Booking.com cancels $4K hotel reservation, offers same rooms again for $17K

https://www.cbc.ca/news/gopublic/go-public-booking-com-hotel-rates-9.6985480

by thisislife2 • 8 months ago

141 167 8 months ago

tantalor• 8 months ago

The company says the cancellation was approved under its standard policy permitting properties to void bookings in "rare cases where a property identifies a clear rate error." Following Go Public's questions, Booking.com told Mann it would honour her original booking and cover the price difference — allowing her to keep the same four bedroom unit at no additional cost.

Sounds like booking.com made a mistake in applying the wrong policy, and is trying to cover up for it instead of admitting their liability.

twoodfin3• 8 months ago

Right! This is fundamentally the risk of being a broker: You think you will have X available for $Y, sell it, only to discover that X will cost you $Y + Z.

Without that risk you’re not functioning as a broker and shouldn’t be rewarded as one.

jeroenhd• 8 months ago

They're paying out to cut back on the negative the media attention.

The underlying problem, that hotels are capable of canceling bookings so they can ask for extortionate rates when events nearby take place, still remains.

I'm not sure whose fault this is, really. The person buying the reservation knew this deal was too good to be true, the hotel should've fixed their prices if they want to charge 12k extra for a weekend, and booking should probably kick hotels that do this off their website.

Booking.com is an absolute hell site for various reasons, but I'm sure the same conflict would've happened had the room been booked through the hotel's website.

ArcHound• 8 months ago

Let's take a look at incentives. Booking.com has an incentive to cancel. The hotel itself has an incentive to cancel. The laws in place don't prevent this, especially when some contractual fine print is involved.

Will this public case result in flood of people away from booking.com? Probably not.

This is just a simple abuse of power, most easily identified by the question: "What are you going to do about it?"

It seems the play is to tell the world. Congrats to this lady for getting her money/booking back.

wslh2• 8 months ago

This is why consumer laws should be really hard and executed very fast, it's the balance to big companies and "perfect" markets.

MichaelZuo4• 8 months ago

Why?

There are plenty of full service travel agencies that offer to book guaranteed price reservations in pretty much any locale in most countries. There are some that even offer extra guarantees like a last minute cancellation by the hotel being refunded at double the cost, to ensure you can get a room elsewhere.

causal• 8 months ago

Booking.com is also just a terrible service. Their search is one of the better hotel search tools, but I stopped using them after they "lost" a booking but continued to charge me for it anyway. They denied it existed when I finally reached someone on the phone, despite the very real credit card charge. Only after I got my CC company to chargeback did they send me a cancellation notice.

Incompetence at that level feels like malice.

netsharc4• 8 months ago

Recently they've blocked selecting a hotel's address. I do so to look at the area or public transport options on Google Maps, but I guess too many people look up the hotel website from there and book directly.

mschuster91• 8 months ago

The problem is the alternatives to Bookingdotcom are worse, for both flight and hotels.

Google and many other services direct you to the hotel itself, which means you need to create an account at the hotel's and enter your cc data... so yeah, tough luck if the hotel's 1990 era website gets hacked. Meanwhile, for Bookingdotcom, I enter my data once, don't have to worry about newsletter spam for the hotels, or my credit card data being exfiltrated. And same for airfare or train rides that can't be booked on Deutsche Bahn.

nebula8804• 8 months ago

On the flipside, sometimes you just cannot deal with hotels directly either. At least not their digital systems. Many of these mom and pop shops run absolutely terrible booking systems.

imdsm2• 8 months ago

I was concerned about this happening to me, as I booked somewhere really early and prices have since gone 5x. Knowing that booking.com will do this means I'll never now use them, and will tell others the same. Thankfully I used another and got the hotel to confirm it.

limagnolia• 8 months ago

Honestly, it is a difficult case. The consumer is obviously on the higher end of wealth here, booking a premium hotel suite for an expensive event.

Then, the consumer criticizes those of us that enjoy backpacking as not being "adults". This one really got me.

The concept that advertised prices that are genuine mistakes are generally not enforceable is a well established concept in many jurisdictions.

With that being said, I do believe that honoring ones advertised prices, even when they are mistakes, unless it would be egregious or impossible to do so, is generally a better way to do business.

But will this story prevent me from using a convenient and less expensive platform for booking cheap, bottom barrel hotels, for those of use who aren't "adults"? Probably not.

TheJoeMan• 8 months ago

It's not a mistake to forget to apply a surcharge in my opinion. The "mistake" was that they underpriced the market, as the booker hedged their bets on the two weekends. A "mistake" would be $1 instead of $1000 which is the example in the TOS.

