Booking - Reviews and experiences

I didn’t expect to start a weekend like this — driving three hours with my elderly parents, excited for a small family event, and then… silence. The booking looked fine on the app, paid months ago, confirmation email and all. Four days before we left it still showed as confirmed. So we packed up, drove down, and when we arrived there were zero check-in instructions. Zero. No message, no key box code, nothing. I called the number on the confirmation and eventually got through after a lot of trying. That’s when the host basically said the place had been out of use for months. No heads-up, no option to switch. You can imagine the stress — elderly folks tired in the car, me scrambling to fix things last minute. Not great.

I had a really crappy experience with my booking getting cancelled, and then I saw that the place was up for rent again but at a higher price. They tried to tell me that I had cancelled it myself, but I know for sure I was fast asleep at 2am. I was super suspicious but felt like I had no choice 'cause the company said they couldn't do anything since I paid the host directly.

I recently booked a hotel on this site that had a free cancellation option. It was too bad, but I ended up needing to cancel within that free period. Even though I gave them all the paperwork they asked for, Booking.com kept on bugging me for bank statements over and over for months. They ended up refunding the money into their own wallet system, only to take it back later. They kept sending me the same emails asking for the same documents, which was really annoying and baffling. Eventually, they wiped all traces of the booking and stopped replying to my messages.

I booked a caravan for a weekend getaway not too long ago using a booking platform. My excitement turned into disappointment when I got a cancellation notification from the platform last minute, the day before my trip. I got in touch with the owner and learned that they had actually informed the platform days earlier, but I was left in the dark until the last minute. I eventually found another place to stay, but the whole ordeal was super inconvenient and stressful. To make matters worse, when I reached out to the platform about their promise to cover the price difference for the new booking, they started making excuses and trying to back out of their word. The whole situation really rubbed me the wrong way and I won't be using their services again.

I just booked a little getaway to Brighton for two days using an online travel site. I planned everything months ahead to make sure it would be a great trip. But let me tell you, dealing with their customer service was a total letdown. My first booking got cancelled last minute, so I had to scramble to book another place. And then, just 2 and a half hours before I was supposed to check in, I got another cancellation notice. I spent hours on the phone with customer service, waiting on hold forever. Finally, they let me book something else, but guess what? That booking got cancelled too! After a lot of back and forth, I was able to secure a reservation, but it was more expensive and not where I wanted to stay originally. It was such a headache that I've decided to avoid that platform for future trips and stick to using Airbnb instead.