“ABSOLUTELY AVOID.
I have used Booking.Com for years and have always had successful bookings and stays that have met above expectations.
However, our last stay in September this year was a dreadful one. In a nutshell, an accommodation that blatantly lied with photographs which didn't match up to what we received. This place was literally in someone's run down, pokey flat, that resembled a scene from a council estate off the TV show, "The Bill". The family and their two cats were literally next door to us, and some random bloke bumps into us in the hallway in his pyjamas! Our room also stank of cannabis and the towels smelled mouldy. The bed was the worst, it felt like every spring had blown. The list goes on.....
I had contacted Booking.Com and reached out, and I never received a single response. I tried a few times and, nothing. Not a single reply or apology.
Fast forward to today. We had a stay in London tonight. However, when we got to the train station this morning, we were met with the news that every train to London was cancelled, due to the severe weather conditions, and flooding on the lines.
I have tried to contact Booking.Com and have been on the phone, on and off, (PAINFULLY) for hours, only to get a frikken AI highly irritating Yanky robot everytime. This bloody robot sends you around and around in circles, getting nowhere, before condescendingly telling you, "Goodbye!". They clearly do this to wind you up so that you give up.
I requested a refund, and asked for (at least) just a change of dates, so we could at least rebook the show we're missing and go later in the year. All totally HOPELESS!
FROM THIS DAY FORWARD, I WILL NEVER USE BOOKING.COM AGAIN.
This company is a fraud. They take your money, they offer ZERO customer service and simply do not care.
Absolutely disgusting!
I will now be contacting the Ombudsman.
I have DELETED my account.”
“The service is so terrible. I booked an apartment at Bedford UK last year May. The host asked me to cancel the booking on that day itself before I checked in. I have to rush to find my lodging. I also have called up to Booking.Com to do the complaint. The customer service has got my call and Booking.Com also has sent me an email agreed to refund to me. However, even I have sent emails to Booking.Com, they just ignored my email and not responding to my emails at all. I will never want to go to this service again. Totally disappointed.”
“Charged me double price for a room at embassy suit. I got to the hotel to check in and they told me I over paid by $120. I tried to get a refund and booking.com told me it was nonrefundable.”
“If I could give them 0 stars I would. Do not trust Booking.com to provide honest details about flights booked through them. I booked a flight that specifically was advertised as "Flight change possible", although a fee may apply. Nowhere in the booking did it say that the flight was non-refundable. Yet when I contacted Booking.com for assistance I was first passed from one team to another and made to wait several minutes in between and then was informed that they could not assist me as it is a non-refundable flight. Deceptive advertising, disorganized customer service, and an overall horrendous experience. Use at you own risk!!”
“Booking com experience is very worst compare to other booking site If you go and book hotel or resort they will offer complementary breakfast but if you book through booking.com the free meals also charged.so better to book by other agencies”
“I am extremely disappointed with my experience. I requested a cancellation due to severe weather conditions that made it unsafe for me to travel as a truck driver. Despite explaining the situation and providing a valid safety concern, my request was denied and I was told I would not receive a refund.
This is unacceptable, especially considering the circumstances were completely out of my control. A reputable hotel should prioritize guest safety and show flexibility during hazardous weather. Instead, I was left without accommodations and lost my money.
I will not be booking with this property again, and I hope Booking.com reviews how this situation was handled. No customer should be penalized for choosing safety during dangerous weather conditions.”
“Booking.com is the worst company I have dealt with. There customer service is horrible and I will never use there services again. Even 1 star is to generous. We cancelled a trip with approval from the hotel ,booking still charged us saying they never received a cancellation letter from the hotel ( which was sent over and over ) it’s been 3 weeks and we are still waiting for the refund. Luckily enough the hotel has taken over the situation and hopefully will be resolved. I would highly recommend dealing directly with the hotel before using bookings services”
“App itself is fine. Unless you need anything from the company, you may get what you ordered. But making a change even if you prepaid all the extra fees is impossible. You deal with Goyogate. At first they try to give you 20+ hour layovers and 2+ stops. Then after booking and paying (card charged), I was waiting for confirmation, calling daily, promised to have answer within couple hours. Only to hear on day 6 flight is not available! Never again”
“Very disappointing. Try to get in touch with some advisor and the call asked me to hold for 20 minutes to get someone on the phone. It’s incredible in these days.
So I have to wait over 20 minutes to help me to sort it out one big issue. It’s unbelievable seriously.”
“Very bad experience after purchasing my flight with them. The flight was camcelled, I can't get any compensations, had additional costs. They are sending chatbot sorry letters. Very poor service and attitude. I sent tje case to EU consumer rights agency.”
