Booking.com
reviews and complaints

After using Booking.com on many occasions in the past I have always used this site on the fact that it advertises as 'Free cancellation'. On this occasion I went to book and was charged the full amount of nearly €1000. I was informed that this was taken within 10 minutes of the booking when I tried to cancel with my bank.
After trying to resolve the issue (which booking.com DO NOT make easy) I was contacted by a Customer service agent who was so rude to me on the phone that when i said I wanted to make an official complaint, he told me there was no point as it would simply 'go around and around'.
How is this acceptable Customer Service?
I have sent two emails about this to the media relations email address and have not received any response from them.
I will be taking this further and urge people to think twice before using booking.com in future.
I have been left so upset at the treatment by Booking.com and have actually sought legal advice too regarding this matter.

When I booked Villa Copenhagen on June 7, 2017 for the 2 nights, June 13 and 14, there was no indication that this room had a "shared" bathroom. Our cost for 2 nights was $694USD, for this exorbitant amount, we had to share 2 bathrooms for 6 rooms. There was no staff on duty until the 2nd afternoon when a staff person delivered the charge receipt. I told him that we were shocked to learn that there was no private bathroom. He indicated that booking.com would not allow "shared bathroom" on the listing page. However, it was very clear that the kitchen and lounge area with TV (there was no TV in the lounge area), was shared. This was a false and misleading listing. Today, I see that the listing has been changed to show "shared bathroom", presumably because I made this complaint.
In addition, the security of the house was absent in that all guests needed to unlock the front door to exit and if they were checking out, guests were told to leave the keys in the room, in which case, it was not possible to lock the front door. We left at 4 a.M. To catch our flight, leaving the entire house without security. During both nights, we heard guests entering and leaving, so the house was unlocked most of the time.
There were additional problems with the house which prohibited smoking in their house rules but clearly there was the smell of smoke in the lounge area which aggravated my allergies.
With a shared bathroom, you have to carry your towels back and forth to the room which had no hooks to dry towels.
There was no mirror in the room to provide some extra dressing area because other guests from 6 rooms needed to use the bathroom.
The room was extremely small with little space for luggage which had to stay on the floor.
Guests were expected to clean up the kitchen after use and as a result there were dirty dishes in the cupboard. It appeared that no one was monitoring the cleanliness of the kitchen. The hot water pot was very corroded with hard water and not fit to use.
There was no daily service of trash disposal or bed making for the room.
The bar-b-que which was advertised frequently in the listing was dirty, the back yard grass was overgrown.
This was totally false advertising in light of the exorbitant rate of $347USD per night. We will dispute this charge with our credit card company.

I booked a room for a wedding on the 20th of May 2017 and there were no available dates, so booking.coms website automatically changed my date to the hotels next available date and after looking around for over an hour and being exhausted from a long day of work at the office and at home I accepted what I thought was the right date for the wedding. Instead I have a reservation for May 23 and my booking is non refundable. I have been back and forth with customer service at booking.com and neither the hotel or the website have the decency or customer service to refund or even comp me a room. I will never use their service again and I highly recommend that other people avoid using them as well to avoid getting burned.

Booking.com and ibis styles paris cdg airport roissy refuse to refund, credit, or offer another reservation date or solution to the following situation. They simply kept our money. We made a reservation on may 12, 2017 through booking.com for a 1 night stay at the ibis styles paris cdg airport roissy hotel for september 11, 2017 (4 months out). We paid by credit card. When we attempted to change our reservation date on june 6, 2017, to a date further in the future (October 31, 2017), they simply cancelled the original reservation, kept our money, and indicated we needed to rebook and pay another full reservation amount. Booking.com assumed no responsibility for resolving this situation despite their contract with this particular hotel.

After repeated communications with booking.com and the hotel, there was no resolution. They simply stated we needed to accept the loss and rebook if we wanted to pursue another reservation with them. I would not recommend either vendor for your reservations if you expect any flexibility or reasonable customer service whatsoever.

Dear sir,

I booked a hotel room in london from 12th june 2017 to 16th june 2017 in hotel gresham hotel bloomsbury, and I cancelled my booking within the allocated time, but payment deducted from my account against the above mentioned hotel reservation. Details are below

Hotel name: gresham hotel bloomsbury
Confirmation number: [protected]
Free cancellation for this reservation is available until saturday, june 10, 2017, exclusively. After that, you will be charged to cancel.

I cancelled it on june 10 but payment has been charged, its shocking for me and no one is responding?

Looking forward your cooperation.

