the other apartments were added. I was confident a large reputable company such as Booking.com would be shocked and disgusted by what had happened. Not so. They sent me a generic email apologising for the problems, saying they would work with the company to get the website correct and that they hoped I would use Booking.com again! They were very quick to point out that they are only the intermediaries. I understand this but surely they have a duty of care not to put their customers in the care of complete cowboys? Over one week on, the website for these apartments is exactly the same so other people are booking a holiday from hell. My damning review has also not been posted. This explains why the average score for these apartments is so high, they cherry pick only the good reviews! I have contacted Booking.com to ask them to confirm when my review will be published and they have simply ignored me. I has since googled other complaints and negative reviews and ignoring your emails seems to be a regular occurance...

Booked a hotel through Booking.com and used the 'free cancellation' option. Received a confirmation email stating that in the event of a 'no-show' or 'cancellation' I would be liable for the entire booking fee. Booking.com talked in circles and virtually insisted that I 'chose' the 'non-refundable' option - but with no proof whatsoever. They could not, or would not produce the original booking. Only the confirmation email which they generated. Have used them as booking agents in the past but very disappointed in their attitude. I now have to question their business ethics and would never use them again.

After weeks of restless emailing and talking to customer service staff to get back the amount that the Bayshore Inn Ventura hotel overcharged, I received the following email:

Reservation [protected] at Bayshore Inn Ventura, check-in date 2014-08-21, and check-out date 2014-08-23. The hotel has informed us the transaction number given could not be used. They will need to have the credit card number to process the refund and this can be given to the hotel directly.

My bank warned me that giving out the credit card number by phone or fax is insecure. Also note that I lost trust in this hotel staff. We all know that the credit card details can be traced back by the terminal at the hotel. I don`t see any reason for doing it that way. I had been twice refunded in the last 2 weeks by hotels. Actually those hotels have done it automatically when they realized that they debited the wrong amount.
Therefore I will instruct the bank to intercede regarding to this refund, and also contemplating to make report for the Ventura Police.
I had used booking.com for hundreds of bookings. Believe me this is the first time I come across such a nonsense.
I communicated my concern for numerous booking.com staff in the last 2 weeks. But it seems booking.com doesn`t really care about its partner`s ethics by excepting this shady attempts from the Bayshore Inn Ventura hotel.
I trusted and gave out my card details to booking.com, which has been forwarded the hotel. Right now booking.com takes no further responsibility on arranging the refund.
Every second day I make a new booking thru their server, which stores my credit card number etc. why don`t they just use the data from your database, and handle this issue?
Should it be the first warning to start using a new agent?

I've been traveling in Europe for 3 months and relied on Booking.com heavily for its ease of finding lodging and very clear listings that make it easy to determine if a hotel offers the services I need (e.g. Wi-Fi in the Room, English speaking staff in non-English speaking countries, etc). Up until August 2014, I had been satisfied and very happy using the service. But my experience traveling in Greece and what I discovered when I asked Booking.com for help when I had my first problems, has left me finding it difficult to trust the service for future bookings. The first incident was a hotel which listed that they offered wi-fi in "all areas" of the hotel. And the rooms indicated Wi-Fi inside the room as a feature at the time of booking. On arrival, I discovered the hotel only offered wi-fi in some public areas, and in some of the rooms. They did not have wifi coverage that covered the whole building. At breakfast, I overheard over guests complaining about their frustration with the same issue. At the end of my stay, I contacted Booking.com to ask them to change the listing to protect future customers from the frustration of an incorrect listing. They said that the hotel was entirely responsible for what is written in the listing. And they said that they would ask the hotel about it -- and the hotel responded that the listing was correct and refused to change it. After multiple emails back and forth, I'm told the hotel department of booking.com in Greece in working with the hotel to either fix the problem or update the listing. But it seems to me that it should not take a customer like me caring enough to want to help others and write 5 emails back and forth -- to push for Booking.com to be strict that their hotels to not promise what they can't deliver. My second issue -- also realted to errors in the listing -- happened following after this incident. I booked a stay at a hotel on a different island which promised Wi-Fi, -- and I was concerned that I might be face the same issue. So I called this hotel -- and after several days of getting no answer during early evening hours -- I finally reached someone at the front desk who did not speak English and could not help me. I double-checked the Booking.com listing details -- and indeed, the hotel was listed as "English-Speaking"... And so given there was at least one error in the listing, I could not trust that the Wi-Fi was going to be reliable as listed. Nor could i get someone on the phone to reassure me. I immediately cancelled the reservation, and made other arrangements. Booking.com acknowledged there was indeed a mistake in the listing - since the English language customer service person couldn't communicate with someone on the phone either, but booking.com refused to compel the hotel to refund the penalty I was charged for cancelling 6 days in advance of arrival -- which was 50% of my entire stay, Booking.com asked the hotel if they would be willing to refund my money, and when the hotel said no, booking.com said they couldn't help. In my opinion, it should be straightforward that customers have the right to cancel any reservation when the hotel has been misrepresented, and no cancellation penalty should be charged. I discussed these problems with a travel journalist, and he suggested that I use Booking.com to look up the names of hotels, but then call the hotels directly myself to make the reservation, since the hotels are likely to discount the room given that they will not have to pay Booking.com the normal 15-20% commission. I'd be happy to use Booking.com for future listings, but only if I can trust they become more effective at enforcing more accurate listings, and they are more solid in standing behind customers who make a booking that's based on a false representation.

