Booking.com - no-show fee refund

Stable1964

I would appreciate advice on how to get a refund from Booking.com. Below is the background to my claim.

In July 2025, as part of a trip to Norway, I booked a stay at the Quality Hotel Prinsen, Trondheim (2x double rooms) for  4-7 December . However, on arrival the hotel said the booking they had for us was for 4-6 December I showed them a paper copy of the confirmation and also my Booking.com online account, both showing only the booking for 4-7 December. The receptionist suggested we book in and they would look into the matter. We were later told that they had two bookings for us, and again I showed them my online account with Booking.com which showed only one booking for that hotel. The hotel said they had no alternative but to charge us a no-show fee (approx. £280) for the 4-6 December to cover the first night’s accommodation. I again queried why they had two bookings even though only one showed in my account and they commented that this was probably a synch issue with Booking.com which they had experienced before.

On two occasions Booking.com have asked the hotel to refund the no-show fee, but the issue is quite obviously not with the provider, but with Booking.com's own system.

I spoke to one of their customer service team who said all the details were correct at the Booking.com end. In fact they told me that I had tried to change the booking for 4-6 December to extend it to 7 December, but that their system hadn’t allowed the change. They would not accept that I only had one booking for this hotel on my account.

On Monday 1st June at 1.00AM I received an email from  Booking.com advising that payment was due to be taken for a booking at Al Pescatore in Bari, Puglia.  This booking did not appear in my list of bookings, either active or cancelled.  As I did not recognise the accommodation, I was, in this case, able to cancel in time.

On Wednesday 3rd June I again emailed customer services with screen shots of the email I had received regarding Al Pescatore: confirmation details when I clicked through on the email, a screen shot of my Booking.com account showing one active booking for my stay in Bari (not for Al Pescatore), together with a screen shot showing details of all the accommodation I had booked in Puglia and also the accommodation I had cancelled in Puglia, none of which showed Al Pescatore. I asked them again to refund the no-show fee, but instead I got the standard response asking for the confirmation number and PIN number.

Another accommodation I booked in Puglia contacted me to say that because the Booking.com system had not synced with their own, they would need to move us to another property as they were fully booked, even though I had made my booking months ago, and the details were confirmed on the app!

To add insult to injury, Booking.com account has now been hacked, but again no response from customer services when I sent them screenshots of the emails I have received from two external companies regarding another booking, which I will now be cancelling.

I feel like I’m banging my head against a brick wall. Obviously I will not be using Booking.com in the future.

jaybeetoo

Your contract is with the service provider, i.e. the hotel. Booking.com are just an intermediary. Did you pay by credit card? Can you raise a Section 76 claim with your card provider?