Danny Mekić.

Why I no longer use Booking.com (and you shouldn’t either)

Danny Mekić

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So you’re going on a holiday this summer and want to book a hotel or an apartment? Do yourself a favour: don’t use a site like Booking.com. If you book directly with the hotel or apartment itself, you can usually get a 10-30% discount. That’s the money that would otherwise go to Booking.com.



In some countries, Booking.com has an arrangement with the hotels and apartments saying they’re not allowed to give discounts. In that case you can ask to have transport from or to the airport included in the same price, for example, or one or more meals if you’re staying at a hotel with a restaurant.

Before a few years ago, I always used Booking.com. Then, I wanted to change a reservation, because someone I knew had died. The hotel was fine with it, but those money-grabbers at Booking.com refused to change or cancel my reservation. I had to book again, and pay for a hotel stay that I never got to use.

The same year, I discovered that if you book on Booking.com using your credit card, they’ll just pass on that data verbatim to the hotel, where I saw my credit card information printed on an unprotected piece of paper. It begs the question: what does Booking.com even do, besides pocketing 20 to 30% of your reservation payment?

It’s such a waste. Booking.com once started out as a promising start-up. But it usually contributes no added value whatsoever compared to booking directly. And as we’ve seen, it’s often actually more expensive than if you’d ask the hotel for a discount yourself.

If Booking.com wants to remain a successful company in the future, they seriously need to work on their added value. They need better service, they need to cancel or change reservations with no charge, and they need to be more secure with sensitive credit card information.


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75 responses to “Why I no longer use Booking.com (and you shouldn’t either)”

  1. christchurch accommodation

    This is an explosive idea; this is most probably the best and most successful thing about no longer use booking com shouldn’t either. I love this blog and really happy to come across this exceptionally well written content. Thanks for sharing!!

    Reply
  2. Helen

    I will never ever book with Booking.com again. When I got to the hotel they had no reservation for me and my family. We were in town for a funeral. It is a small city and they had no rooms available. I finally found a motel with one room left. I took it, I had no other choice. To be honest the room was very very clean and it was $100 dollars cheaper.
    NEVER USE BOOKING.COM!!

    Reply
  3. AJ

    I used them last week and will use them again in a couple of months why you ask? Because they have been consistently cheaper even compared to the hotel itself and yes even after I called. I don’t know maybe something has changed and they’ve gotten their act together but then again maybe because I’m using them domestically and not internationally. Crossing my fingers and hoping everything will still be ok in a couple of months because now these reviews even tho they’re old are making me question it all

    Reply
  4. Nero

    Yes, Booking.com in some cases can go as high as between 30% to 40% more expensive than direct reservation rates, learn that the hard way before…..

    Reply
  5. Linda Baumann

    Dear Linda Baumann,

    Thank you for choosing Booking.com.

    I am writing to you from our Senior Relations Team about your reservation 3922772461 at Comfort Inn Wytheville, check-in on 2021-07-01 and check-out on 2021-07-02.

    I have received your concern submitted to the Better Business Bureau and sincerely apologize for the delay in receiving your owed refund back. As the property has denied issuing the owed refund of 288.93 USD we will proceed to refund you this amount back on their behalf. Within the next 7 business days you will receive an email with instructions on how to claim this amount back to a card of your choosing. Note, the email may be received much quicker if it goes to automation but if it does go for a manual review it could take up to the 7 business days. Unfortunately, our payments team has a large backlog for manual reviews. How the refund is processed is determined by the system and out of my control.

    Once more, I apologize for the delay.

    Please let me know if you have any questions.

    Thank you.

    All the best,
    —
    Ty W.
    Booking.com Customer Service Team
    CS Senior Relations Specialist

    How would you rate your interaction with Ty W.?

    Very dissatisfied
    Dissatisfied
    Satisfied
    Very satisfied
    Booking.com
    Herengracht 597, 1017 CE Amsterdam, Netherlands
    Manage booking
    FAQ
    Privacy & Cookies
    Empowering you to experience the world I Have been fighting for a refund July 3rd 2021. My bank says booking made the charge and they are trying to blame the hotel?

    Reply
  6. RainDancer

    All hotel websites charge more and most ask for your payment on the spot and no cancellation . .

    For all who complain about booking.com

    Just call or email the same hotel you want to book at before using the booking website and compare and do what’s best for you . . Simple voila . . done and stop the whining

    Reply
  7. Dee Dee Maggs

    I hate Booking.com. In addition to being of no help — zero — when something went wrong, they have tricked me out of AA points three times. I’ll never use them agan.

    Reply
  8. Tina

    I’ve only book once in Eastbourne what a disgusting hotel when I was booking in the manager told me I had to clean your room and make the bed. I wiped the floor with him then he told me we will get a cleaner in. I told him to stick his hotel to we’re the sun did not shine.
    This company is the worst company I’ve ever deleted with complete morons. Avoid them like the plague. They take your money and that’s it they do not check out the hotels.
    They should read the reviews

    Reply
  9. Philip

    For all of you out there please be careful with booking.com. Somebody brought to my attention my holiday house is advertised for holiday rental in booking.com. when I applied to the email address provided the person claim to be the owner and offers my house for a ridiculous small price plus in the wrong street. I have tried to get in touch with booking.com to report it, unfortunately it is impossible to make contact with them.
    If this is one case they must be many more similar so stay away from booking.com

    Reply
  10. Andrew

    Booking is owned by Priceline who are no longer ethical. Both Booking and Priceline swindled me out of money recently. The hotel lied about their offering and booking refused to issue a full refund even though I had pictures confirming the fraud. Priceline uses an Indian partner that tried to charge me 5x the price for seat selection. I should not have had to pay anything but they conned me into buying a ticket that afterwards I had to pay additional for any seat selection. I went to the airline instead. These are REALLY bad people and their customer support does nothing but talk at you instead of answering very simple questions.