I have used booking. com many times for my trips despite the reviews they have. I stayed at a hotel in nashville in july and in august the same hotel charged me $512.08. According to the hotel booking. com sent them a notice 2 days after my stay at the hotel that I would be booking a room again in august. I did not authorize or make any reservations. I was charged for a no call/no show thanks to booking. com. Don't use this site they will do anything to take your money. I will never use booking. com again. Now I am out $512.08 thanks to them. The customer service is rude and not helpful at all.

I booked a 2 night stay at the Britannia Hotel in Wolverhampton and stated on Booking.com website that there would be 7 of us ( 3 adults and 4 children). It came up with 2 twin rooms and thought that would be ok as it stated that extra beds could be put in the rooms as the children are small and we would cope. I thought that if there would be a problem the hotel will email me.

No email arrived so I thought that everything was fine then when we got to the hotel they demanded £70 extra for the extra beds. The problem is why didn't they email giving us the option of booking another hotel if we wanted to

I did several bookings on booking.com, until today.

Because from now on I will never do another reservation on booking.com. I will tell you my story and you will understand why.

2 months ago, I booked some hotel in Greece via booking.com. With 2 days before start of the holiday I receive a mail from booking saying that reservation was cancelled. I was astounded, I never thought this could be possible. But it is. And booking staff informed me that hotel simply canceled my booking because they could not process my credit card.

Ok, lets rollback.

1. Booking.com scams people, by selling different products than are presented on their site.

I did a reservation with no prepayment. It is stated very clear that payment will be done at hotel and not deposed will be charged at all So booking.com presents and sells services - booking offer that are not real, are fake.
It was not a problem to pay the reservation at the moment of booking. But B.com stated very clear that is not necessary, and (pre)sold me a different service that presented to me.

2. Booking.com does not respect the booking contract.

A booking is like a contract between 2 or more parts that are come in agreement for the service of renting a hotel room for example. Like any contract, a booking also can that can be cancelled. But for that there must be some reasons and some sanctions. If i would canceled the booking i would have to pay half of the total amount. How come hotel cancelled the booking without any penalty. I don;t really care for that, i care why booking.com allowed that. They keep saying that is hotel fault, that the hotel cancelled. But wait, i entered on b.com website. i made the reservation - contract not with the hotel, but with the booking.com. Booking cancellation was operated by booking.com. More, when you operate this you must have a reason, and the reason was a fact forbidden by booking contract = the prepayment.
Not in a moment, booking did not say, stop, you can;t cancel the reservation for this reason, because it can;t. the booking contract says something else. But no, they cancelled without even considering this, and the booking contract.

In conclusion, booking.com is not reliable, it promises one thing and does another, it doesn't respect the customers

We booked an apartment for 5 days in Lima on July via booking.com. When we went to the place nobody was there. We called booking.com and they arranged another one for us. But this new hotel cost 275€ more and booking.com gave us a promise to refund this extra money. But after 15 days of staying they didn't pay anything. I sent several emails for getting information but no reply. You can read their letter about that.

I had a reservation for 5 days in Hotel Vel Marina for 372 euros It has
been cancelled by the Hotel because they don't make reservations shorter
than 6 days.Booking.com rang me and offered a stay in a different hotel
that had the price of 520 euros.They said that they will cover all the
difference and I will be refunded during my stay, after I will send them
an invoice.I sent off an invoice 8 days ago. also I sent a few emails
in the last few days and I got no answer.I paid for my stay when I
arrived to hotel like we agreed, so booking.com should do the same and
refund my money quick like we agreed.When I paid to booking.com and I
had some questions about it, they respond was quick but when I needed to
be refunded after when I paid they didn't reply and they still haven't
.I sent a few emails, l am looking for another possibility to contact
with booking.com that's why I am posting here because I got no reply on
my emails .I spent too much time for this.It should take up to 24 hours
for them to reply my emails.So if someone from the Booking.com customer
service can see this, can you fix my problem please :)

Do not use booking. com. We stayed in a hotel in london in april called the carlton, which turned out to be a dump, and we have kids. I agreed when I got there to pay for two nights, but we hadn't seen the rooms yet. Once we saw the rooms, we knew we couldn't stay more than one night. I called booking. com to let them know. They then called the hotel and then contacted us again letting us know that the hotel was fine with us leaving after one night. The next morning when we tried to check out, the hotel insisted that we'd have to pay for two nights, even though we were leaving after one. I called booking. com, and they acted like they had never said we could leave after one night. It's been a battle since then. This is not a professional company with which to be dealing.

