Booking.com - no guarantee for your booking

nazim120

I had booked accommodation with booking.com in April this year for 3 bed apartment for 4 adults in Athens for holiday at end of June for 9 nights. Full money was taken from my account a week before and got confirmation from host and booking.com.
On the day while at airport just before our departure, got message from booking.com that accommodation is cancelled by host due to overbooking and amount refunded and was suggested a 1 bedroom accommodation of similar price range for us to book. As we needed at least 2 bedroom, we denied the offer and frantically tried to search similar property and location. Got another property with 2 bedroom and with similar location through booking.com website but price was high as booking was at last moment.
Trying to contact booking.com to compensate the extra money we had to spend as we lost almost £600. But no reply and could not find complain procedure for the company.
Beware with my experience, booking.com can cancel accommodation at last moment and you end up paying more. So it looks like when you book accommodation through booking.com, accommodation is not guaranteed.

daveyjp

Booking.com are an agent for property owners.  If an owner pulls availability you are due a refund, which has been paid.

You aren't entitled to anything further.

mr_stripey

frustrating for sure, but is any booking (either through an agent or direct) ever actually "guaranteed"?

 All sorts of things can occur leading to cancellation. 

As long as you've got your money back then it's all square I guess.

But, definitely frustrating! 

p00hsticks

Is the difference something that could be claimed on your holiday insurance ?

tightauldgit

In my experience no hotel booking is ever 100% guaranteed until you are in the room with the key in your hand (and even then it might only be 99%) and unlike flights there are a lot fewer regulations on hotels in terms of their obligations to do anything to help you other than refund your money. 

bagand96

On two occasions in the past I've had hotel bookings cancelled at short notice when booked via an agent. On both occasions the agent has found me another hotel at no extra cost to me. Once was Expedia, can't remember who the other agent was, it may well have been another Expedia brand.

I suppose private hosts may be more succeptible to this than hotels. It's dissapointing Booking.com didn't help more than but I expect their T&Cs cover them. IMHO they should have penalty clauses for hosts to discourage this activity. 

CKhalvashi

bagand96 said:

On two occasions in the past I've had hotel bookings cancelled at short notice when booked via an agent. On both occasions the agent has found me another hotel at no extra cost to me. Once was Expedia, can't remember who the other agent was, it may well have been another Expedia brand.

I suppose private hosts may be more succeptible to this than hotels. It's dissapointing Booking.com didn't help more than but I expect their T&Cs cover them. IMHO they should have penalty clauses for hosts to discourage this activity. 

For a variety of complicated legal reasons, Booking will argue OP has no contract with Booking.com, they have a contract directly with the property owner. If pushed, they generally will refund the difference, generally as a voucher, but only if the replacement is booked through their site.

In reality, my personal view is that Booking act as a principal on many bookings as they're the ones setting the pricing and they've governing contact between parties to the contract. That opinion hasn't been tested in court.