HPsquared2• 8 months ago

I wonder what fraction of hotel income comes from peak times like this.

xnx• 8 months ago

Spread the word: Never use booking.com (or other online travel agencies)

netsharc4• 8 months ago

They're terrible, but according to the article the hotel requested the cancellation, and now booking.com has reinstated the booking and apparently paying the difference... seems like they're "the good side" here (or, paying to avoid the bad publicity).

Eugh, I feel dirty defending them.

mikeocool• 8 months ago

I wonder if the hotel would be less likely to cancel on a direct booking with the same mistake — when their brand would be more directly on the line.

goda90• 8 months ago

You can find a list of other companies owned by Booking Holdings here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booking_Holdings

Priceline, Agoda, Rentalcars.com, Kayak, OpenTable, Rocketmiles, FareHarbor, HotelsCombined, Cheapflights, momondo

no_wizard• 8 months ago

I constantly get recruiter emails from Agoda. Anyone ever work for them? They want to move me to Thailand which doesn’t make a ton of sense to me, considering I’d be asking for an American level salary regardless

glitchc2• 8 months ago

Since the hotel called her directly to inform her of the pricing error, I don't see that as the booking platform's problem. After all, the hotel is the platform's client. The same thing would have happened if she had booked directly from the hotel.

r0fl3• 8 months ago

I’ve used hotels.com and Expedia forever

Each time a hotel has had an issue Expedia and hotels.com has fixed the issue for me by refunding the difference or giving me a credit for another booking

Cancelling through hotels.com has always been easy. Even for bookings that have been non refundable, they can call the hotel and make exceptions.

I would never not use it. Dealing with sites directly is a nightmare.

Syzygies• 8 months ago

I always book directly with hotels, airlines, and auto rental agencies. One gains privileges by cutting out the middleman.

For example, one can generally check out early. We had followed a hotel reservation from locals in Nagoya, and found ourselves in a stodgy "classic" hotel. We were able to pivot to possibly the nicest corner suite in the entire city, at a steep last minute discount.

I did get trapped once, not realizing that my Hiroshima hotel became nonrefundable several days before check-in. With a phone call they moved my reservation to a few days later as a courtesy. The web page then let me cancel.

philipwhiuk• 8 months ago

Yeah this is common. If they have advance info of an event, they price it up. If you have advance info, they screw you over when they find out.

I had this on Airbnb.

bpodgursky• 8 months ago

When Mann booked the accommodations, Formula One organizers hadn't locked in the exact race dates. So she covered her bases — reserving the same four-bedroom unit for two possible weekends in May 2026, both with free cancellation.
Once the official dates were announced, she cancelled the extra booking, in line with Booking.com rules.

Let's be real here. Booking.com is not the only side stretching the terms of service to the limit to extract maximum value. This speculative booking and cancellation also drives costs up for other consumers who book reservations with honest intent by pulling a bunch of units off the market. It's hard to blame Booking.com for wanting to stick it to her.

kuschku• 8 months ago

How's she stretching the terms of service?

Free cancellation is an upcharge (often a significant one), which she paid for, and made use of.

It would have been easily possible for booking.com and the hotel to offer rooms at two price points and make the conditions clear ahead of time:

- High price (guaranteed room)

- Low price (based on availability, if F1 is that week you'll get the choice between paying an upcharge, cancellation, or moving the booking to another date)

istultus2• 8 months ago

There's nothing morally wrong with not knowing when you want to take a holiday in advance and acting accordingly to cover your bases. What an interesting sentiment... The only thing wrong with what she did was not to read the fine print and realize that paying for free cancellation meant paying Booking.com to pay on her behalf rather than directly paying the hotel.

fred_is_fred• 8 months ago

I know it's not a popular opinion but at this point I think anyone who books through a 3rd party basically gets what they deserve. There are no end to horror stories here and with the modern internet there's no reason to use them. In 2002 it was a different story. It may not have prevented this situation but the 3rd party bookers take a cut from the provider and offer you absolutely nothing in return. Just book direct.

the_sleaze_• 8 months ago

I often get better deals through 3rd parties, and more often than not a better experience.

Booking has stood by me before whereas the little seaside hotel barely has a working phone much less a computer with a person that can operate it.

I have no doubt Booking is fully liable here but for the vast majority of interactions they reduce friction.

brk2• 8 months ago

I think it depends on the kinds of places you regularly book at.

When I read your first sentence I thought "that is the exact opposite of my experience". Then when I read your second sentence I realize we're probably not using 3rd parties the same way.

I primarily book 4 star and up properties, that is just how I prefer to travel. For those kinds of places you'll often get a worse net experience when booking through a 3rd party (I've tried in the past). Upon check-in, it is made clear that your "discounted rate" doesn't qualify you for certain perks (loyalty points, check-in bonus like a free drink, etc.). I'm also not too worried about a name-brand property screwing me over.

