u/leidend22

Before you say it, yes, I know NOW to never book third party. Apologies for having faith in humanity.

I booked a huge five week trip to Europe from Australia entirely - hotels and flights - through booking.com, which I had used for years for hotels with no issues. But this time, Qatar Airways changed the destination city completely on me, and that's when things went sideways. Gotogate (who secretly handles flights for Booking and has an awful reputation) offered a refund via email without me contacting them, so we accepted and stupidly bought another flight on Booking via China to avoid any issues with the Iran war. We paid $750 extra to be able to cancel that and now they've removed the cancellation option, but that's another story.

40+ days after saying they would cancel and refund the original flight, Gotogate says they never initiated or offered a refund. I have two unsolicited emails including a confirmation saying otherwise. Now they say they are "starting" the cancellation process again (they sent another email) but are supposedly pocketing $600+ from my refund for clearly illegal reasons. I have no faith they will do any refund though, and Qatar Airways still says the flight tickets are assigned to me.

Normally, I would just do a chargeback and be done with it, but from what I've read, Booking would then cancel every booking I have (five figures), and of course prices have skyrocketed post Iran war, so I'd lose even more than the $3700 I've already been scammed out of.

And since I booked in January, 120 days have already elapsed. Although my bank (National Australia Bank) is still allowing me to start a dispute in their app.

Anyone been through a similar experience?Any suggestions on how to proceed? Should I wait until October when the trip is over to dispute and go through the courts if I can't charge back? Am I destined to lose $3,700? Would appreciate no lectures on how I could have avoided this, I know now.

Before you say it, yes, I know NOW to never book third party. Apologies for having faith in humanity.

I booked a huge five week trip to Europe from Australia entirely - hotels and flights - through booking.com, which I had used for years for hotels with no issues. But this time, Qatar Airways changed the destination city completely on me, and that's when things went sideways. Gotogate offered a refund via email without me contacting them, so we accepted and stupidly bought another flight on Booking via China to avoid any issues with the Iran war.

40+ days after saying they would cancel and refund the original flight, Gotogate (who handles flights for Booking and has an awful reputation) says they never initiated or offered a refund. I have two unsolicited emails including a confirmation saying otherwise. Now they say they are "starting" the cancellation process again (they sent another email) but are supposedly pocketing $600+ from my refund for clearly illegal reasons. I have no faith they will do any refund though, and Qatar Airways still says the flight tickets are assigned to me.

Normally, I would just do a chargeback and be done with it, but from what I've read, Booking would then cancel every booking I have (five figures), and of course prices have skyrocketed post Iran war, so I'd lose even more than the $3700 I've already been scammed out of.

And since I booked in January, 120 days have already elapsed. Although my bank (National Australia Bank) is still allowing me to start a dispute in their app.

Anyone been through a similar experience?Any suggestions on how to proceed? Should I wait until October when the trip is over to dispute and go through the courts if I can't charge back? Am I destined to lose $3,700? Would appreciate no lectures on how I could have avoided this, I know now.

Edit: I've had to turn off reply notifications due to the hordes of barely literate Booking.com employees and trolls lurking here and eager to victim blame instead of actually help. I'm keeping the post up though so it contributes to any searches on how scummy booking.com is. Thanks for nothing.