Problem with booking.com, it's their fault and I'm being charged

macr0hard on 09/01/2015 - 11:51

Hi all

Hoping someone can help providing some suggestions on what I should do. I recently went to Hawaii, booked 2 rooms at Stay Waikiki Hotel for a week but ended up cancelling both. I have the email proof for this. However, booking.com didnt send the cancellation for one of the rooms to the hotel so the hotel charged me what looks like 1 night for one of the room. Booking.com says that one of the room wasnt cancelled hence the charge, but I have the cancellation email for both, so clearly it's booking.com fault. Now they wont give me a refund and i'm not sure what to do. The amount is close to $300

Any guidance to get my money back would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Travel

Related Stores

Booking.com
Booking.com

Comments

  • neil on 09/01/2015 - 11:57
    +6

    Contact your credit card and initiate a charge back.

    • macr0hard on 09/01/2015 - 13:15

      on what grounds though?

      • neil on 09/01/2015 - 13:27

        Well firstly, who charged you booking.com or Stay Waikiki Hotel?

        If its booking.com, then its fairly simple. Call the bank and explain the situation. They will put in a dispute with booking.com with evidence you provide (emails).

        However, if it was the hotel who charged you, it's going to be a bit more complicated as from the hotel's POV they never received notification.

        • macr0hard on 09/01/2015 - 13:30

          Well it was the hotel that charged me but the problem came from booking.com because they didnt send the hotel the cancellation notice. So even though booking.com didnt charge me, they should somehow give me the refund because it was their fault, right?

        • neil on 09/01/2015 - 13:47
          +1

          @macr0hard:

          When was your booking? What was the date you cancelled?

          From the booking.com Stay Waikiki page

          Bookings can be cancelled up until 3 days before reservation. If within 3 days, then they will charge you 100% of the first night.

          If all is above board, send an email to the hotel explaining the situation. If they don't budge, contact your credit card company.

        • Hellfire on 09/01/2015 - 14:35

          The hotel didn't have authority to charge your card. Charge back will be a no brainer with your proof.

  • donbot on 09/01/2015 - 15:24
    +1

    First - take it up with Booking.com. Explain to them the situation… I'd be surprised if they didnt rectify it.

    I had this once with a hotel in Geneva - expedia charged me $xxx which was paid at the time of booking. When I checked out, the hotel wanted to charge me an extra $80 because expedia stuffed the booking rate up. I disputed it at checkout and they didnt charge me - but did it behind my back and sent me an email saying they'd charged me once I'd left and was now in Zurich. 2 months after the stay, I contacted expedia support and they refunded me the overcharge by the hotel. Really seamless - all I had to do was show that I was incorrectly charged.

    Same should be for yours and pretty straight forward:
    1. Here's my booking with booking.com
    2. Here's my email confirming the cancellation on xxx date
    3. Here's the charges made to my credit card for the booking that you didnt cancel.

  • neil on 17/01/2015 - 00:32

    Not sure if you sorted this out but Christopher Elliot, a big US consumer travel advocate just listed Booking.com's new contact details. There are phone numbers as well as contacts to executives within the company.

    Elliot deals with people having similar issues every day. May be worth emailing him if you get nowhere.

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join