But for a little "seaside hotel" kind of place, I can see where having a large 3rd party booking agent on your side could be valuable.

mr_mitm• 8 months ago

I travel a lot to many different places including small villages. I'd like to take advantage of a rewards program, but the places I travel to often don't have one of the large chains. These booking services allow me to get bonus points. I thinks that's a good reason, besides the superior convenience of having a unified interface. I rarely had any issues with them either.

I once mentioned that while checking in at a family owned hotel, and they said they appreciate that the booking service allowed them to compete with larger chains on that front.

seydor2• 8 months ago

People who travel often dont have the resources to deal with so many separate bookings, so they ascribe trust to Booking.com , airbnb etc.

Perhaps if there was some "shopify of accomodation" it would be easier to have a seamless experience. In the meanwhile, the existence of a stable reference point gives the false sense of a trusted travel assistant.

marinmania• 8 months ago

I travel 3 times a month for the last year and use Booking. I've never had a cancellation.

I take advantage of their platform moreso than they me. I book refundable no-pre pay hotels every time, sometimes having multiple bookings for the same week. It's like a free option on future pricing.

seydor2• 8 months ago

The monotonic rise in global demand for tourism for decades remains a mystery to me.

Macha• 8 months ago

Worldwide economic growth means more people are able to afford tourism more often, and more access to media and the internet means people are more aware of places and events to travel to

conradojordan3• 8 months ago

You gotta love capitalism, such a blessing for humanity...

glitchc2• 8 months ago

Have you tried the others?

powerclue3• 8 months ago

I have. Relied more on my common peers but also people came together to tend for one another. Definitely preferred it over capitalism.

conradojordan3• 8 months ago

Chinese socialism seems to be doing fine, wouldn't you agree?

istultus2• 8 months ago

True! Thankfully under Socialism there wouldn't be a Grand Prix in the first place, and the Hotel would be government-run and only house Party members during special events anyway.

powerclue3• 8 months ago

I think you might be under informed... this is how authoritarian communism has worked, historically. But Socialism covers a massive umbrella of different ideas beyond just authcom ideas. Social democracy, democratic socialism, anarchism, syndicalism, authoritarian single party rule, council communism, etc etc.

Socialism also isn't the only system that isn't capitalism either. Capitalism is a relatively recent invention, perhaps 300 years old.

hypeatei• 8 months ago

How would a socialist or communist system decide who gets a hotel room in this scenario? Declaring something as free or public doesn't magically give us infinite resources.

powerclue3• 8 months ago

Answering genuinely, assuming the question is in good faith --

Socialist theory typically handles luxuries of limited quantity in a few ways.

One, if there's demand, try to increase the quantity. Could we have more racing fill the gap? Maybe not, as an F1 fan I understand this might not be possible.

Two, could we apportion it via lottery? There's lots of styles of lottery, from random chance to chances derived from some characteristic (e.g. maybe you can get some lottery tickets based on productivity).

Three, queues -- maybe you can't be one of the hundred thousands who go this year, but everyone who did go has to wait their turn before going again.

Four, don't offer it. Some luxuries maybe don't exist in a society built on the concept of wellbeing for all. I think there would still be racing, but maybe there wouldn't be superyachts or many private jets. This is definitely not the preferred outcome -- luxuries make life wonderful, but if they are really really hard to share, maybe we should put more time in to things that are easier to share.

Five, markets and trade. Markets can exist under socialism, though many socialists consider them unpalatable. Capitalism is a specific type of market economy. There are non capitalist ways to run markets.

Six, corruption. The powerful and their guests get to attend. I'd argue this is what we have today under capitalism today as well. We just derive power from money, not government positions.

francisofascii• 8 months ago

This isn't about capitalism. It sounds like a lack of "good faith" in business. Fortunately in this case, Booking.com relented. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_faith_(law)

conradojordan3• 8 months ago

So what you're saying is that a company doing shitty things for profit is not at all related to a system that incentives profit above everything else? Interesting take

dec0dedab0de2• 8 months ago

I generally search on the aggregate sites, but book directly with the location.

Unfortunately, there are some smaller BnBs that only take booking.com

Although, this article reminds me of people on slickdeals complaining that they got caught trying to buy a type-o.

imdsm2• 8 months ago

Just to add to the dynamic for those too busy to read:

When Mann booked the accommodations, Formula One organizers hadn't locked in the exact race dates. So she covered her bases — reserving the same four-bedroom unit for two possible weekends in May 2026, both with free cancellation.
Once the official dates were announced, she cancelled the extra booking, in line with Booking.com rules.

I wonder if this changes our perception of things. If you book two dates and then cancel, are you not also part of the problem?

