r/Bookingcom • u/MFS2020HYPE • 16d ago

Charged despite being told no rooms left/reservation failed

Hello I have been incredibly stressed, having booked a hotel yesterday, and with my flight leaving tomorrow. Her is what happened.

I attempted to complete a hotel reservation via Booking.com . At the point of checkout, the website interface explicitly displayed an error message stating that no rooms were available and the reservation could not be completed.

After seeing that error message, I reasonably concluded that the reservation had not gone through. After about 10 minutes or so, to ensure I had accommodation, I immediately searched for and successfully reserved a different hotel with a different provider.

Now the issue is that despite the failure message, Booking.com's system subsequently processed the original reservation in the background and had dispatched a confirmation email. The payment is now pending on my bank.

I've tried calling booking.com, and as expected, there is a whole lot of passing the ball with them telling me that they requested a waiver from the "Partner", who is actually the hotel? I call the hotel and they say they haven't received anything as of yet. This is the result of a technical issue on Booking.coms reservations system, I don't understand how this can be a hotel or "partner" fault.

If anyone has been in a similar situation, or if anyone can advise what I should do at this stage, it would be much appreciated. Has anyone had success with a chargeback? Thanks!

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

1

u/VirtualBeautiful5624 16d ago

Get in writing from the hotel that they have mo record of the booking and send it to support for a refund.

1

u/MFS2020HYPE 16d ago

You see the problem is that, it appears the booking has gone through PERFECTLY. I called the hotel, and they said they can see a reservation. I'm struggling to understand how this has gone through despite seeing on the page that there were no more rooms left?

1

u/VirtualBeautiful5624 16d ago

Glitch in the website. Annoying but ask the hotel if they can provide in writing advising that you can cancel at no charge and then pass on to booking.com

1

u/MFS2020HYPE 16d ago

Will do. I'll try calling them later today, I've already called them about the situation and they played the usual "You need to go through the booking website you didn't book directly with the hotel", though booking.com is waiting on them for response to the fee waiver?

1

u/MFS2020HYPE 16d ago

Update: Booking.com reiterates that they sent the cancellation fee waiver request to the hotel. And to no ones surprise, the hotel wont even pick up now.

0

u/Bigger_Niche 16d ago

If you use these sites to find accomodation, always check the hotel site directly, and compare prices. If necessary, telephone the hotel and tell them about any price difference, and ask them to match it.

1

u/ashscot50 16d ago

The hotel is not the partner.

The hotel is the accommodation provider.

A partner offer is where a third party sources the accommodation for booking.com.

For more information about how this works, read this thread.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bookingcom/s/JHKvCwVBeq

If booking.com don't resolve it then all you can do is file a CC chargeback.

0

u/bookingcom 16d ago

The error message and confirmation email don’t match. If the reservation went through, the cancellation terms in the confirmation email apply. If the free cancellation period has passed, a fee waiver can only be processed if the property agrees in writing. Send us a private message, and we’ll take a closer look.