Regards,

Ali

Jan. 9, 2017 Sheree Vegas

On Jan 9, 2017 I canceled my reservations at the Gainey Suites & The Boulders in Scottsdale Arizona as I called the Gainey Suites & booked it direct. The Boulders was not canceled in Bookings.com for some reason unbeknown to me. I found this out on the return trip from Arizona when I received an email to rate my stay at The Boulders. I then called & was told that I did not cancel the reservation & I would have to pay the "No Show" fee of $568.46.

I did not receive an email from Bookings stating that my reservation was canceled & really didn't think anything of it as I wrote down on my trip notes that I canceled it on 1/9/17 along with the Gainey Suites cancelation at the same time.

Why was my reservation not canceled by Bookings? Why am I responsible for the out rages fee. This is not right! I feel that Bookings has ripped me off.

I have used Bookings many of times but I will not use them ever again & I will make sure that everyone knows about this.

RE: reservation [protected] at Phuket Marriott Resort & Spa

I recently booked a trip with Booking.com using my Samsung phone. I had booked an option that I was able to cancel as I was not yet sure of my dates, or so I thought, however when the confirmation letter came by email it was a non-cancellation book. There had been no pop up to warn of the non cancellation nature of the booking.

My husband called the customer care booking within 10 minutes of making this booking, and sent email query at the same time to ask them to rectify this. However we were met with apathy to assist and told to contact the hotel directly.
The email response followed, saying the same, almost five days later.

I called the hotel in Thailand and they advised me that it would be okay to change these dates once I discussed with booking.com. I emailed this to booking.com...I am still awaiting a response. When I called the call centre (the telephone number is almost impossible to find on their webpage and one is sent to standardized responses) I was helped by a very polite lady, however her response was, my hands are tied. This after I was kept on hold for 10minutes with no offer to call me back.
she advised me to call the Hotel again. The hotel said that all this needed to be changed by booking.com.

I am exasperated! we are not able to travel on the dates and will no forfeit this some of money.

My complaint is this:
1. the apathy of the customer care team is very frustrating
2. there is miscommunication between the hotel and bookin.com and the customer is the one who bares the cost of this.
3.the app is not clear in its booking functionality on smart phones, and yet when registering I was pushed to use the phone application rather than PC.

I would like for booking.com to arrange that the dates for which I can travel be arranged at the said package price
OR that booking .com cancels the booking and incurs the cost of that.

I would like for them to revise their policies regarding their customer service. twice they have asked me to complete a customer feedback survey, but no-one has followed up with me

I booked a room at Quality Inn, Marietta, Ga on Booking # [protected] and PIN 4893. The Hotel charged me 136.09 the exact quote that booking.com gave me even though I cancelled the reservation. I called the hotel and they said I had two reservations, which I did and both were canceled, the other one was not booking .com but was directly through the choice motel web site, I called the hotel and emailed them email copies of both canceled reservations several times. I am positive they charged me the booking.com reservation because that was the quote i was emailed. The other reservation was 126.00. Please help me get my money back. I am in the process of emailing corporate office at choice motels.

3 days ago I made a reservation on booking.com. The advertisement said no need to pay now we can pay on arrival. It also stated free cancellation. Might I ad I put the dates of arrival before booking to check for availability. Soon as I put my bank card number in it had a pop up telling not to worry no money would be tooken out. Soon as I completed it then said if I cancelled they get 50 percent. By the next day 1200 dollars was deducted from me and my husband account. So after half a day on hold with RedAwning the listing agency that allegedly owns the condo I was assured that we can cancel and our money would be put back. The next day the money wasn't there so we again wanted on hold for a very long time and was told it would be 15 days till it would be refunded. We have 14 days till we leave on vacation so we were told our reservation would be reinstated and was sent a confirmation code via email, by this all trust is lost. I understand that RedAwning is a listing agency not the actual condo manager, so I called booking.com to try to further verify and collect some info an the room we paid 1, 200 for the man was extremely rude and when trying to explain our situation he interrupted me and told me not to talk over him. When I requested to speak to his supervisor he said he wouldn't let me unless I told him why, then he hung up on me. RedAwning is now declining my phone calls and continuing to not reply to any of my emails, text or messages. Booking.com also has not answered any of my emails. These past three days has not been relaxing or worry free. My gut tell's me that RedAwning and booking.com work together to deceive people and rob their banking accounts.

Dear Team,

This is very disappointing on part of a customer service where I have been confirmed the hotel rooms earlier and cancellation done post making the advance payment.

