Booking.com - compensation request

Mudweiser

Hello MSE,

Just looking for some advice on my below ordeal with Booking.com and whether I’ve any more mileage in going further getting compensation. Here’s the story;

November 2022 – booked a guest house in London, £110, pay at the property for Saturday 8th July. All confirmed okay. This is because we were going to Wembley to see Blur

4th July – get an email from Booking.com reminding me to check everything’s okay for the booking

8th July – take 5hr coach trip from Leeds to London. Go to where guest should be… can’t find it. Make several unanswered calls to guest house. Call booking.com who say they’ll investigate. 

45 mins later get an email from them saying the guest house is closed and that I now need to book somewhere else, and they’ll provide up to £33 for it.

Have a look – and of course as I’m booking on the day the cheapest one anywhere for ‘London’ is £400… significantly more than our original booking (and miles away). 

So I make the second call of the afternoon, aksing they help find somewhere else. Long call short, they do, it’s an hour away though. They say they can’t book it for me, they need to email me with the details and I do it. Okay, so I wait. 

25 mins later, no email. We’re up against it now, time wise, as the doors have opened to our concert and the first of three support acts are due to start soon. We wanted to be there around this time. 

I make call number three to chase up on this email, stating the urgency of our situation. Email comes through ten minutes after the call. When I try and book the property… it says they’re fully booked. I can’t book it.

So I make call number four and express my frustration. We’re missing our concert and are currently stranded. After a VERY long hold an agent finds somewhere… an hour the other direction and £359. So we’d be massively out of pocket and have to go there, then an hour the other way to Wembley.

At this time my friend finds a hotel NEXT to Wembley for £300… on Booking.com! So how the agent couldn’t find this I don’t know. So we book this instead on my credit card and have to get an Uber to it so we don’t miss any more of the concert.

We make it to see Blur but have missed all of the support acts who we wanted to see. We’re tired and stressed and the shine of the whole day has been thoroughly extinguished by the whole ordeal.

So I write up the above and send in a complaint on the following Tuesday – and I’m afraid to say a similar ordeal has transpired. In short I’ve made four more phone calls to them and around six or seven emails asking for compensation.

The very first response I got was them saying yes they’d pay for the taxi fare, sorry for messing up our travel plans – no acknowledgement of the hotel fiasco or them offering an alternative that was booked by the time they actually sent it on. 

I have since received a refund for the difference in our original hotel price and the alternative, and an additional £38 for the Uber drive.

Am I in my rights to request more, considering the time spent by me trying to deal with this, specifically on the day (3hrs + ) which meant we missed a large part of the concert we spent so much money on? 

I have asked for the WHOLE hotel bill to be compensated as well as a token gesture towards our ticket price – am I chasing a lost cause? 

screech_78

Yes, you’re likely being unreasonable.

If you’ve been compensated for your actual losses, then you’re relying on goodwill. There’s nothing else to be compensated for. 

Mudweiser

Okay so it's the wording...

...so no goodwill from Booking.com for them letting us go to a guest house that was closed, or saying they'll find us an alternative that was booked by the time they finally do send it... meaning we miss hours of our concert through no fault of our own? 

screech_78

Mudweiser said:

Okay so it's the wording...

...so no goodwill from Booking.com for them letting us go to a guest house that was closed, or saying they'll find us an alternative that was booked by the time they finally do send it... meaning we miss hours of our concert through no fault of our own? 

As I said above, you’re relying on goodwill. Whether they agree to that or not is another matter. 

Legally, you don’t really have any further recourse as you’ve been compensated for your loss. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what you want to hear. You can only appeal to their better nature. 

Mudweiser

screech_78 said:

Mudweiser said:

Okay so it's the wording...

...so no goodwill from Booking.com for them letting us go to a guest house that was closed, or saying they'll find us an alternative that was booked by the time they finally do send it... meaning we miss hours of our concert through no fault of our own? 

As I said above, you’re relying on goodwill. Whether they agree to that or not is another matter. 

Legally, you don’t really have any further recourse as you’ve been compensated for your loss. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what you want to hear. You can only appeal to their better nature. 

I appreciate that. I guess I'm just asking the forum for any precedent or opinion based on experience on whether it's worth me spending more time trying to essentially get them to admit their errors and offer the goodwill. 

MattMattMattUK

Mudweiser said:

screech_78 said:

Mudweiser said:

Okay so it's the wording...

...so no goodwill from Booking.com for them letting us go to a guest house that was closed, or saying they'll find us an alternative that was booked by the time they finally do send it... meaning we miss hours of our concert through no fault of our own? 

As I said above, you’re relying on goodwill. Whether they agree to that or not is another matter. 

Legally, you don’t really have any further recourse as you’ve been compensated for your loss. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what you want to hear. You can only appeal to their better nature. 

I appreciate that. I guess I'm just asking the forum for any precedent or opinion based on experience on whether it's worth me spending more time trying to essentially get them to admit their errors and offer the goodwill. 

Generally the consensus is that you will get nothing out of booking.com because they are just a booking portal, any contract is formed between you and the venue, if a venue messes up it's listings that is down to them. Sometimes people get an occasional £30-50 credit on their account, but that is the maximum I have seen and only in circumstances where the issue was actually the fault of booking.com, not the venue. 

born_again

Any claim is against guest house, not booking.com as they are just a 3rd party agent.

This sound similar to another thread a while ago. Which had same advice.

RefluentBeans

If I was you - I would try and appeal to them for ruining a good gig, something you’ve been looking forward to etc.

I think it’s being realistic to what you want though. If you want the trip to be fully compensated then I think that’s unlikely to happen. A refund for the difference + taxi is actually pretty reasonable. If you want more then I’d expect some credit vouchers or something to that extent.

I doubt you’ll be able to get additional refunds, but maybe could get a voucher for £20 or so. Ultimately, that is goodwill for them, and I think it depends on your account history. If you’ve used them a lot play on that and say something along of the lines ‘shame to sour all the other experiences you’ve had’ etc. 

I’m glad you were able to get to the gig - even if it was undercut by the stress, and missed the support acts. I hope it was a good gig! 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Under Milner v Carnival ordinary holiday awards for loss of enjoyment would be in the range of £83 to £876 per person, although I'm not sure if your booking would be classed as a holiday, which covers the "compensation" element.

If you suffered direct quantifiable losses due to a breach of contract these would typically be sought as damages. 

As above Booking.com are only an agent, when you say the placed was closed does this mean out of business or e.g for refurbishment or some other temp. closure?