{"id":641355,"date":"2026-08-17T07:06:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T07:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/641355\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T07:06:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T07:06:12","slug":"booking-com-users-struggle-in-the-face-of-phantom-bookings-and-rogue-cancellations-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/641355\/","title":{"rendered":"Booking.com users struggle in the face of phantom bookings and rogue cancellations \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is undoubtedly true that booking DIY holidays has become much, much easier in recent years, thanks in no small part to the online platform booking.com<\/a>. But while it can easily put accommodation providers in touch with those seeking accommodation, things can go wrong and when they do, it can be hard to have them put right. <\/p>\n

We have three different stories from readers that illustrate that point. <\/p>\n

Last November, Emer booked an apartment in Liverpool for three days in the middle of July, with the payment taken on November 11th. <\/p>\n

When Emer arrived in Liverpool on July 14th she was less than happy to be told by the company that managed the property in question that it had been withdrawn from short-term rentals and that booking.com had been told this last February.<\/p>\n

Emer and her travelling party had to book another property at very short notice, also through booking.com. She says the additional cost over the original booking was \u00a3276 (\u20ac323).<\/p>\n

Emer contacted booking.com\u2019s customer care team almost immediately to say she was \u201cvery disappointed in the lack of customer service shown\u201d to her. <\/p>\n

There followed a series of discussions with the company and its representatives. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is absolutely not the experience we want for you,\u201d she was told. \u201cWe have investigated the matter and confirmed that the property is no longer accepting reservations on our platform. To ensure you are fully supported, we have already cancelled your reservation free of charge and processed a full refund back to your original payment method.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was told the refund would take up to 12 days to process and that booking.com had been in touch with her original accommodation. \u201cIf you\u2019ve had any extra costs, please send us the invoice for your new accommodation after your stay, and we\u2019ll do our best to assist you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emer got back to them to say the new accommodation she booked had cost \u00a3625.49 and she asked for a refund of the difference. <\/p>\n

She says the booking fee for the original apartment was quickly refunded to her credit card with the balance added to her booking.com wallet.<\/p>\n

She pointed out to them that she had no future trips planned and, as a pensioner, the \u201cout of pocket amount of \u00a3275.71 is significant to me\u201d and she asked for a refund. <\/p>\n

She was told that was impossible. <\/p>\n

We then heard from another reader who recently went on his honeymoon to South Korea, staying a week in Seoul and a week in Busan. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy wife takes her holiday planning very seriously and after a great deal of research she picked a particular luxury hotel in Busan for our second week,\u201d he says. \u201cAs she is a long-time Genius member of booking.com she availed of a \u2018partner deal\u2019 for our stay in the Busan hotel which meant we booked a standard room for the week for around \u20ac1,000, which was within our budget.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0A Currys customer\u2019s \u2018extremely exhausting and frustrating\u2019 glitchy phone experienceOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

While the couple were in Seoul they decided to amend their booking for the second week in Busan in order to spend their last night back in Seoul, to make travel to the airport easier.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is where the problem began,\u201d our reader says ominously. <\/p>\n

\u201cAfter contacting booking.com and asking them to cancel only the last night on the Busan reservation, they (by their own admission) incorrectly cancelled the entire booking rather than just the single last night, despite our email to them being very clear,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo add insult to injury, the hotel almost immediately became fully booked apart from one executive suite. This led to hours of phone calls trying to remedy the issue only days before our planned stay and eventually booking.com agreed to pay for the difference in cost if we were to book the only available room in the same hotel, ie the executive suite. The other issue was that most of the nearby hotels of a similar standard were also fully booked and the Grand Josun was something of a dream stay for my wife so our alternative options were limited.\u201d<\/p>\n

He stresses that they were very clear in phone conversations and in writing that the only room left was the significantly more expensive suite, \u20ac4,000 for the week, and booking.com confirmed in writing that should they book and pay for that room they would refund them the difference from the original booking. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe were naturally cautious about such a guarantee so we made sure to ask what documentation they would need from us in terms of invoices, proof of payment etc, as the difference in cost was \u20ac2,700, significantly over budget for us so we wanted to pre-empt any potential problems after the fact. Having received their guarantees and been informed by them that we would simply need an invoice that had the price and \u2018paid in full\u2019 on it, we proceeded with this plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple had an \u201camazing stay\u201d and paid the bill and checked out with the hotel providing the necessary documentation. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut immediately booking.com began throwing up obstacles to reimbursement. Naturally the price was in the local currency, the Korean won (KRW), and booking.com said that only a price listed in euro or dollars was acceptable, something they had not mentioned previously,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

\u201cAfter a phone call where we explained the illogical nature of asking a hotel to draw up an invoice in a foreign currency, booking.com agreed to accept the invoice in KRW along with evidence of payment from our Revolut account of the equivalent amount in euro.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says that was two months ago \u201cand we have neither been reimbursed nor have we had any contact from booking.com that we did not initiate\u201d. <\/p>\n

He points out that he and his wife have spent around four hours on the phone to the company \u201cmost of it on hold, where call centre staff tell us that they will escalate the issue to the relevant team, and regularly hang up on us while we are on hold. We have never been able to get past the initial call taker. <\/p>\n