Perhaps if you didn't go for the free cancellation, then it should be a fair two way lock in, if you commit, we'll commit etc. Still not as bad as when Jason Manford finished a show, turned up at the Village Hotel in Bournemouth, and because he checked in late, they'd given his room to someone else.

guipsp• 8 months ago

The hotel can just not offer free cancelation

j455• 8 months ago

The irony, hotel industry is among the cheapest.

stavros6• 8 months ago

I wonder if this changes our perception of things. If you book two dates and then cancel, are you not also part of the problem?

If the website said "you can cancel for free", why would I consider myself part of the problem?

If the website said "you can book, but we could cancel your booking for any reason, including because we can rent it to someone else for more money", I wouldn't consider the website as part of the problem either.

As it stands, only one of those two things was prominently mentioned on the website.

xethos2• 8 months ago

That's definitely part of the problem. You're following the letter of the rule, because yes, it says Free Cancellations, and you cancelled for free.

It doesn't follow the spirit of the rules though; it's something I've always viewed as the business saying "Listen, we get it, life happens. If you can't make it, don't panic, we've got your back". To book both weekends with the intent of cancelling carries a strong odour of bad faith, and IMO makes you part of the problem.

Notably, the free cancellation policy only really works in a high-trust society, which at least one prominent nation seems to be backsliding on - meaning policies like this may be on their way out.

overfeed4• 8 months ago

If the website said "you can cancel for free", why would I consider myself part of the problem?

Equally, if the fine print the guest agrees to says the platform/hotel can cancel unilaterally, why should it be considered a problem?

As it stands, only one of those two things was prominently mentioned on the website

Why does prominence matter?

cowpig• 8 months ago

No matter what shady thing a company does you can rest assured there will be a bit of "well, let's think about it from another angle" at the top of the comments section.

The company offers cancellable reservations for a fee. She paid the fee. What are you talking about

dghlsakjg11• 8 months ago

This my exact same reaction.

Every time I have ever seen a cancellable reservation at booking.com I have also noticed that it costs more than the same reservation without cancellation priveleges.

She almost certainly paid for the flexibility.

vb-8448• 8 months ago

booking & hotel are just abusing their power ... there is no another perspective here

globular-toast2• 8 months ago

A deal is a deal. If the hotel doesn't like it then don't offer that deal to the next customers.

SilverElfin2• 8 months ago

Airlines are similar. Consumers view it as a deal is a deal. But they can cancel your seat at the last minute due to overbooking or really any reason.

Cerium• 8 months ago

Not only can the hotel select their own policies, but the cancellation is 6 months early. Surely the room will not go empty in that time.

blitzar• 8 months ago

I wonder if this changes our perception of things.

It does not.

the__alchemist• 8 months ago

I had the same thought when reading that line. I think we can treat it independently from the article's main point.

This is a common consumer tactic for reservations of all sorts. (It is a thorn in the side of restaurants, and why you get emails asking you to Confirm them and other appointments)

2 bookings isn't heinous; some people do things like book at multiple restaurants, then cancel all but one right before. (e.g. when their friend group comes to a consensus) It's fine in this case IMO.

It is a point of consternation for consumers more generally, when you can't get a booking because many of the ones are ghosts.

HPsquared2• 8 months ago

Sounds a lot like the shenanigans in the job market. The number of job ads and applications far outstrips the actual number of places and applicants. It's mostly froth. Come to think of it, huge tracts of our economy are like this.

jerlam• 8 months ago

In high demand restaurants, I've seen them require a fee to make a reservation that is credited to your bill when you come in. This would dissuade the casual multiple bookings, but not that common. I would actually prefer it to be more common.

floatrock• 8 months ago

It's standard practice now to charge higher prices for cancellable reservations.

Given all the asymmetric squeezing being done by corporate algorithms everywhere in the ruthless march towards economic efficiency, it's hard to feel bad for the algos when a human finds a pricing arbitrage that the hotel conglomerates failed to notice.

In other words, the hotel conglomerates are the ones who started the algorithmic event pricing and "cancellable reservations carry a price premium" games. It's on them if they mispriced their own dynamic-event cancellation premium.

j455• 8 months ago

Absolutely agreed. Data is a two way street.

b3lvedere2• 8 months ago

"I wonder if this changes our perception of things. If you book two dates and then cancel, are you not also part of the problem?"

Gee, the system tries to game you, so you may not try to game the system? Fact is this is about earning as much money as possible and nothing else.

I'm 100% for gaming the system, but i can't blame the system from trying to protect itself from it as well. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

j455• 8 months ago

Seriously. Maybe it’s an attempt at being devils advocate. Or they work in the industry?

j455• 8 months ago

Doesn’t seem realistic.

It shouldn’t be a problem ever.

It’s a mutual agreement.

The free cancellation is provided to one side in exchange for booking. If the booking wasn’t cancelled it would be charged.