    Here is a very simple solution for everyone: Use a US credit card. Submit a formal complaint with your bank who in turn will forward it to the Federal Reserve’s account file for the company. If they get enough of these, the company will be removed from the use of Visa/Master card system. That will cripple the company.

    Reply
  11. Sue Ross

    I booked a room in London for a friend 2 nights and they cancelled the room 45 minutes before he arrived.I contacted the room owner and they said contact booking .com for refund he also paid £100 in taxi fares to reach the property.
    Customer service number is dead and so difficult to make contact with any to ask for a refund.Furious and upset at leaving the friend scared and upset with no where to sleep.

    Reply
  12. mary

    Yes! Booking.com STOLE $600 after I cancelled two bookings ONE MONTH before.. I am now trying to contact the CEO Glenn Fogel. Neither hotel had issue with my cancellation but was told by a Hotel Manager that Booking.com has a bad habit of charging customers when the shouldn’t according to their own policy. Tried to contest with my Chase credit card and was denied supposidly due to Booking.com’s own policy. What do we expect these axxxxxxxs are all Bankers!

    Reply
  13. Frank

    Yep, coming late to the party here and can confirm, no value added and only an extra layer of administrative headaches. Almost could not check into my unstaffed service apartment because of them. Kept getting repeat requests for upload of my ID, No help or hint as to what the problem was, only repeated requests. Bad photos? I dunno. After three attempts and a midnight online chat session from the lobby I finally found out they needed the ID from the person who paid, not the person who’s in the room. This was actionable information that Booking didn’t provide. Oh yeah, and my name was on the room, even though the hotel said it was not – screen shots from booking. Something did not connect right. Gets even better – lost my wallet while fumbling half asleep for this info that could have been sorted much earlier.
    Save yourself the trouble and deal DIRECTLY with the hotel or apartment, not Booking dot com. If something goes wrong it’s an administrative nightmare and for what? A middleman and rent seeking behavior? This is what’s wrong with our system – nobody cares & only wants to skim easy money.

    Reply
  14. LORD LENNY

    I am 8 years late to this.
    My child is 7 by the way.
    Anyway, Booking.com should be avoided forever and ever. Amen.
    I am a partner (as in I put my property out on their site).
    I have been scarred for life by the way they run things/do business.
    Most of my clients now, I deal with them directly. Saving each other so much money and more importantly experiencing zero stress.

    I cannot get into everything. But yeah, avoid booking dot yeah.

    Reply
  15. Tonya Baxter

    I was trying to figure out a place to air my recent experience with booking.com. I booked 2 nonrefundable rooms for a trip to Venice, Italy. I filled out all necessary information regarding the booking and when I finished and was prepared to pay for the rooms, it said that no prepayment was required and that I would be paying the property 3 days before arrival. I received a confirmation from booking.com letting me know that my booking was complete and confirmed. Then two days later I received an email from the hotel that my reservation had been cancelled. I had been away from email for a day and apparently they sent me a payment link and the email said that if I didn’t pay within 24 hours they would cancel. So what happened to the “pay at property 3 days before reservation”? Called booking.com and they said they couldn’t help me. Emailed the hotel and they said sorry, can’t do anything once it’s been cancelled. They told me I’d have to start over and reserve the rooms again and pay any difference in the price. I booked the rooms for $450 a night and only 3 days later they were asking $1100 a night per room. I WILL NEVER USE THIS COMPANY AGAIN.

    Reply
  16. Thais

    Bad experience with Booking.com
    September 19th 2024
    I booked a room in Paris,19th district for three nights through Booking.com and when checking in I am informed by the owner of the property that she didn’t have the property’s key to enter the building and I needed to check in later at night, because it was at that time that she was available to open the door. Later, I was told that every time I wanted to enter I would need to contact her who lived 20 minutes away to open the door, when I arrived at the room, I got the surprise that it was not a bedroom as advertised but a living room with a convertible sofa, there weren’t any towels neither bed sheets, she left to find some bed sheets and promised to bring towels the following day, then I realized that the place was in very poor conditions, it was quite dirty. At that point I decided to contact customer service for Booking and give all the details, I made a complain, they asked for pictures and I did as asked, I told customer service that I could not stay in the place, and for my surprise I was not offer anything, not an alternative accommodations, they said that if the owner of the place agrees to give me a refund, I will get a refund, they said I was going to get a reply within 24 hours and it has been 48 hours and no a single word from Booking,at this point I realized I probably won’t get anything, but I can not leave this incident just go by. I won’t use Booking anymore after being a loyal customer for more than 6 years. I had the false idea it was a trustworthy company and that they were going to be behind customers to avoid these kinds of problems, I was wrong.

    Reply
  17. Ahmed

    From my experience, I would advise against using Booking.com. They charged me for a rental car I never picked up, and even the car rental company itself didn’t charge me. When I contacted Booking.com to request a refund, they made excuses and tried to place the blame on me. In the end, they never returned my money. From now on, I am booking rental cars directly with the rental companies.

    Reply
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