iahphx

Well, I still astonished by the even-higher market cap of booking.com's parent company, Priceline -- now worth an astonishing $62 BILLION. That said, they do bring something to the table for the savvy independent traveler. This is the ability to more easily book rooms at smaller establishments, particularly B&B's. They seem to offer these properties lower commissions (I'm not sure of the details) and the B&B's use booking.com's systems to manage their inventory. You usually cannot book these rooms with any other online travel agency.

Of course, you can contact the hotel direct to book, but this is obviously more time consuming and, more often than not, does not result in a lower rate (which somewhat surprises me).

Also, using the topcashback.com website, you can get $14 in cashback for each booking.com reservation. It obviously makes sense to book each room night separately.

This does not seem like it would be profitable for booking.com, but that's Wall Street's problem, not mine.

Spiff

Anytime booking.com takes a hit, I'm pleased. They and travelo****ty.com are the worst sites on the planet.

telabadmanwot

You picking a crap Russian hotel is hardly their fault. You can book dives on any OTA. Read tripadvisor reviews with a HUGE pinch of salt, especially where you went.

I USED to use Booking.com all the time, they are good when you want to cancel, no extra fee. But I do prefer Expedia as an OTA, they honour even error rates at their own expense!

Steve_in_VA

I recently came back from Romania, and used booking dot com to book hotels in Brasnov and Sighisoara, two medieval towns in Transylvania. Both were small boutique hotels that weren't even listed on Expedia or other sites. Both hotels were as advertised and I was completely satisfied with the experience. I have another reservation I booked with them in Thailand in January. So far, so good!

Spiff

Consider yourself lucky they didn't cancel your reservations and/or ask for more money. booking.com stinks.

sbrower

I have a bunch of reservations with them for an upcoming trip to Japan. So far I have made several changes and all the "cancels" have come through without any charge/hassle. But I will report back on whether I have any further problems.

P.S. - I checked my account and I see that 2 of the best places I booked in Europe, a couple of months ago, were also from booking.com. For the benefit of others who read this thread, I have never had to contact the customer service function. But on a routine matter, I have not had any trouble with them.

karanissa

In a nutshell, I won't be using them again. Within last 2 years I had about the same number of reservations made via booking.com and hotels.com. In each case, I had one major incident. Hotels.com made sure I got what I bargained for, while booking.com couldn't care less. Literally.

pristine2

We started taking bookings from booking.com in July. We closed off the calendar to new bookings on that site in September. There were far too many problems. The company operates with precisely the type of corporate arrogance that made us want to steer clear.

1) You cannot describe your own property. Instead you fill out a long form of questions, and an "editorial team" then produces descriptive language from your responses. The resultant material is stilted and entirely empty of the flavour good marketing material needs to purvey. Guests come with expectations that either wrong or ambiguous. You can ask for changes, but it is like pulling teeth, and if you succeed in getting any edits, they'll make clear they are doing you a big favour.

2) The site accepts anonymous, wordless reviews.

3) The calendar functions are primitive at best. Booking.com also purges credit card information after 10 days, compelling the property owner to manage that information until it is used.

4) Customer service is less than competent. Most conversations started on our end with a clear explanation of the problem, after which the CSR would invariably say: "how can I help you today", as if she had not heard a word. rarely was any meaningful help available.

5) When we had finally had enough, and decided to dedicate our vacancies to portals we like better, we asked booking.com how to close off the calendar without risking disruption to the bookings we had already taken. We never got a clear answer, but we did get a call from a New York accented fellow using high-pressure tactics to get us to stay, very similar to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?annota...&v=XL3P8AYVSEs

We're very eager to sever our lingering ties to booking.com

Sabirze

The hotel has charged us more than was confirmed in our reservation through booking.com. While we stayed in the hotel the boking.com assured us that we should just take the payment invoice from the hotel and then they will reimburse us the difference. We sent the invoice to booking, and now they are saying that the hotel has charged us the OFFICIAL RATES and that they cannot do anything. Seriously? then everything written on booking.com is just a ........ and you can just go to the hotel and get a rack rate. Never ever use the again. Lots of friends around are having troubles with booking.com (double charge, problematic cancellation even though rate is fully refundable, etc).

phunt7

I used Booking.com to reserve a hotel in New York city in the summer of 2011. I was notified by booking the day prior to my arrival that my reservation had been cancelled. Booking provided me a list of hotels available to rebook, all at considerably higher rate than my original hotel. Since I had already provided my credit card info, I called Booking for help. They assured me that I could rebook at the higher rate, and that they would work with the original hotel to make up the money difference. I rebooked, paid the higher rate, and asked Booking to help me with my refund via letter and telephone. Over the course of many months, I attempted to secure the refund Booking promised. They were non-responsive and eventually quit answering my calls. To this day I have never received a resolution. My advice is to avoid this website. I will never trust them again.

chenny02

Wir reserved a Hotel in China for 8 nights with Booking.com.. Unfortunately the Hotel was still under construction. I communicated during my stay with Hotel and Booking.com. Only on the departure day they stopped working. After my return I tried to get compensation for the noise. Unfortunately Hotel only agreed to offer me one time only for one year Discount, which is useless for me, as I am not returning to China for another two years. Booking.com could not help me more.

sherlinsmith12

Really very helpful..thanks for sharing....^

Fornebufox

Interesting to read the commentary on Booking.com. I've been using them for years without issue, though I'm careful about the properties I pick, reading between the lines of the descriptions and reviews, checking locations on the map and reading reviews on TA. It's time consuming but I know what to expect, and I've discovered delightful smaller properties that I would never have found on my own.

But folks should be aware of a brand new agreement announced yesterday between Booking.com and hoteliers in France, Italy, and Sweden: As of July 1, hotels may charge cheaper prices on other websites, though they may not charge cheaper prices on their own websites except to members of their loyalty program.

More here:

http://www.thelocal.se/20150421/swed...gcom-price-row

Negotiations with Expedia and HRS are ongoing.

ceejay_za

I've used booking.com multiple times with no issues. In fact, the only issue I had was when I booked a non-refundable room for the wrong dates! I phoned them immediately (they actually have a local CS number, even down here in South Africa), they liaised with the hotel and got the booking cancelled, all within 30 minutes or less.

I do look at reviews and descriptions and compare with other sites, though. That's just due diligence.

Romelle

It looks like a little bit of a "hate" against booking.com is happening - mostly from members with very low post counts. ??

I've used booking.com for years. Never had a problem.

Romelle