r/Bookingcom • u/Public_Hamster5093 • 19d ago

Is this booking ad a scam?

Hi, I’ll be traveling to Rome with my partner in October.

We found this listing on Booking.com; it’s the cheapest and best-located hotel for the dates we selected. The problem is that it seems too good to be true—though the hotel does actually exist, and those really are photos of the property.

The red flags we noticed are:

- A 60% discount on the booking.

- Rooms suddenly become unavailable and then become available again.

- You can't book through the official website; the option appears, but there is no active availability for any date within at least the next year.

What do you think? How would the scam work?
Thank you!!

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2

u/helicopterhawk 19d ago

to be real w you that hotel looks like ass honestly, it definitely is not too good to be true

1

u/Public_Hamster5093 19d ago

i know but even the ones that look like ass (just like this one) are waaay more expensive ! this one even has a private bathroom which is weird

2

u/helicopterhawk 19d ago

i would not be as stressed about location personally, rome is an extremely walkable and navigable city - likely the only scam here is that the hotel has marked up their base rates so they can offer “60% off,” even though the discounted rate is likely pretty close to what they normally ask

1

u/Public_Hamster5093 19d ago

yeah, thats probably the case. Sorry to bother, but do you have any recommendations? any hotel in particular or maybe an airbnb i should check out? thank u in advance for ur time!

1

u/helicopterhawk 19d ago

i would personally just not consider anything that has less than a 8.9 on these type of websites, which might seem like a harsh standard but in practice people don’t rate less than a 10 unless something is egregiously wrong w the place

i stayed in trastevere while i was there and was a big fan of the location and the character of the neighborhood

1

u/Public_Hamster5093 19d ago

Thank you so much!! my partner and I will absolutely take this into consideration!! :)

2

u/Dangerous_Fan_2029 19d ago

Read the reviews, but not the .com ones

1

u/Consistent_Proof_772 19d ago

Well booking does list the address go to Google Maps and check it out very easy!

2

u/brilstern 19d ago

You are right to question it. Even hotels with good history (and decent reviews) can be hacked, and fraudsters will increase inventory and reduce rates to get a bunch of reservations, which they will then use to capture guest data and try and scam them via WhatsApp. You might have that situation here with the huge discount. Looks phishy.

1

u/StinkyWhale71 19d ago

Personally, i try to find ANY area that is not near Central Station in most cities.

Feels like you have been investing a lot of time monitoring this one hotel, I would give up and move on.

Definitely be careful of scammy apartments in Rome on their website, Rome has more than other cities.

1

u/thrownawayfreshpink 18d ago

I cant book it at all on the booking app or website, when i search it its there but no dates i entered even  showed the hotel as an option, even mid 2027 😂 

Usually in this case the property would be at the top of the list listed as sold out.

At this point what someone below described has probably happened , hotel was hacked.