How to get a Booking.com refund

Alderbank

No problem. You gave a reference yourself.

Did you read the Hall Ellis 'Contract Law Basics' reference you quoted ?
The section 'Intention to create Legal Relations' gives as an illustration:

RTS Flexible Systems Ltd v Molkerei Alois Muller GmbH & Co KG [2010] UKSC 14
Whether there is a binding contract between the parties and, if so, upon what terms depends upon what they have agreed.
It depends not upon their subjective state of mind, but upon a consideration of what was communicated between them by words or conduct, and whether that leads objectively to a conclusion that they intended to create legal relations and had agreed upon all the terms which they regarded or the law requires as essential for the formation of legally binding relations.

brianposter

The argument sounds good but I suspect that a court will have reservations about a business which expects to provide consumer services without any relevant contract.

RefluentBeans

brianposter said:

The argument sounds good but I suspect that a court will have reservations about a business which expects to provide consumer services without any relevant contract.

No one is saying there isn’t a contract between the OP and Booking. But the contract is not to provide access to the property. The contract would be to provide a platform for consumers to find accommodation and facilitate bookings. When OP books the accommodation OP then entered into a second contract between the accommodation provider and the OP in which the OP is bound to pay, and the provider is bound to provide accommodation. A breach of one contract doesn’t mean there’s been a breach of all contracts. 

To make it clear - Booking.com will have terms about how to use the site. The contract (between the OP and Booking) will have terms that say the OP will have responsibilities, as will Booking.com. For example, you can’t use an automated bot to buy up all the accommodation in Paris around the Olympics date and then resell them at a marked up price. If you are caught doing that, Booking.com may terminate your account. But for any accommodation you did book, you may still be able to attend (but most accommodation providers won’t allow you to rebook it at a marked up rate). 

Booking.com will, likely, have a pot of ‘go away’ money that they give to people to keep customers happy when something does go wrong. Additionally, for payments made on their platform there will be a third (and potentially fourth) contract in which the OP will pay Booking.com and Booking.com will keep hold of that money until a certain point to allow any issues to be flagged (if you have ever sold anything on eBay it’s sort of like that). That gives both the OP and the accommodation provider a chance to make any further claims, and gives consumers a little more protection, and raise issues. 

Whilst it would be easier for the OP if there was one big contract where everyone is held liable to everyone else; it unfortunately doesn’t work like that. And a breach of one contract doesn’t mean there’s a breach of other contracts. 

brianposter

We appear to be agreed that there is a contract between Booking and their client, so the question is then "what does the contract cover ?

Now, in reality, Booking have to provide a service to sort out accomodation problems simply because they have organised a contract between two people who may not even speak the same language.

And once that service exists it is very difficult to argue that it can somehow be outside the contract that Booking has with the customer.

eskbanker

brianposter said:

We appear to be agreed that there is a contract between Booking and their client, so the question is then "what does the contract cover ?

Now, in reality, Booking have to provide a service to sort out accomodation problems simply because they have organised a contract between two people who may not even speak the same language.

And once that service exists it is very difficult to argue that it can somehow be outside the contract that Booking has with the customer.

I don't think that logic is robust - the fact that booking.com enters into a contract to introduce the customer to a service provider (with whom a separate contract is then formed) doesn't in itself imply that there's any ongoing obligation on booking.com "to provide a service to sort out accomodation problems" or to provide some sort of language translation facilities?

brianposter

I am not suggesting that there is any ongoing obligation, but simply that in practical terms it has to be part of the international business model.

And that, if they did not provide such assistance (which as far as I am aware works reasonably well), they  would soon find that it became a legal obligation.

Bradden

brianposter said:

I am not suggesting that there is any ongoing obligation, but simply that in practical terms it has to be part of the international business model.

And that, if they did not provide such assistance (which as far as I am aware works reasonably well), they  would soon find that it became a legal obligation.

I wish this were true... in reality it's the enshitification of the internet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification