We booked the hotel, got an email saying “Your reservation is confirmed, no need to call the hotel and confirm.”
We showed up at the hotel… Booking.com never confirmed it with them. Hotel was booked, we had no room.
So we sat in the parking lot for an hour talking to customer service. They did get us a room at a more expensive hotel and covered the difference in price, but Jesus, not a good look.
The first hotel told us Booking.com does this all the time.
In general: Unless you are going through a rewards program, the booking sites are almost never worth using. Or, more pointedly, use them to find the popular hotels in the area. And then go to that hotel chain’s website to book it.
Ignoring that said booking sites will often steal your hotel chain points (and you can get the low tier which gives you early/late checkout REALLY easily), they don’t even have the special deals that the old travel agents had. So you are actually paying more.
Currently booking travel for a Japan trip and have consistently gotten MUCH cheaper prices just by going to the actual chain website.
And speaking of rewards program booking: I have found Hilton hotels are great for letting you just transfer that to your actual account. They seem to HATE all the booking sites and rewards programs. So if you just call them up asking if you can confirm your reservation and “get it in your app” so you can use mobile check in: you pretty much get the nights while still getting to use your credit card points.
Booked a place in Queenstown (New Zealand) on a long weekend via booking dot com. Tourist town, you know what it’s going to be like on a long weekend, and I had trouble finding a place a week out, it was a short notice trip.
Same, “no need to confirm!”
Arrive 5pm… nope, no room, fully booked due to the long weekend, nothing from booking dot com as far as the hotel is concerned.
Slog through booking dot com’s horrible script driven online chat, 90 minutes later, “oh noes we can’t find a place in Queenstown, here’s your money back plus a 5 percent off your next booking voucher for your trouble”.
6.30 pm in Queenstown on a long weekend.
After ringing through every accommodation provider I could find on Google I eventually found a place that had a four bed room for $450 for the night, vs the $150 I had originally planned.
And as a final irritation, the money that they naturally zapped out of my card in an instant at the time of booking took three weeks to be returned to my card.
Booking dot com, booking dot never again you fucks.
If I have 100 acres of land and cut down 66 acres last year, this year my maximum output is 50% of last year’s output but 100% is still going to be gone.
This is great news and all, but it doesn’t mean that the rainforest is growing back at a sustainable rate… it’s still being cut down, just not as fast.
japantimes.co.jp
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