\u201cDuring today\u2019s call we finally discovered that the issue has been escalated to \u2018the partner team\u2019 as the initial reservation was under a \u2018partner deal\u2019. However, since the reservation we made after the cancellation was not a partner deal we wonder if our case is in limbo now, since it shares a booking number with the original reservation but was functionally a new reservation.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says that \u201chaving just paid for a wedding and now trying to save for a deposit for a house, the loss of this lump sum is not trivial for us and since it was paid for by credit card it has accumulated interest\u201d.<\/p>\n

Finally, we heard from Maria, who warned us that we \u201cmight need to buckle up, as it\u2019s a long one\u201d.<\/p>\n

She booked a house in Suffolk for seven people. \u201cWe need a minimum of four bedrooms and our booking was from Sunday, June 1st, to Wednesday, June 24th and the charge was \u00a3519, which I paid in full on booking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three weeks before they were due to travel, Maria got an email notification from booking.com to say the accommodation was no longer available. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was promised a refund within 14 days. I was also offered two alternatives, one in South Yorkshire and the other in Coventry (not quite in the same area). And was told that booking.com would cover the difference in charges if we chose one of these. I rang the company as neither of the options were suitable for me and we needed to find something suitable quite quickly,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey then found me a detached 4-bed house in Suffolk which looked perfect. The cost for that was \u00a31,237.20 \u2013 quite a difference in price from our original booking. They again promised that they would refund the difference in travel credits as the mistake was theirs. Based on that, I booked the new place.\u201d<\/p>\n

When they arrived at the accommodation and rang the number on the booking they were horrified to discover that the house was not listed for holiday lettings and was in fact a private residence. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0A \u2018cold, spreadsheet-driven\u2019 Aer Lingus response to a young woman\u2019s \u2018freak accident\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

She rang booking.com immediately and spent around 90 minutes on the call hoping to find a second alternative booking. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt some point the owners did turn up to find a strange car and occupants sitting in their driveway. That was embarrassing,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

\u201cAfter quite a long time and many telephone conversations, I was once again told by booking.com that they had found another place for us to stay. It was about half an hour away and the cost this time was \u00a32,090.70, which was quite an increase from our very first booking,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

\u201cDuring this time, I asked booking.com to check that this property was indeed available as my trust levels were falling quickly. They ended our call and called me back a few minutes later to confirm that this property was indeed available. So not really having a choice, I paid \u00a32,090.70 for this, the third booking, and was told that I would be refunded the difference with my original booking.\u201d <\/p>\n

Around five minutes later they received a call they could scarcely believe. It was from the owner of the property they were heading to. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe told me that his property was not available. Booking.com hadn\u2019t called him that afternoon to check before I booked it. Once again (and it was about 4.30pm at this point) we had nowhere to go and I was over \u00a32k down in my bank account,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo we pulled into a pub car park as everyone needed to rehydrate and rang booking.com again. They then found us four rooms in a hotel not too far away, thankfully. Again, I asked them to check and double check that the rooms were available. The reassured me that they were.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also rang the hotel to confirm. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo off we went again and ended up spending three nights in a hotel at a cost of \u00a31,296. In addition to the accommodation, as we weren\u2019t in a self-catering place which we would have preferred and had originally booked, we spent another \u00a3304 on two breakfasts and one dinner which we would have made ourselves for much less.\u201d <\/p>\n

Almost five weeks \u201cand a ton of emails later, booking.com has not done what they promised\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have had to push and negotiate for a refund of the difference. I really needed a refund into my account, which at one point they agreed to. I sent bank details but then they changed their minds and went back to offering travel credits. As you can imagine, it\u2019s hard for me to trust booking.com and I don\u2019t really want travel credits.\u201d <\/p>\n

She says she has been offered three amounts, all in euro, which doesn\u2019t equate to the difference in spend. \u201cThey haven\u2019t offered any compensation for \u201cthe afternoon lost, the frustration and the stress, the cost of the many telephone calls, which I\u2019ve also pointed out to them.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping you might be in a position to advise on what to do next, if anything. Should I \u2018quieten down\u2019 and be happy with the credits we\u2019ve been offered or do I have any other options?\u201d<\/p>\n

We contacted booking.com and received the following statement. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe were sorry to hear about the experiences of these customers. When a hotel, apartment or other type of accommodation chooses to list on booking.com, they must agree to our terms and conditions, which include keeping their room availability up to date. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf an accommodation can no longer host guests, or ceases to operate, we provide clear guidance and processes to ensure they can easily close reservations on our platform, which enables guests to be informed in advance of any stay.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statement said that while situations like these are rare, \u201cwe recognise the disruption they can cause, and we can confirm that our customer service team will review each case and update the customers as needed\u201d.<\/p>\n

With regard to the second story \u2013 about the honeymooning couple in Korea \u2013 we were told the \u201ccustomer will receive a refund\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is undoubtedly true that booking DIY holidays has become much, much easier in recent years, thanks in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[7485,79,2190,18,19,17,1009,6641,2428],"class_list":["post-641355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-booking-com","tag-business","tag-cost-of-living","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-liverpool","tag-pricewatch","tag-south-korea"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117109586916201358","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}