[BoJack]

Great news guys! We got the refund from booking.com for the full amount. Thanks again guys for all the help!!

Originally Posted by top_gear

Welcome to Dubai.

Thanks for the warm welcome!
We go around in one of our cousin 's secondary car, my brother used to work here so he has a drivers license here.

[Turbanator]

Originally Posted by BoJack

Great news guys! We got the refund from booking.com for the full amount. Thanks again guys for all the help!!

Good, looks somone at booking.com is reading this thread

[BoJack]

Originally Posted by Turbanator

Good, looks somone at booking.com is reading this thread

I was thinking the same thing! Thanks TBHP for the quick refund

[Alfresco]

Originally Posted by BoJack

Guys need help!

I and my brother made a booking through booking.com from 21/3/21 to 26/3/21 for an amount of 2491 AED, we booked the hotel a few days in advance and we got the confirmation mail.

Hi
I am used to dealing with booking.com from the "other side". Would like to know a few points.
1. Did you make the booking from India on an Indian credit card?
2. Did booking.com actually charge your card?

Booking.com takes card details just to ensure the validity and cannot charge Indian credit cards. The hotel is supposed to charge the card and then send commission to booking.com every month


Just saw that your problem was resolved. Did they send you an email saying "cancellation charges waived off" or did they actually give you a refund

[sgmuser]

Originally Posted by BoJack

Guys need help!

Hmmm, so, it is not just for me! I booked a service apartment in Dubai Silicon Oasis through agoda. Once I reached the apartment reception, I realised, I have booked something like airBnB type of service as this apartment is located in a residential complex. I was driving from Muscat all the way to Dubai for 4 plus hours with my son, just 2 of us (12 years) and did delay our lunch as we thought we will eat at the hotel. Once we reached, the reception Security guys did not have any idea about the booking and there is no number to call anyone to find where the keys are for the room! We were waiting for 2 hours almost and nothing happened. Sent a strong email to the agoda support and somehow, I received another email with a phone number who does take care of the room. This stupid guy did not send the details required like where the key will be, parking and many other things. Since, I paid upfront, I couldn't leave that place as well. It was a horrible experience with the booking experience. I felt bad for my son as we did not eat until almost 6 something in the afternoon. I rated very low for this property but where to rate agoda?

So, it is not anything else except that these aggregators do not have any good processes to manage these things. Customer Service is non-existent. The best way is to book through the hotel website and a double check to either call or email about the booking and then pray!

Booking.com and agoda are too big to even make a complaint. It is impossible to raise any issues. With agoda, I had only horrible experiences so, I would not recommend. Similar check in experiences in Singapore as well after booking through agoda. The refund will for sure work with booking.com, I believe.

[xrules]

I'll suggest you to enjoy the event first. Follow it up with Booking.com/Hotel once you are back and I am certain that you will get your money back. I have booked with booking.com since 2006 (a few hundred bookings) and I too have had issues when something was lost in translation. But never was the case that my money was lost. In fact a couple of instances, I made a couple of tentative bookings and forgot to cancel in time. While I realized as soon as my credit card was charged, I called the hotel and booking.com, explained my mistake and they were kind enough to refund. So I am really hopeful that you will get your money back. In fact it will be hotel that will swipe your card and not booking.com (in my experience) and as the hotel denied you a stay, they cannot take your money.

[maddy42]

That sounds scary but glad you got the refund and i hope you expect them to pay for your time too.

One piece of advice for anyone. Always call the hotel directly to confirm your booking. Do not trust everything which the booking site notifies.

Ex 1: Booked a trip through make my trip where the promise was that luggage flies free. At the airline counter was informed other wise and had to pay for the luggage and had to spend the next two days on the trip on twitter following up for the expense.

Ex 2: My friend runs a homestay and was sold out a particular weekend. He is not listed on the MMT and still gets two guests(a young couple) come in at 11pm all tired from their travel. He tries calling mmt but recieve no response.

Finally cooked food for them as they were exhausted and then took them to the nearest town and got them a hotel room at 1am.

Lesson learnt: Never trust what the site or even your travel agent mentions. Call the facility directly.

[BigB]

Select hotels from the aggregator websites, book directly from the hotel via a call or an email.