Date of Bookings- Aug 12- Aug 15, 2017
Hotel name: Fig Fin Beach Resort
Booking number: [protected]
Advance payment done: 4000
Balance payment: 8900

The reason made to me by Rajni was the hotel owners are increasing the prices so the same is been cancelled. When I had a word with Sachin (as per PDF) he said no such issues as such and you may feel free with the booking confirmation.

I have book the tickets earlier for because rates are low and same increases when time span is low.

I would like to escalate the same and will want the same rooms at the same rates. Or else need some alternate accommodations.

Regards
Amit Satsangi
Ph: [protected]

I booked an apartment on Booking.com (Brusnika Dinamo Apartments in Moscow). On the morning of check in I tried to contact the apartment booked using Booking.com. I sent 3 text messages and 3 emails to the contact details on the booking page. I received no reply at all. I was confused and unable to find out the location or check in details. Without any other option, I eventually cancelled the apartment. However the apartment then charged my card the full amount even though they did not reply to me at all! Several emails were exchanged with Booking.com which led nowhere, even though they admitted the apartment reception told them 'they hadn't checked their emails'. Clearly this is a very easy way for apartments to earn money without doing anything - don't reply to customers and then charge a cancellation fee. I think it must happen a lot on Booking.com leading to lost money. And Booking.com side with the apartment. In the end, they told me to sort it out with the flat direct! Booking.com is a sham and a failed booking service that is just out to make money and cares nothing about people being ripped off! I advise everyone to book direct whenever possible and avoid this awful service.

On June 3 my wife booked a hotel in the vicinity of Venice, Italy (La Rotonda Venice). Between booking.com and the owner, they decided to change the price. No one told us, there wasn't any information given to us until June 5th. By this time other similar priced bookings were sold to others. We emailed and called and they didn't respond, but said their senior management was busy and would get back to us. This never happened in a timely manner so I called again and asked to speak to a customer service rep that was management. I got some Asian on the line (which I doubt was senior management), as she couldn't understand the simple point I was making. Asians are terrible customer service reps as they can only spew legaleeze rather than understanding the customer is always right. Sure enough, instead of making it right she gave me the choice of paying more than double for the booking for cancel it. Stay away from booking.com. They don't honor their contracts or even attempt to make it right. I will not bother with their customer service again as it is non-existent. Terrible. Now I have to find a replacement booking at a much higher rather than others that I could have booked June 3rd. I guess you have to triple book yourself with these people as you are really not sure what truly is booked and what is not as they don't honor their commitments but fall back on legaleeze BS.
TERRIBLE.
CUSTOMER.
SERVICE.

They should have made it right and honored my booking. They deal out $50 just for referral so I know they can easily have simply credited the account of the hotelier just as easily as they can credit the accounts of those who refer others to booking.com Simple. But that would require customer service beyond simply reading legal policies, something they are apparently incapable of doing.

Not happy. at . all
Calvin Jones
[protected]@live.com

Hello,
I reserved Steigenberger Dau Hotel from 16/6 - 20/6 on Free cancellation basis, and pay at hotel, and the hotel tried to withdraw 25% of the reservation fees 2 weeks before which was not matching what Booking.com policy written by them on their webpage and on the mail sent to me with reservation details, i've asked Booking.com to act, but they said that i should communicate with Hotel directly ! then why do you put it on your website ? and of course the hotel cancelled my reservation after i blocked the payment.

Booking com has handed my details to company in morocco, who have deducted the full payment, although advertised as payment at the hotel and free cancellation.
Booking.Com acknowledged they should refund but keep pretending they can't converse with the hotel, which I know is false because at first they put me through their French counterpart. Booking.com then say to refund they need my bank statement, when I sent it in they say it's not clear and then they want the long card number on the statement, which they know doesn't show. Now they have barred my number.

Beware

Booked a family room for 3, 2 adults 1 child, and was put in double room for 2, then I was charged extra for changing to another room for 3, and parking was supposed to be free, but again, I was charged on top, not happy at all. And the hotel staff, were very rude, I was told, (do you wanted or not) they didnt even considered at all, that I had I young child with me

Hello all,

after having booked and paid for a room in spain, in full, I found the room at a lower price on the hotels own website. I wrote to booking.com to price match and to much confusion, denial and time wasting they matched the rate. They then told me a refund is on its way. A day later i received an email that this is not the case, now they are refusing to refund the difference until after my stay. Nothing in the policy that states this is the procedure, absolute joke. The room has been paid for in full with a no refund policy. Even if we don't make it to spain their is not difference we do not receive a refund. Total scam.