Never give your credit card details to booking. com. They are very irresponsible.
Dear sir,

I have used booking. com for my hotel bookings in thailand and felt comfortable about giving my credit card details to them. However, I realized that this was a big mistake because I understand that they just pass your credit card details to the hotel and does not check whether the hotel is charging you illegally. They feel no responsibility about it.
Me and my husband stayed at diamond place krabi from 19th-21st march 2014 in room no. 312. We had booked the hotel for 2 days. But we extended our stay by a day. For the accommodation we paid 3 days amount in cash. (As per the booking. com conditions we are to pay the hotel in cash, so we paid them in cash) we checkout the hotel and left krabi on 21st march. And we came back to iidia on 24th march. After coming back we realised that 2688 thb has been also charged against my husband credit card on 24th march 2014. After mentioning that booking. com does not charge me for the booking, I was charged. I have been contacting the hotel since march 29th. I have not got a response from them yet.
I wrote to booking. com mentioning diamond place double charging us. I asked them how can they let the hotel people charge us 3 days after we check out. They can permit the hotel to charge our credit card only if we do not show at the hotel after booking. But we stayed there. And still got our credit charged. How can booking. com let this happen. Double charging. They are asking me the hotel bill as proof. Let me ask you 1 thing. Who will treasure a hotel bill for a life time. Who keeps the hotel bill after checking out. I do not have the bill. But I very well know what is mentioned in the booking. com site. They clearly say to" make the payment at the hotel in cash". We did pay the hotel in cash. Which hotel charge your credit card 3 days after you leave the hotel.
I have been asking for these answers and booking. com is yet to give me an answer on why diamond place charged us. I need answers. And iam not allowing anyone to cheat me. I will fight this till I get my money back.

You guys took the credit card details from my husband. So you are responsible for any misuse of it. You should be checking when and why the hotel charge the customers. Why did not booking. com question the hotel.

How can booking. com be so irresponisible.

Hi, a friend made a reservation for me through Booking.com. The quoted price was €442. When I got the confirmation email £442 (Pounds, Sterling) was converted to Euro. When I contacted Booking.com they responded that the quoted price is converted into the currency of the country one is staying in. That is fair enough but is it fair to advertise a price in Euro, magically transform that exact price into a Sterling (GBP) amount and then convert back to Euro again? The difference in price is approximately €150! I do not think that any company should be allowed to conduct its business in this fashion

I made a reservation of a hotel (Courtyard by Marriott Stockholm Kungsholmen) using booking.com service. I stayed at this hotel for 9 nights (from July 1st, 2014 to July 10th, 2014). Later I was sent an email by booking.com with a request to survey my experience at the property. I did it honestly, trying to be as much impartial and objective as possible. I also gave my opinion in the form of "Yes/No" answers on about 20 similar reviews of other guests of the Courtyard. Yet, I can't see neither the text of my review, nor the overall score, derived from my survey, on a corresponding webpage http://www.booking.com/hotel/se/courtyard-stockholm.en-us.html?sid=4e694c35821b1f56cee1e482705815de;dcid=1;ucfs=1;srfid=e4bcebc185b65f34f17c153866692016452a9b42X22#tab-reviews
This single fact allows me to suggest the worst: the booking.com team or specially crafted software, or the both do their best job to keep up the total score and positive public opinion of certain properties on a decent level (say no lower than 8.5, excellent). I don't think that all the reviews and scores presented there are fake, they are just carefully selected. Thus statistics are skilfully biased and the whole picture distorted. So don't expect to get objective info about quality of an accommodation from booking.com, their figures lie!

I made a booking via Booking.com for a local hotel room with the payment option to pay upon arrival. The hotel made an error when charging my card and charged me for less than the amount of the hotel room. When they discovered their error they called to inform me that they would need to get my credit card information to recharge my card for the balance. When i contacted the hotel to sort out the error they informed me that they got my credit card information from booking.com and charged my card already for the balance. I think that people need to be very careful with this site as they seem very nonchalant about people's credit card information.