The booking agency could limit it to one booking per person but it could miss out in group bookings.

If there was a way to lock in the rates that might be an option.

This is possibly an overly simplistic ai optimization agent gone wild.

Detailed pricing models for airfare and hotels around events have existed for a very long time.

bartread• 8 months ago

Still not as bad as when Jason Manford finished a show, turned up at the Village Hotel in Bournemouth, and because he checked in late, they'd given his room to someone else.

This isn't quite what happened.

He turned up before the show to check in, and found that the hotel had been overbooked and that his room had been sold to someone else as a result, so he was forced to share a room with members of his team.

Source: https://news.bournemouthone.com/81555/

(Now that's not to say that this isn't a shitty practice and that it shouldn't happen: the hotel were absolutely in the wrong, it's just that they were wrong in a different way to what you suggested - but your bigger point is well made.)

csomar• 8 months ago

No it doesn’t change our perspective. You offered free cancellation. If the hotel doesn’t think it’s fair then it should not have offered it.

spider-mario• 8 months ago

If you book two dates and then cancel, are you not also part of the problem?

How so, exactly? Maybe if you cancel at the last minute, but if she cancels when the race dates are announced, presumably, that’s enough in advance for someone else to book the cancelled room in her place?

meindnoch2• 8 months ago

"When Mann booked the accommodations, Formula One organizers hadn't locked in the exact race dates. So she covered her bases — reserving the same four-bedroom unit for two possible weekends in May 2026, both with free cancellation.

Once the official dates were announced, she cancelled the extra booking, in line with Booking.com rules."

And then Booking.com cancelled her booking, in line with Booking.com rules. Shit goes both ways.

stavros6• 8 months ago

Funny, I've never noticed "we can cancel your booking for absolutely any reason we want" under the "free cancellation" text. It's almost as if one is shown really prominently, and the other hidden under a mountain of text.

But I know nobody would consider the two equivalent, so I must be mistaken. Right?

mx7zysuj4xew2• 8 months ago

If the booking can be cancelled at any point for any reason then what is even the point of booking to begin with.

If the booking isn't fixed untill you showed up on the exact date at the hotel front desk then wouldn't that make making prior bookings moot

dghlsakjg11• 8 months ago

The rules -- as described in the article -- don't really jive with what you are saying.

Booking or the hotel reserve the right to cancel for clear pricing errors with the example cited from their own terms being a $1 room. They do not claim a right of cancellation for arbitrary reasons.

It isn't at all clear that this is the same class of error. $4,500 that she paid is the normal price for the room, not a pricing error. Their "error", if it can be considered a pricing error, is that they accepted a booking without factoring in that the dates were possibly an event weekend where they could deviate from their normal pricing.

I don't accept the excuse of "it turns out that we can make more money than the standard rate we charged you" as an error, and I don't think any reasonable judge or arbitrator would see it that way either.

meindnoch2• 8 months ago

https://www.booking.com/content/terms.en-gb.html

"[...] A5. Our values

1. You will:

[...]

- not use the Platform to cause a nuisance or make fake bookings

[...]

If you breach these Terms (including our values and our Content standards and guidelines) or fail to comply with applicable laws or regulations, we have the right to:

- stop you making any bookings,

- cancel any bookings you’ve already made

[...]"

She made two bookings, one of which she intended to cancel from the get go, in other words, it was a fake booking.

injidup• 8 months ago

It's simple. Booking.com will fuck you over and have all sorts of fine print to cover themselves. However I can simply recommend if they do something like cancel a confirmed booking don't bother contacting customer support. Simply get on Facebook and start swearing and causing a huge fuss till they sort it out. They will tell you 100 times that they are very sorry and they would love to help but they just can't and they feel horrible about it all but "the policy" forbids them doing anything that could smell like genuine customer service. Simply raise the temperature of agitation just as this customer did and eventually booking.com will buckle.

I had exactly the same case. I had a non cancellable room booked for an event and a week or two before the event it was cancelled and booking tried to claim they were not an agent, they were not part of the contract, that they cared very deeply. Customer support in English cost 1€ per minute and they kept putting me on hold. Eventually I just went to Facebook and asked GPT to start incrementally generating more and more offensive posts direct at their social media account. It's much cheaper than their customer support line and it actually reaches someone who can do something.

renewiltord2• 8 months ago

I don’t know why everyone is saying you shouldn’t use booking.com. The story is that the person booked two weekends and canceled one. The hotel canceled the other and upcharged. Then booking.com paid the $13k difference? I don’t know. This makes it more likely I’ll use booking.com. If they booked directly with the hotel they would just lose the room.

