r/Bookingcom

Few days ago my card was used on booking.com. Master debit card . The booking i do not recognise but my card was used. I have often given my card details to my friends if they wanted to use. But i do not recognise which one of them used my card. Card always asked for otp idk why did it not ask this time. I only realised yesterday that my card was used for the transaction. It took me 20 days to realise that transaction took place so i complained after 20 days.
I went to my bank and requested for charge back by marking the payment as dispute. They said it will take two months and if i have not made this payment, they’d refund.!
Does anyone has first hand experience where there master card debit was used on booking.com unauthorised and they requested charge back and they won?

Hello guys. Through the official website (triple checked this) I paid for a booking for a couple of days in the UK.

Since the website asked me for a check in time, which I still didn't have, I wrote to the property owner about this. Then, they sent me a message with an image about their apartments and whatnot, followed by a welcome message, all in English, but with strange characters all over the letters, like: ''Ťо соոfіrⅿ аոḋ ѕесսrе уоսr rеѕеrⅴаtіοո'' and all like that.

In the same message, they sent a link that my Chrome immediately blocked, citing malware and online scams. I wrote back asking for this, but they haven't answered yet. Upon calling them on the phone number Booking provided, I can't reach them at all.

I had to call Booking and explain the whole thing, because there's a cancellation fee, and even though I don't want to cancel and the property had great reviews, this is a strange situation. I haven't been charged yet.

The agent recognized that something was off, so she told me that the security team has been alerted and they'd get back at me in 48 hours.

I read about Booking scams, but this is a first for me. The place I booked had nothing odd-looking and there were good reviews, both old and recent. It was even in Booking's recommended, at the top.

The worst part is that they might be doing this on purpose, so people is put off by the weird message and cancel, thus paying the fees. What do you reckon I should do here? I totally understand about cancellation fees, I paid some in the past, but this is a total scam and I have no fault in here. Thank you for reading!

Hey all,

Trying to contact booking.com and have had a really hard time from either complete disregard with my issue with the online customer chat agents or the non-existent customer service phone line (AI only)

Basically, I cannot make any new bookings on my account. I keep getting "Something went wrong, try again later". Card is fine, have funds, used it for many years and have had no issues with booking.com

I notice there were 2 cancelled by property bookings on my account that I didn't make, but I have 2 factor authentication.. wtf???

I really want to keep using the platform as I'm Genius Level 2. Thanks all!

Hi,

I planned a 3 weeks roadtrip in norway involvong planes, car and hotels/air bnb.

I previously used booking in way less complicated setups with no issues so i booked some of the places to stay on the we site a long the planes.

First issue started when one of the booking simply doesn't show on the website. I had the email confirmations but no trace of it in my réservation listings. The hôtel could not do anything so i tried calling booking.

What a fat joke : you can't get a human anyway i tried and he robot could not help me with my problèm Because if it cannot find the réservation then i can't push you to a human to help you. Using another réservation code did not help either Because then my issue description did not fit.

So i wrote an email and had some kind of pré written message that did not help at all.

In the end i reached out to the hôtel to tell them to maintain my stay and boy was i right.

Then came the scam : 3 weeks before leaving to norway i got 2 emails in a row looking very official with my name and the date of my booking in 2 différents hôtels it got on booking asking for my card imprint. My brain thought it was kind of a norwegian thing and did the process, no money was taken Because 0eur payment. Then i thought this looked fishy and called one of the hôtels that confirmed it was not normal. So i cancelled the card and ordered a New one.

I guess the idea was to get the card number and code but as my bank as a 3d confirmation step they could not get nothing. What bother me is how they got my name and actual dates of stay in actual hôtels.

Where it become ridicule is that where every other commitment i made with my first card reached out in the "you card did not work please use other mean of payment", i started to received réservation cancellation from booking,no option to save them only to re-book.

I lost my first stay 3 days before going in and had to book something else Because it was not available anymore (booking re-opened it ans someone took it). I then had to frantically review all the other réservations to manually change my card.

And adding the insult to injury on the stay thzt wzsn't appearing, i could not change the card obviously but i still got the cancellation message.

I'm actually there Now Because the owner was great and kept my stay alive on his own.

What's there that's better than booking going forward ?

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Hi all, recently I booked an appartment on Booking.com and received an email from the property management firm Pegaso asking me to check in and pay a 77 euro cleaning fee before even arriving at the place.

Is this standard practice? Does anyone know if this is a legit business and not a scam, sorry if this post seems paranoid.

Left a factual review with some negative aspects and the hotel billed my card with a message explicitly saying the charge was for a negative review. I took it up with my bank and they asked me to try and sort it our directly with the hotel first. Was dubious given the tone of their initial message, but I reminded them it was explicitly illegal in my country. Got the shock of my life when they refunded it.

I raised it twice with booking - they just ignored me, despite it explicitly violating their own terms and the law. I ended up just deleting all 10 years worth of reviews - if they aren't going to pull dodgy operators into line then I'm not willing to post reviews and contribute to their product.

After reading the horror stories here I may just stop using them all together!

Hi everyone...hope this is okay to post here!

I work for a creative production agency in the UK. We’re currently researching a project we’re developing for Booking.com, and we’re hoping to hear from people who have had a particularly meaningful experience with a property they booked through Booking.com.

We’re specifically looking for stories where both the guest and the property are based in the UK, France, or the East Coast of the US.

We’re interested in the relationship side of travel..

For example:

• A hotel/B&B/guesthouse you return to again and again
• Somewhere where you’ve genuinely got to know the owners or staff
• A property that has become part of an important family or life moment
• A stay that led to a friendship that continued after you came home
• Somewhere that now feels like a second home
• Or simply a really memorable connection with the people behind a place

We’re still at an early stage, so I can’t share too much about the project publicly just yet, but I’d be really interested to hear your stories.

If something comes to mind, feel free to comment below or send me a DM.

And just to be clear, I’m not looking for complaints/reviews of Booking.com itself — we’re specifically interested in the lovely, unexpected human connections that can come from staying somewhere.

Thanks so much! :)

Booked flights through booking.com on my credit card in November 2025. In March 2026 the flights were cancelled by the airline. Only issue was I cancelled that credit card in early 2026. Booking.com advised it would refund to the original payment method. Months later I have checked with my bank multiple times and received confirmation that the refund was sent back to booking.com. I am stuck in an endless loop of contacting booking and being told someone will contact me. It’s been 5 months and I’ve contacted booking many times. What do I do

Ridiculous error ! CC is issued in a proper country with high gdp, a financial hub, yet they reject my credit card and debit card & my friends credit card.

Using the app using mobile data : Fail

Booking with chrome , no ad blockers, no VPN : Fail

Why even bother to release the app to my country !

Support is useless, doesn't wanna help unless I have a confirmation number... but dude, you don't even let me book!

Using booking .com, as it's bali, believe me, it easier to get refunds from booking .com than directly from the host. I don't want to try other platforms because either my villa is not listed there or it's more expensive.

Situation:

1- host initiated a free cancellation for a non refundable booking, due to their hotel closure. I am due to stay next Wednesday

2- host offered an alternative which is not suitable for my needs, and I have no trust in the host. I rejected the alternative

3- host refused to issue a refund. They said maybe in October

4- as a result, I had to make another booking on booking.com for a higher cost and less convenient location

My question to Reddit is: should I accept the host’s free cancellation request, whilst the host are refusing an immediate refund?

- The request will expire in less than 24hrs. The host is not very responsive, and keep dodging key questions such as refund and legality of their refusal. 

- If I accept their free cancellation request, would this impact my future ability to receive a refund from them, or make any compensation claims against them?

I booked a hotel from Priceline that looked amazing and when I showed up, it was literally inhabitable full of methods everywhere so I canceled my reservation with the hotel immediately and now I am trying to get my refund through Priceline please anybody with any advice would be highly appreciated

1st one was for a no show taxi ride from the airport (in a foreign country after a 12 hour flight so that was nice) that happened at the end of May. 3 separate CS chats all saying my refund would show up in 48 hours and it never has.

2nd one was a flight in Asia. Airline cancelled the flight yet booking.com still shows the flight happening as normal and still hasn’t given me my money back. Same thing, 2 CS chats both saying 48 hours and nothing.

How are they allowed to stay in business?

Habe Apartment bei booking.com gebucht im anderen europäischen Land. Kaution wurde auch bezahlt über eine externe Seite vom Vermieter, nicht direkt über booking.com. Warten nach Check Out schon über 2 Monate auf Rückzahlung der Kaution aber werden immer nur vertröstet vom Vermieter. Habe bei booking angerufen die meinten kümmern sich drum.

Habe E-Mail von denen gekriegt das ich mich selber drum kümmern soll da die Kaution nicht über die abgewickelt worden ist. Finde ich schon krassen Service von denen da ich schon x Buchungen über die gemacht habe und Apartment ist ja über die gebucht.

Was würdet ihr tun? Anzeigen oder sowas , da der Vermieter ja im Ausland ist.

So I booked 2 rooms on Booking.com under one reservation/booking number (not two separate bookings) for my US trip.

When I arrived, the hotel told me they only had one room available. They explained that Booking.com had only transferred the money for one room to them, and they hadn’t received the money for the other room yet. I contacted Booking.com immediately. After talking to them, I was told that they had agreed with the hotel that I would get a refund.

But then I received an email from Booking.com saying that the hotel didn’t confirm my cancellation request, so they couldn’t proceed with the cancellation. It also says my booking remains valid and unchanged.

If Booking.com confirmed 2 rooms and I paid for 2 rooms, how can the hotel say they only received payment for one room and therefore only give me one? And honestly, I’m starting to wonder if the hotel is just using the payment issue as an excuse. If there was a problem with Booking.com’s payment to the hotel, shouldn’t that be between Booking.com and the hotel rather than something I have to deal with after arriving? Booking.com has already told me that they would refund me, but I haven’t received any proper refund confirmation, amount, or reference number yet. Has anyone experienced something like this before? Can a single Booking.com reservation for 2 rooms somehow have payment transferred for only one room? And what should I be asking Booking.com to do at this point?

P/S: I made a call lately to Booking.com customer service, they said the hotel might be a scam ;) So for now, what should I do? Thank you!

My partner and I are planning a holiday and the discussion came up if we booked a hotel how many reviews on booking.com and what rating is your minimum that you actually consider on the website?

As there are lots of hotels with 1000s of reviews and also some with only 20-50. What in your experience is the best rule of thumb on booking.com compared to say airbnb? I also think ratings above 8 minimum!

As for review ratings what are your thoughts?

Hello so we’re kind of frustrated. I have a trip this Friday and there’s no way to reach anybody at booking.com. I had planned a trip back in April and we got our itinerary, but we never got our confirmation email. When we made the trip, we did call the airport and the hotel and the car rental service to make sure that it was made and all of them confirmed but I never got a confirmation email from booking.com.
because the trip is this week we were looking over all the details and the trip making sure where we’re gonna be staying at and what’s around there and it looks like the hotel that they booked for us is an hour away from where we’re supposed to be staying but since we didn’t get a confirmation email, we’re not able to get any help whatsoever. Does anybody know any way to reach a real human instead of this is AI bullshit we called the hotel and they said that they can’t do any transfers because they’re privately owned even though they are under best Western. It’s just really frustrating because we don’t wanna drive an hour to our hotel and then another hour to where we’re supposed to be for our trip. we did email them, but we can’t wait 2 to 3 days or more because if we don’t cancel the hotel by tomorrow at midnight, then we won’t be able to get a refund but we’re trying to see if booking.com. Can do anything about it.