In 9 of 10 cases it will work out to be cheaper.

[BoJack]

Originally Posted by Alfresco

Hi
I am used to dealing with booking.com from the "other side". Would like to know a few points.
1. Did you make the booking from India on an Indian credit card?
2. Did booking.com actually charge your card?


Just saw that your problem was resolved. Did they send you an email saying "cancellation charges waived off" or did they actually give you a refund

1. Booked from India on an Emirates NBD card.
2. Yes.

No they just refunded the amount.

Originally Posted by sgmuser

Booking.com and agoda are too big to even make a complaint. It is impossible to raise any issues. With agoda, I had only horrible experiences so, I would not recommend. The refund will for sure work with booking.com, I believe.

I agree with you, it also shows when you talk with their exicutives that they don't really have a care in the world. It felt like they were intensionally trying to infuriate me by asking me some questions collecting details and putting me on hold for half an hour and then ask the same questions again and put me on hold AGAIN! and not just a couple of times was this repeated, i feel like i should get some award for keeping my cool .

Originally Posted by xrules

. So I am really hopeful that you will get your money back.

I got the refund, thanks!

Originally Posted by maddy42

That sounds scary but glad you got the refund and i hope you expect them to pay for your time too.

I'm just glad i got the booking amount back. I never want to deal with booking.com again

[scorpian]

Originally Posted by BigB

Select hotels from the aggregator websites, book directly from the hotel via a call or an email.

In 9 of 10 cases it will work out to be cheaper.

Not true, whenever I have called the hotel directly and asked them to match a online price they have outright refused. Not once but atleast a couple of occasions.

[OPMaurya]

Glad to hear that the amount has been refunded.

On a side note, though, I don't travel much but I have had good experience searching on websites like booking / MakeMyTrip/ Agoda/ Airbnb and actually calling the homestay/ hotel for making the reservation. Again, this has been my experience.
Also, if I do make a reservation online, I always try to look for the minimum advance payment with zero cancellation till the last moment option. All of this in India.

[clevermax]

I am going through a situation with a recent hotel booking through booking.com and the stay at the hotel. Thought I will post it in this thread which is about an issue faced with booking.com

Last week I had a short trip to the USA, and I had booked a hotel through booking.com before my journey.

I had set the option of "payment at the property" and when checking out, I paid the full amount at the hotel and asked for a receipt. The front desk personnel told me that since I booked it via booking.com, they will be e-mailing me the invoice and the receipt.

I have been trying to contact booking.com customer care via the "Contact customer care" option, I did this three times, but there is absolutely no response.

Right now, I am sitting here with no proof of payment done at the hotel.

Has booking.com gone really unprofessional? Or was it the hotel front desk's mistake of not giving me the receipt then and there?

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by clevermax

...Or was it the hotel front desk's mistake of not giving me the receipt then and there?

Card payment of some sort? If so, they should've at least given you that receipt?

[thanixravindran]

Originally Posted by clevermax

Or was it the hotel front desk's mistake of not giving me the receipt then and there?

Whenever I have used booking.com, I always select Pay at property. I have always got receipt from the hotel/property directly at checkout at both India and abroad. If you have the email address of the hotel, please mail them for invoice and they may send it.

I am not sure how booking.com can provide invoice if they have not collected the payment or payment routed through them. But they should respond and contact the property to get the invoice. Please write a strong review in the website which sometimes may get the attention and resolution.

[drive2eternity]

Definitely a problem with aggregators, sometimes they miss communicating or there is lack of transparency.

Best is to directly call the hotel and confirm if the reservation has made its way from the aggregator to the hotel. I recently completed a reservation using Booking, called the hotel and they told me such reservations reach them every 2hours and hence I should check with them later. Fair enough, I called them in the evening and they confirmed my reservation with them.

Once the exact opposite thing happened. I had reserved a hotel through Booking but later cancelled it. I got the cancellation email from Booking too. One day before the 'cancelled trip', I got a call from the hotel confirming my reservation and asking my expected time of arrival. What ensued was a hilarious and confusing conversation until I realized what had happened- Booking had not informed the hotel about the cancellation.

PS - Same advice for air tickets. Once you get the PNR, definitely go to the airline portal and get into the manage booking section to ensure your details have reached the airlines.