With booking.com they’re big enough that making a fuss in the media gets you a $17k room for $4k. I’m taking that deal every single time haha.

brk2• 8 months ago

I think the only reason Booking.com paid the difference is because this was becoming a story. To assume that is their standard policy would probably be a bit naive.

renewiltord2• 8 months ago

Yeah but the hotels never do this. If you had booked with the hotel you’d just be out a room. That’s because booking.com has a bigger blast radius. No one cares if the Happy Fun Hotel Toronto does something because the fragmentation means that brand means nothing.

hudo• 8 months ago

My booking.com latest experience: booked big appartment for 4 people. Arrived to destination (Bristol, UK), and apartment already had guests inside. Tried contacting landlord, no reply. Called booking com, they offered acommodation 30km from the city centre, and its already 11pm, no way to get there. Had to pay our own hotels, and we never got money paid to booking. One neighbor of that apartment said they often double book! Seems booking com doesn't care.

oniony• 8 months ago

I recently had a hotel try to scam me through the official Booking.com messages. Knew my phone number (they also WhatsApp'd me), me booking dates and email address (got more attempts via email). Spoke at length with Booking.com and, despite using them virtually weekly for fifteen years, they did not give a crap and then stopped responding to my emails. All I wanted them to do is get the hotel to refund my booking about two weeks before the date as I no longer felt comfortable staying somewhere that would leak my details.

I will not use them again, just like I do not use Travelodge any more since they repeatedly double-booked my rooms. I feel like, eventually, I'm going to run out of brokers to use. Perhaps I just need to book direct with a handful of hotels.

anonzzzies2• 8 months ago

This happens more often and especially late at night you really don't want shit like this, so indeed, I will not use booking.com. When I had this with other services, they just fixed it, at their expense, booking doesn't even fake that they care at all.

stickfigure• 8 months ago

I have found that it's always better to book directly with hotels. The price is the same or better, but more importantly, it's waaaay easier to make changes or cancellations without the middleman.

And rentalcars.com is a flat-out scam. I had to dispute CC charges with them when I showed up on scene, there were no cars, and rentalcars wouldn't refund it. Always book with the rental company directly.

crazygringo• 8 months ago

Definitely not my experience -- I find the price is usually better with aggregators.

The hotels sell rooms full-price on their site, and only release cheaper prices to budget aggregators. Often times the cheapest hotel deals are only available as part of a flight+hotel package where the cheaper price never gets revealed at all, because they never reveal which actual proportion of your package goes to the airline and to the hotel (hint: it's usually the hotel that gives the discount, even if the package is advertising a "$0 flight").

You're right about it being easier to change/cancel, for sure. But it's not also cheaper -- it's the opposite. You're generally paying more for that.

This is why when you travel for business and plans change and someone else is paying, book direct. Whereas when you're traveling for fun but on a budget with fixed dates you know won't change, use a budget aggregator.

potato3732842• 8 months ago

This is how the hotel industry works. This isn't just a booking or expedia thing. If the hotel knows they're gonna sell the house they'll shit-can "cheap" reservations that were made a long time ago. Even if Booking.com or whatever middleman online travel agency you're using doesn't facilitate this, the hotel itself will do it.

Every time there's a big event somewhere a bunch of people who booked before the event was publicized get bit by this.

drra• 8 months ago

Travel industry especially OTA behemoths like booking or expedia live by exploiting all possible quirks of the systems. For example they could snap super cheap airline promo fares but manipulate it to keep it in an open state for months similarly to how agents wait till the payment clears. Would be than sold with massive profit or abandoned close to flight date without any penalties. Apparently they rotted enough for start blatantly cancelling hotel bookings.

jwr2• 8 months ago

I've been making reservations recently and I think there is a huge imbalance in power.

All bookings in popular places or on popular dates are NON REFUNDABLE. As in "click and you will never see any of this money again" non-refundable. Very non-refundable. If I have to cancel, I lose all my money.

At the same time, hotels can cancel for little or no cost. They do not lose money.

I don't know what the right solution is, but I have a feeling this should be regulated at least a little bit (EU, take notice): I'd say totally non-refundable bookings should not exist. You should always be able to get at least some of your money back before the date the service starts. And if the other side cancels, they should pay a penalty, at least the same as the penalty I have to incur, possibly more to prevent schemes like the one described above.

r0fl3• 8 months ago

This is simply not true. Most hotels have refundable rates if you pay a bit more.

Show me 3 hotels that have non refundable dates.

LeFantome• 8 months ago

This is true in general. That said, in some cities at least, the difference in rate is more than a little material.

Zigurd2• 8 months ago

We had the beginnings of a solution: The [Edit]CFPB. Oh well. If it makes you feel better we're building the libertarian paradise.

averysmallbird2• 8 months ago

think you mean the FTC.

mothballed• 8 months ago

Ah yes, the libertarian paradise where the hotel industry curb-stomps competition through government sponsored regulatory capture by pretending to be "concerned long-term renters and locals" and lobbies for all sorts of licensing and regulation of airbnb and homeowner rentals. They don't want anyone stomping on their fiefdom and forcing them to offer competitive benefits like cancellation.

