Could not enter Booking.com property

atillathebun

Good morning,
I would like some feedback on possible actions I am taking, or could take, against Booking.com.

We booked an apartment in Brighton via Booking.com for four nights at the end of May 2024 for £400 and paid in full via credit card in February 2024.

When we arrived at the property, our provided access code would not work on the door or any nearby key safe. We tried for a few hours to contact the landlord via Booking.com messages and the phone number provided, with no success. Luckily, we then managed to find alternative accommodation at a nearby hotel for the four nights, had the additional funds available, checked in, and our stress levels decreased. At half-past-midnight, we received a message from the landlord that the code should have worked.

When I returned home, I approached Booking.com for a refund. They denied the refund as they said the landlord said we should have been able to access the property. I have argued with Booking.com that this is not aceptable.

My questions are:
Can I request a refund from my credit card provider using Section 75? In my opinion, they did not provide the service promised.
I have a yearly travel insurance policy, would this be covered?

user1977

Presumably this was half-past midnight on the night you arrived? Did you have no further discussion with the landlord about trying to get access for the remainder of your stay?

We can't read your travel insurance from here, does it look like it covers this as a risk?

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Hello OP

Regarding S75 what was the room rate? I think it has to be over £100 per night for S75 to apply, bank or @born_again are best to advise.

As above if you have insurance contact them to discuss.

As per another recent thread on here Booking.com are just a booking platform and the contract with the accommodation is with the accommodation owner. 

I'm not sure where you stand with this exactly, I would expect the one night to be refunded, being objective and voicing questions that might be raised, should you have only booked 1 night elsewhere in the hope the owner would reply and give access the following day? 

born_again

atillathebun said:

Good morning,
I would like some feedback on possible actions I am taking, or could take, against Booking.com.

We booked an apartment in Brighton via Booking.com for four nights at the end of May 2024 for £400 and paid in full via credit card in February 2024.

When we arrived at the property, our provided access code would not work on the door or any nearby key safe. We tried for a few hours to contact the landlord via Booking.com messages and the phone number provided, with no success. Luckily, we then managed to find alternative accommodation at a nearby hotel for the four nights, had the additional funds available, checked in, and our stress levels decreased. At half-past-midnight, we received a message from the landlord that the code should have worked.

When I returned home, I approached Booking.com for a refund. They denied the refund as they said the landlord said we should have been able to access the property. I have argued with Booking.com that this is not aceptable.

My questions are:
Can I request a refund from my credit card provider using Section 75? In my opinion, they did not provide the service promised.
I have a yearly travel insurance policy, would this be covered?

Did you go back and try to get in to the accommodation after owner had contacted you?
Did you have any further contact with owner or booking.com over the rest of the holiday?
How much per night & or per person was the accommodation?

I can see no chargeback option, accommodation was available & have a strong feeling the S75 will be denied if you did not try after being contacted. (subject to costs)
TBH, at best you are looking at one night if anything as far as refunds would go

Sadly you made the choice to book alternative 4 nights accommodation. When you should have booked one & seen how things went.

What has owner said about any refund?
Does your travel ins cover UK?

atillathebun

Thank you all for your responses. I am treating this as having already lost my £400 and I am looking at this as a learning exercise. 

I did not go back and try and get into the accomodation using the same code the following day. I was busy for the next four days of my visit and I could not spend each day trying to get into the property when the only contact number I had was for an number in Indonesia that no one was answering.The only option I had was to find alternative accommodation for the four days so I could carry on meeting my other commitments.

I have not had much luck approaching Booking.com, who say they have approached the owner. The owner claims the code should have worked, and Booking.com have taken them at their word and denied any refund. This may be the default initial response of 'No' that I receive for most insurance claims or refunds. Frequently, when I then argue my case further, I get a better response.

Some elements of the responses so far have left me with further questions:

Trying to contact the owner the following day to see if I could get in:
It was impractical, and would have been very stressful, for me to look for accomodation on a daily basis over a bank holiday weekend in Brighton with the hope that the owner might eventually answer my messages. I had commitments from 9am to 8pm on each day. The purchase was for four nghts accomodation in one booking, not one night piecemeal on a daily basis. I am not sure how this approach should have been expected of me.

The daily rate was not over £100 so, S75 may not apply:
I purchased a block of four nights and paid in one transaction for £400 on my credit card. As I have said above, this was not for one night at a time. If I left after one night, I would not expect to be able to claim a refund of £300. If the full booking could not be provided, I expect a full refund.
This daily rate approach would invalidate a large number of S75 claims for bookings as, even if you are staying for two weeks for a total of £1000, the nightly rate would be below £100.

The accommodation was available so chargeback will not apply:
The accommodation may have been empty but, we could not access the property, or contact anyone to help us gain access, at the agreed check in time and for many hours afterwards. I argue that this classifies the property as unavailable.

born_again

atillathebun said:

Thank you all for your responses. I am treating this as having already lost my £400 and I am looking at this as a learning exercise. 

I did not go back and try and get into the accomodation using the same code the following day. I was busy for the next four days of my visit and I could not spend each day trying to get into the property when the only contact number I had was for an number in Indonesia that no one was answering.The only option I had was to find alternative accommodation for the four days so I could carry on meeting my other commitments.

I have not had much luck approaching Booking.com, who say they have approached the owner. The owner claims the code should have worked, and Booking.com have taken them at their word and denied any refund. This may be the default initial response of 'No' that I receive for most insurance claims or refunds. Frequently, when I then argue my case further, I get a better response.