We booked a hotel stay via Booking website and everything seemed to be fine. We paid for our stay and received a notification from Booking stating that booking was successfully completed.
But when we arrived at the place an unpleasant surprise awaited us. Lady at the hotel reception desk said that there was no booking under our name and that all rooms were booked two months prior!
Booking took our money and scammed us. When we contacted them they promised to find out how could that happen, but they never did anything. Avoid this site!

I had two nights booked with this hotel on the 26th and 27th May 2017. The sofa bed that my daughter was meant to sleep on was filthy, so we checked out the next morning.

This problem was only discovered very late at night when we unfolded the sofa, so we did not ask for assistance at that time.

They stated that since it was through Bookings.com they couldn't help, and that we should have checked out 24 hours before for a refund. So by there logic, we should have checked out before we checked in to discover the poor condition of the room.

They also stated that they would get their manager to ring me on the following Monday to sort it out. He has now stated that we should have contacted you immediately to cancel the booking, and that once again it is out of his hands.

We have now been charged for both nights, when we checked out at around 9am after the first night.

Can you please have a look at this and organise the return of the second night charge. At the moment I do not want to go near that hotel again due to their problem resolution deficiencies.

This is giving your booking site a bad name, and the managers only comment was that we should have booked directly through the hotel and then they would have been able to sort it out.

Is Bookings.com able to sort this out, or should I just book directly through the hotels in future?

So i had booked a resort called the Terrylin Guest House from the 4th to the 5th of May then the company called me and told me there had been an error in the booking and i should find a different resort, and that all cost arising from this inconvenience would be covered by them. Well what they did was send me a link that doesn't work when i try to enter my credit card details its been two weeks and i am just seriously genuinely annoyed..

Hi, I am writing to you with regards to my recent experience with Booking.com. I have been using booking.com for many years and realised that you guys are now operating in china as well. We now live in Shanghai and are originally from UK.
It was my mother in laws 60th birthday on the 16th of May, as part of the celebration we planned on doing great wall and Beijing. For this purpose we booked Yiyang city apartments in Beijing for two nights (reference no's -[protected]-8754, [protected]-2411, [protected] -9405) It was 12 of us. When we arrived in Beijing we could not find the hotel easily however after me calling booking.com customer service, I was then connected to the hotel supervisor or owner I am not sure. We went in the lobby that has nowhere to sit so we ended up sitting on the floor for 35 minutes or so. While the supervisor took copies of our passport. Something about this place did not seem right, so my husband decided to check. He asked the supervisor if he could see the place before we paid. The supervisor said 'No you cannot, you need to pay first'. My husband insisted again and this time the supervisor had no choice, My Husband and I went up to see the place, in the simplest words all I can say is I have never been to a hotel like this. There were overflowing, smelly bins, the carpet was torn and full of dust, the hallway walls had shoe mark all around as if someone has been fighting there, and the room's door looked as if someone had kicked them hard to open. One of the rooms he showed us had food smell as if someone had just cooked there. We got a little scared and felt unsafe as we had children with us too. We straight away went down and sent my sister and her husband to go up and have a look. They looked at the place as well and said no we should not stay here as it feels dirty and dangerous
We launched a complaint with Booking.com saying I should not be charged anything as this place was falsely advertised on booking.com and sent them photos of the hotel we had taken. The reply to my complaint was 'As per the supervisor, we never arrived at the hotel and the photos were not from the same place'. I was in complete shock to hear this, So much so that I went back online and reconfirmed that we went to the correct place. It almost feels like Booking.com works for the hotels and not for their customers. I have now advised your agents that I am happy to launch a police complaint against booking.com and the hotel supervisor as I can prove that I was there as I can get a call recording of my conversation with the supervisor. I have 11 more people who can confirm they were there. CCTV footage of the location will prove we were there.
I then spoke to a Booking.com agent called Jackie on the 25th of May at 17:16 (Shanghai time). She then confirmed with me that I was not going to be charged anything and I did not need to be doing anything from here on. I confirmed this with her again and again and every time she confirmed that nothing was being charged.
On the 30th of May 2017 I checked my UK Barclays credit card and saw that we had been charged £272.62 from this hotel (I emailed a proof of this payment to booking.com), I was shocked to see this transaction after all the conversation I had with your customer service. I am angry as to why we have been charged so much. Based on one night charge for cancellation the amount is £191. We do not believe we should be charged anything as this hotel info was misleading. The place was not suitable for family to stay, there was nothing in the name of service.
We believe we as customers are being treated badly. This is not the level of service I was ever expecting from booking.com. We wish for this matter to be resolved as soon as possible and our money to be credited backed into my account.

Prabhu Kumar Ramkumar