SilverElfin2• 8 months ago

CFTC is something else. But leaving that aside, Bookings is a European company and does lots of business outside of America. So it would take regulations across many countries to stop abuse.

j455• 8 months ago

Since this is a story from Canada, it might be worth learning from the consumer protection laws from Canada and the U.S. in the context of the comments in this thread.

dec0dedab0de2• 8 months ago

You're not wrong, but if it was a common issue then hotels would start offering those things to differentiate themselves. I know a few currently do that as a way to get you into their loyalty program.

soco• 8 months ago

As a rule, I always check the hotel's price directly on their site. Often there's quite a difference both in prices and in terms. And you can also call the hotel for some goodies. Sometimes, of course, but totally worth trying. Yes, I have no remorse short-circuiting Booking when they overdo it.

Freedom2• 8 months ago

All bookings in popular places or on popular dates are NON REFUNDABLE.

I'll be sure to let the places I booked in popular places (Nice, Paris, London and just recently Times Square) that had refundable rooms they should be not offering those rooms. After I refund my booking for Times Square, that is.

wdr1• 8 months ago

All bookings in popular places or on popular dates are NON REFUNDABLE. As in "click and you will never see any of this money again" non-refundable. Very non-refundable. If I have to cancel, I lose all my money.

The Atlantic recently wrote on how hotel policies have changed, with many no longer allowing free cancellations.

Why Hotel-Room Cancellations Disappeared

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2025/11/hotel-room-ca...

TL;DR: Hotel aggregators (e.g. Booking.com, Expedia) adopted a "cancel-rebook" strategy, where the aggregators would monitor hotel prices & rebook if the price dropped.

jwr2• 8 months ago

I think the "cancel-rebook" explanation is a red herring. Yes, it might have been a factor, but that's easily fixed by having a cancellation fee. Reservations being totally non-refundable at any date or time are an entirely different matter and it's a power grab.

Also, I tried booking directly with the hotel networks several times recently, in most cases non-refundable was all they offered, or the option of refundable was so much more expensive that it bordered on ridiculous.

nickpp• 8 months ago

this should be regulated at least a little bit

Don’t you think hotels aren’t already regulated? Just try opening a new one in a popular place and let us know how open the market is.

Repeat after me: regulations (no matter how good or well intended) favor the incumbents and hinder startups. Fewer startups means less competition. Less competition means fewer, crappier and more expensive products and services.

Trying to use more regulation to fix a market f’ed up by regulation will only deepen this spiral of doom.

ryanackley• 8 months ago

The price search is great, booking not so much. I've been burned twice on bookings and I think I've used it four or five times. It's sad and ridiculous.

By burned, I mean not getting the room I paid for. At this point, I'll use it to search then just go to the hotel site directly to book.

bigums• 8 months ago

Just recently had an issues with Booking.com. I made hotel and rental reservations through them for an event I went to. My car rental was for 11:00am, but my flight was delayed and I got to the car rental (Sixt) at 7:00pm. Sixt gave my car away and were sold out. Because I went through a third party, their policy is to reserve the car for an hour past the reserved time. Mind you, I prepaid for the car in full. I contacted Booking, and they said I had to wait until after the reservation return date to open a ticket for a refund. I did that, then they said I waited too long and they couldn’t confirm that my car was unavailable. I tried to escalate, they said our decision is final and the ticket is closed. They haven’t responded since.

edarchis• 8 months ago

Good to know, you're not the first I hear complaining about this.

I'm pretty sure that if you tell them that you're initiating a chargeback, it'll magically resolve itself.

holoduke• 8 months ago

I vowed to never book at booking. They use dark patterns and are therefore a parasite. I really wish them to go bankrupt with all the responsible ones going too. I really don't understand they we as a so called caring society accept behavior of these kind of companies.

chasd00• 8 months ago

My ultimate trump card for all these reservation systems is my wife. She understands every single aspect of every single reservation system and rewards program that I almost feel like we’re ripping off airlines, hotels, car rental etc every time we travel.

Fire-Dragon-DoL• 8 months ago

Could you give sone examples? Like in this case, would she be able to keep her reservations,or a big refund?

saaaaaam2• 8 months ago

I once booked what I thought was a hotel room via Booking.com but when I arrived it was a “serviced apartment” in a residential complex - so an Airbnb basically. But the way it was presented on the platform made it really difficult to tell it wasn’t a hotel.

Only problem was when I arrived there was already someone in it and they weren’t leaving.