Some elements of the responses so far have left me with further questions:

Trying to contact the owner the following day to see if I could get in:
It was impractical, and would have been very stressful, for me to look for accomodation on a daily basis over a bank holiday weekend in Brighton with the hope that the owner might eventually answer my messages. I had commitments from 9am to 8pm on each day. The purchase was for four nghts accomodation in one booking, not one night piecemeal on a daily basis. I am not sure how this approach should have been expected of me.

The daily rate was not over £100 so, S75 may not apply:
I purchased a block of four nights and paid in one transaction for £400 on my credit card. As I have said above, this was not for one night at a time. If I left after one night, I would not expect to be able to claim a refund of £300. If the full booking could not be provided, I expect a full refund.
This daily rate approach would invalidate a large number of S75 claims for bookings as, even if you are staying for two weeks for a total of £1000, the nightly rate would be below £100.

The accommodation was available so chargeback will not apply:
The accommodation may have been empty but, we could not access the property, or contact anyone to help us gain access, at the agreed check in time and for many hours afterwards. I argue that this classifies the property as unavailable.

If daily rate under £100 no S75, as it is item/daily price that counts.

Sadly your unavailable reason does not meet chargeback requirements. So you only recourse would be via court.

Malthusian

born_again said:

If daily rate under £100 no S75, as it is item/daily price that counts.

Is there a source for that? I couldn't find anything in my online research that confirms it either way. 

A skirt and a jacket that was sold as a single suit costing £120 would be covered by section 75 (so Equifax says). If the two garments were not sold as a set they would not be. A four-night hotel stay seems more analogous to a suit than four separate items of clothing to me. 

On the question of whether the OP should have limited his losses by booking only one night at the hotel initially, I can see both sides, but given the circumstances I think I would have done the same thing. Even if it turns out the OP was fat-fingering the lock, it is extremely stupid of the owner to be uncontactable when there was a guest moving into the property that night. Key safes break, locks break, guests may struggle to find the key safe, once inside they may discover an urgent issue with the property that wasn't spotted by the cleaners. BNB owners save money from not paying a receptionist as a hotel does, but you still need to make sure you are doing the job of getting your guests into the room they paid for. You need someone on the ground.

It should be neither here nor there whether the code actually worked or not. If the code was correct the property owner or their agent should have responded to OP's calls and sent someone out to press the buttons for him. Problem solved, egg on OP's face, everyone has a good laugh. However they did a disappearing act, and the OP had to arrange alternative accommodation after what sounds like a more than reasonable wait.

I would be inclined to make a section 75 claim (unless it's definitive that this is ineligible) and see how the dice fall. 

born_again

Ah the old suit case.
Caught me & many others out 1st time in training. 🤦‍♀️
A suit is classed as a single item. Yet a holiday if priced as single days, is not counted as a single item. 

But OP can ring bank & ask, as some do view thing differently.

Bigger issue is where is the breech of contract here. As OP never tried again & owner said code worked. 

Source is as per our advice in such cases.

RefluentBeans

I agree OP - it sounds like you haven’t attempted to limit your losses. One night is a potential. No one expects you to go back day after day, but you presumably had the contact details of the landlord? 

Also worth noting - what was the checkin policy - pretty much every place I’ve been to has made it clear if you’re checking in late, you should let them know so if there’s any issues someone will know to expect a call. Also - given you checked in after midnight - did you tell them this? It’s not infeasible to think they could change the code every day at midnight (if it’s an electronic lock). 

Malthusian said:

It should be neither here nor there whether the code actually worked or not. If the code was correct the property owner or their agent should have responded to OP's calls and sent someone out to press the buttons for him. Problem solved, egg on OP's face, everyone has a good laugh. However they did a disappearing act, and the OP had to arrange alternative accommodation after what sounds like a more than reasonable wait.

Of course it matters if the code works. If the OP couldn’t access the apartment because they couldn’t enter a 4 digit code correctly, then it isn’t on the property owners to enter the code for them. On top of that, most places will have a checkin policy. Expecting checkin staff to be there 24/7 when it’s a small business is, frankly, naive. Of course, this will depend on the check in policy which the OP hasn’t given us. If they didn’t follow that policy, I don’t really see any recourse. Especially for the other nights they didn’t even attempt to stay at the accommodation.  

mr_stripey

I didn't read it  as the OP checked in after midnight. They state they arrived and attempted to access the property and tried to contact the owner "for a few hours" before finally receiving a reply at 12.30am?

However, I think the liability would be limited to one night. Checking in to the nearby hotel for that night and then resuming contact with the owner in the morning and hopefully gaining access for the remainder of the trip would have been the way to go.

atillathebun

Thank you all for your comments. I am finding this very helpful.

I had previously given my expected arrival time as 15:00 to 16:00 on the Friday and arrived around 15:30. The attempts to contact the owner via the given contact details started at 16:19.

At that time, we were starting a long weekend, the number given to me was obviously for a business in Indonesia that had closed for the weekend, there was no indication that the owner would respond to my messages, and accomodation on a bank holiday weekend in Brighton was very limited. I had commitments from 9am to 8pm on the following three days so, booking one night and then seeing whether the owner would eventually get back to me so I could sort it out the following day was not a feasible option. 

I will go through the S75 claim process and see how I go.