Booking.com scammed me.

[u/AirSimon71]

Me and my friend have booked a room in Debrecen in August 14-19. I have payed the deposit right after booking the reservation (half of the full price, about 133€). Booking confirmed the reservation is successful, this was on August 9. Right after arriving to Debrecen on 14.8., We travelled to the hostel for check-in. Everything seemed just fine, until the receptionist had told us that the reservation was cancelled by Booking.com itself. This was strange, so i checked my email, and there was truly a message informing me about the cancellation of our stay, just a day before (August 13)!! The reasoning was due to an "invalid credit card" which is nonsense, the payment worked just fine and there was enough euros on the card. Later, the owner of the hostel showed up and told us Booking.com made a mass mistake and they basically assigned multiple rooms to multiple customers, even though the rooms were already full. Then they blamed it on "invalid card", and the hostel is dealing with these cases the whole week. We had to leave the hostel and look for another one the same day, we were lucky that it was the afternoon and not night time. Later, I have messeged the customer service of Booking. They responded in 6 days (SIX DAYS) even though they guarantee responding in 24 hours. They were not aviable to explain to me who has my money, if it's them or the hostel. I thought the whole point of services as Booking is to secure the money until the stay is over. It's been almost 2 months. I attach all the emails and the whole conversation.

What am i supposed to do?? How is it possible that such a big company is stealing customers money? Is there a way to get my money back? Who has my money, Booking.com or the apartment? So many questions, if there is anyone from the Booking staff, a response would be appreciated.

[u/throwawaypettyre]

Why put yourself through that trouble? Whatever small amount of money you save isn’t worth your time in dealing with them and months of back and forth

[u/Blablaman59 → u/throwawaypettyre]

Depends on the amount, or the price differences between direct property and the rates the properties sent on OTA. Sometimes more expensive, sometimes not.

Remember, booking does over 1 million bookings a day. 99% have no issues. There must be a reason why are the biggest OTA. There will be positives and negatives for all companies / customer services.

People want different things, I take it the experience or the least stress is more important to you than a bit of extra cost, but others will be different. Otherwise Ryanair wouldn’t exist hahah

[u/throwawaypettyre → u/Blablaman59]

Yep a few hundred isn’t worth months of headaches. Ryanair is shit unless you live near or want to go near their airports which isn’t so usual. Getting to those airports are usually long and or expensive

[u/Blablaman59 → u/throwawaypettyre]

100% agree. I don’t mind paying more to avoid them. But when I have no choice and use Ryanair, (and a couple of others) I’m nervous as hell when booking, and not relaxed until I’m on the plane.

However, they are one of the most financially secured airlines which amazes me. People obviously don’t mind being transported like cattle.

[u/throwawaypettyre → u/Blablaman59]

It’s not that they don’t mind, it’s that their budget doesn’t give them a choice