At first Booking.com told me it was my problem and they would refund me and I could book somewhere else. But to get the refund I needed to prove that I couldn’t get in (how? They weren’t clear) and then book somewhere else and then send them all the details and they would “consider my request”.

I wasn’t doing that. No chance. And apart from anything else there were no hotel rooms available because there was a big conference going on. The nearest available rooms were about 30 miles away.

In the end - after an hour or so on the phone with an escalating series of people one of them (I think to get rid of me) stupidly said “if we could find ANY hotel room in town we would book it for you like a shot - but there are none”.

“Ah ha!” I said. “There is a hotel room - but it’s a suite in the Hyatt Regency - and it’s £2100 for the night. I bet you won’t book that!”

Amazingly, they did. The suite was larger than my flat.

And a complete waste because I only needed it for that night and was checking out at 6am. Though it did include a bar and restaurant credit worth nearly as much as the original “room” I’d booked.

They are a completely chaotic company. And after that I never used them again.

matwood2• 8 months ago

Yeah, I either go directly to a hotel's website (using Google Maps to find it) or to AirBNB if I'm looking for an apt because of a bad experience with booking.com.

saaaaaam2• 8 months ago

For this one the owner had actually added it to google maps as “Garden View Hotel” or whatever it was called. It was very confusing because I got dropped by a cab and then spent around 20 minutes trying to find the “hotel”. It was only when I double checked the confirmation email that I saw that to “access reception” I needed to “enter 87 on the intercom buzzer”.

ponector2• 8 months ago

Airbnb is not better. Even worse if you consider absence of sorting and poor filtering there. Also no responsibility they take.

m4tthumphrey• 8 months ago

Jesus Christ, this hit a little too close to home. I had booked a similar price hotel for a period of time during the World Cup next in Vancouver in June; 11 nights in total. I had only reserved it (via Booking.com) until today when I paid the balance. I have been worried about this happening to me ever since I booked it. The price I got was VERY good (considering the event).

MajorArana• 8 months ago

This was not a 'glitch'.

A well functioning marketplace will have step-changes in 'fair value' when there are step-changes in the underlying fundamentals (i.e. 'uncertainty' becomes 'certainty').

Don't blame the woman. Booking.com has a free cancelation policy. In the financial markets, options cost money. There is an intrinsic underlying value. In this case, the woman was given a free option and she took it. She did the smart thing.

Don't blame the hotel. Booking.com also offers a similar policy to the room providers - if the rate is clearly in error, they can cancel. The hotel likely operated in the same manner as the woman (i.e. they said "hey there's no penalty for requesting a refund... lets try it and see if we get away with it" or more sinister "hey Booking.com uses an automated system for these requests and any price discrepancy >50% is auto-approved by the system!"). While this feels adversarial, the hotel also did 'the smart thing' (... something about the "fiduciary duty to maximize value for the shareholders" ...)

The issue: Booking.com approved the hotel's cancellation request for a room with a rate that was (likely) correct at the time it was booked. (Given the well established dynamics around market pricing around events)

The policies of Booking.com led to this mess - ultimately Booking.com did the right thing by upholding the reservation and covering the difference.

anonymousiam• 8 months ago

Not sure if they're still doing it, but American Express once had an "Assured Reservation Program", which I've used. It locks in your reservation and price, and Amex will go to bat for you if a hotel tries to pull a fast one like this.

I've only leveraged it once, where a (Westin) resort hotel told me my room was not available when I arrived to check in. After I called Amex, The hotel ended up giving me a penthouse suite for the same price.

"The Assured Reservation Program allows Cardmembers to contact a participating property or rental agency to make an Assured Reservation and guarantee the reservation by giving their American Express Card. The Assured Reservation Program is available to the following industries: hotel, trailer park/campground, vehicle, aircraft, bicycle, boat, equipment, motor home, and motorcycle rentals."

https://www.americanexpress.com/content/dam/amex/us/merchant...

twoodfin3• 8 months ago

“Solving the Seinfeld Chinese restaurant problem”-aaS!

aeze• 8 months ago

A few years ago I booked a hotel suite through Booking.com for a convention, about six months in advance and for a group of friends.

About an hour before I checked in I got a message from Booking.com saying my reservation had been canceled. I called them and they said the hotel had canceled the reservation. They attempted to find another hotel upon request but there wasn’t one that would fit our group within 45 minutes of the convention center (the original was a block away).

Without many options, I showed up to the hotel to attempt to check in anyway. They told me Booking.com had canceled it several weeks prior. I denied any knowledge of the reservation being canceled and we got our room with little issue.

I’m not sure what was going on, but I’ve never used them since.

ndjeosibfb• 8 months ago

always book directly with the hotel

Booking.com cancels $4K hotel reservation, offers same rooms again for $17K

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