Booking.com, price match guarantee scam and the pandemic

Ginny.

Please help me raise the profile of this issue.
We booked the Meininger hotel in Amsterdam for April through Booking.com but could not travel due to lockdown. Booking.com agreed to price match for much lower prices from the Meininger website and the hotel allowed one rebooking to a date before the end of March 2021. The booking could not be cancelled and the hotel collected the payment before the earlier dates booked for travel. We opted for October 2020 but since rebooking EasyJet has cancelled our flights twice due to the pandemic, the Netherlands has been taken off the safe travel corridor meaning that we would not be insured, there is a 14 day quarantine period and we have two young children. 

Booking.com now tell me that if we do not show up for the booked dates, they will not honour their price match agreement. This is in spite of us having paid in full, the hotel being inflexible about any further changes and in the context of a pandemic.
I have read the price match terms and conditions and it does not say that you must turn up at the hotel in order for price match to be honoured at all. Just in case of a loophole, I have requested price match on the later rebooked dates and the prices are even cheaper. 

I have spent hours via online messages and speaking to their call centre in India, where invariably the nuances of my issues are either not understood or are ignored. There also appear to be various algorithms in the website which make it difficult to navigate if you wish to raise issues. If they continue in this manner, I note that I will need to go through their EU dispute mechanism (before Brexit) and thereafter if there was no satisfactory conclusion, would need to bring a debt claim in the English county court.

Please let me know if you have encountered this problem or have any ideas for resolving this. Hopefully some publicity would ensure that my complaint is dealt with more reasonably by Booking.com. I have used them many times in the past but would never do so again.

Browntoa

It's not a scam 

You knew the terms and conditions on sign up and have had your 1 rebook as allowed .

If you wanted fully flexible you should have opted for "cancellation up to the day before " which of course is more expensive but a lifesaver currently . 

Ginny.

Yes it is a scam. Whether I stay or not, as long as I have paid for the full stay, booking.com should honour price matching. Their t&cs do not say that if you do not show up (in spite of having paid in fully) that you will not qualify. It is an attempt to find a loophole which is not even in their published t&cs. 
with hindsight we would all have opted for fully flexible. That is neither here nor there in this scenario 😆

Unfortunately you have jumped to conclusions and I am looking for any helpful advice.

DCFC79

Ginny. said:

Yes it is a scam. Whether I stay or not, as long as I have paid for the full stay, booking.com should honour price matching. Their t&cs do not say that if you do not show up (in spite of having paid in fully) that you will not qualify. It is an attempt to find a loophole which is not even in their published t&cs. 
with hindsight we would all have opted for fully flexible. That is neither here nor there in this scenario 😆

Unfortunately you have jumped to conclusions and I am looking for any helpful advice.

Well thats me out, I was going to post some advice but I feel it wont be what your after.

jonesMUFCforever

Helpful advice - you won't like what we post so what's the point?

Ginny.

Does posting tens of thousands of posts in MSE make you three cynical by any chance? 🤔

Anamox

You'll notice most people with over 1k posts on this site are incredibly cynical and will do anything to make you look a fool when you question feeling ripped off, luckily there are plenty of newer members who seem to offer much more useful advice and are more in touch with reality. 

 I agree with you that booking.com do seem to make disputes awkward and the website takes you in circles to do anything to push you away from contacting them, and when your complaint is anything more than simple they are useless. 

You mention insurance, does that mean you already have travel insurance? If so, have you seen if they will pay out in the case of the FCO changing the travel advice to "all but essential travel"? One of my trips with booking.com had to be resolved like this, luckily the insurance paid out the cost of the accommodation booked through them. booking.com had absolutely no sympathy nor common sense even though the trip was in May 2020 to China of all place, all they wanted me to do was move my booking within a timeframe that clearly would still be in the midst of the pandemic. 

Failing insurance, have you booked by credit card? The other trip I booked that couldn't go ahead was refunded to me via a section 75 claim when insurance and the travel company refused to do anything other than offer a voucher or move the dates.

[Deleted User]

I am not sure you will get anywhere either tbh.  Not being cynical but seems very much in the hotels hands now. They have your money, they are being inflexible.  I know you booked via agents but it isn’t a package holiday, so actually they have done their bit and booked you into a hotel of your choice.  Any additional alterations will depend on whether the hotel is open or
not.  

I would do as someone suggested a section 75.  Then, if that fails see if your insurance covers you.  

Browntoa

Well you won't like this advice either .
Travel insurance won't cover "disinclination to travel" if you don't turn up for a booked hotel . A section 75 will fail for the same reason.

You can travel to your destination , flights are still available , you are choosing not to go as you cannot or will not quarantine.

But waste your time if it makes you feel better

Anamox

Browntoa said:

Well you won't like this advice either .
Travel insurance won't cover "disinclination to travel" if you don't turn up for a booked hotel . A section 75 will fail for the same reason.

You can travel to your destination , flights are still available , you are choosing not to go as you cannot or will not quarantine.

But waste your time if it makes you feel better

OP shouldn't like that "advice" because it is absolute rubbish. OP doesn't mention that their choice not to go is influenced by personal opinion, it is influenced by the fact the FCO are advising against all but essential travel to the nation they're going to; nullifying their insurance and making quarantine on return mandatory. 

It has been absolutely clear from the outset that those who are due to go on trips to nations which the FCO are advising against travel, but booked before such advice became so, have mostly been successful in receiving refunds from the vendor, insurer or credit card company. It is also clear that as the pandemic evolved the vendors suddenly became resistant to the idea of making refunds easy, and now some are even making booking amendments difficult as they race to the bottom to gather as much cash before they go broke. This essentially is the situation the OP now finds themselves in.

As above, I've been successful in getting refunds even though booking.com refused, so hopefully the OP will be insured/have purchased with a CC.