“Booking.com is fine until something goes wrong. I made 14 bookings for an extended holiday. 13 were fine, one unfortunately was a scammer who refused to allow me to access the apartment I’d paid for. Booking.com are very difficult to contact; I finally found a phone number for them on Reddit. They state that it is up to the provider whether I receive a refund! Obviously that isn’t going to happen. Since I made the booking there are many, many people saying the same thing about this apartment: either they could not access or the owner demanded additional payment and Booking.com does nothing. Ultimately this means that customers cannot trust any of the listings despite most of them being legitimate. I will not be using Booking.com again.”
“I am unable to attend a show because of illness, they want a Dr note, hospital admissions and release date etc, talk about intrusive! What's wrong me is my business
Seriously you don't /can't go to the Dr for every ailment.
I was travelling today to stay with family ahead of the show tomorrow, my train was cancelled due to the weather, because I'm not travelling to the area of the venue they won't refund the money under travel distribution.
Absolutely disgusting, we pre paid for drinks at the theatre, they won't refund that either.
This is the first time I've ever insured my tickets, it will be the last.”
“I booked a home in Columbus Ohio. Home was approximately $125 per night. Total bill was about $923 for three nights. Charges included a $323 damage deposit. I have spent the past 6 weeks trying to get Booking.com to return my damage deposit. Three times I have sent proof of the charges I incurred. Nothing but crickets since. No one reaches out, no request for additional information. I will never use this site again and have told all of my travel buddies of this nightmare. Ridiculous”
“Over a month ago I booked a hotel in Paris with friends for a few days via booking.com. The process was easy enough and we found a hotel we loved the look of and booked. On booking it said pay when you arrive at the hotel, with he confirmation email stating “no further payment is required before your stay”. Of course we had to add a bank card to the booking in preparation. 2 days before our stay booking.com try and take the payment in full from the card, as the booking was a pay on arrival booking, we had sent no money to this account yet as no payment was meant to be taken for another two days until we got to the hotel so the payment declined. Booking.com immediately cancelled our booking. I called the hotel directly as this is what the booking.com cancellation email stated for us to do, for the lovely hotel staff to apologise and say that there is nothing they can do as its booked through booking.com and actually we need to call them, they did suggest booking direct with them as they said booking.com charge a huge commission. I call booking.com who admit it was in their error to take payment early and cancel our booking but then tell me they cant reinstate the booking and taking payment now but they can call the hotel direct and re do the booking if we pay a £400 cancellation fee to re book. Obviously I expressed how insane this is to expect us to pay a cancellation fee when booking.com admit it is their error. I was told they could escalate this to see if it could be waved but with us needing the hotel in roughly 30 hours we do not have time to wait for this so booking and paying the cancellation fee is better to secure it. I was as you can imagine not ok with this, and they put me on hold to talk to management, then off course the phone was cut off! I called the hotel directly who was more than happy to help me re book with no cancellation fee, and my booking direct with them for the same room, breakfast and same dates was £350 less due to the high commission booking.com add. This was my first and now only time using booking.com, ALWAYS GO DIRECT TO YOUR HOTEL FOR BOOKING AND BOYCOTT THESE SCAMMERS!”
“728340569 Car hire! I didn’t have a bank card to use chip and pin it was being delivered the day of the hire. But they cancelled my reservation because even though I booked without a card they never told me as the driver they needed a card in my name to use via chip and pin. And refused to refund me. Disgusting service waste of money for nothing they had a free £131 off me absolutely disgusting service”
“I spoke to this company a few days ago regarding issues I was having with the accomodation I booked and am staying at currently in Vietnam. They advised they could not come to an agreement with the landlord so instead I was given a $200 credit that was to be credited to my wallet which I can use for tours etc.
I received an email that the credits were transferred. However, as soon a as they did this, they deactivated my account t so I cannot now get into my account to use these credits.
I sent an email to them, called them, sent messages on Instagram and Facebook. Finally received a reply advising me that for security reasons they could not advise me the reason my account was cancelled and to have a nice day.
Unbelievable. I have been a member with them for over 20 years.”
“We literally got our reservation cancelled because booking.com refused to send our hotel the payment Information. Hotel receptionist spent 2 hours on the phone with a rep from booking.com trying to get the issue resolved. Instead of helping the situation since booking.com was the problem, booking.com cancelled our reservation as me and my family of 5 (2 year old, 4 year old, and 6 year old) are sitting in the lobby to check in. The booking.com reps name was Irene who refused to help the situation. She refused to let the hotel receptionist talk to another rep or her manager. Ive never experienced anything like this in my life. This is the worst customer service I have ever experienced. Now we are paying an extra $100 to stay in the hotel we already booked over a month ago. We will never use booking.com again and I will ensure that I communicate to anyone and everyone to avoid using booking.com. Pathetic service.”
“Prepaid car rental was not honored, and customer support was unavailable when needed.
Upon arrival, Dollar Car Rental stated the reserved vehicle was unusable and required me to book a new rental at a higher rate. Booking.com was unreachable despite multiple attempts that same evening. I was left with no option but to pay again for a vehicle.
This situation was stressful, poorly handled, and remains unresolved. I would not recommend prepaying a car rental through Booking.com.”
