Booking.com USA, Inc. (Part of the Priceline Group)

Horrible customer service!
I was denied access to a property , an extended stay apartment, when the person at the desk claimed there was no such thing as a "reservation" in this bldg
In other words, the person knew nothing about any sort of reservation or booking.comOr ANYTHING
I was forced to stay in another hotel at significantly more money
After contacting booking.com, and giving th all the info they asked for, including all receipts and proof of bank charges, they've disappeared !
Phone calls not asserted or returned...emails ignored...nothing!

Prices for hotel rooms are HIGHER than if you just call the hotel and book a room!
I don't understand how this site stays in business - it ends up costing people extra money, and when they find out, they'll stop booking hotel rooms through booking.com
I overpaid for a two-night stay, and now I feel like a complete mn

An original hotel reservation made weeks before our trip began was revised during the trip with sufficient time for Booking.com to notify the hotelWe received e-mail confirmation that the date to arrive at the hotel had been changedWhen we did arrive on-site, the hotel had no record of our change, had only one room left, and had charged us for a no-show the previous nightI notified Booking.com that same night and for weeks, different customer service representatives kept telling me they were trying to work it out with the hotel and that I would receive a creditWhen nothing had happened after weeks, I gave Booking.com a deadline days away for resolutionWhen I received no communication after days, I contacted my credit card company who immediately credited my account and contacted the hotel since the hotel had issued the charge in questionI had to wait billing cycles but I have been credited in full and was credited immediatelyBooking.com left me in the middle of

The worst experience of my life. I made reservations for my 76 yr old grandmother to attend my uncles Funeral 48hrs in advance. She traveled from [redacted] to [redacted]. The hotel [redacted], advised that they had never received a reservation and the front desk clerk was rude, than preceded to catch an attitude. I called booking.com for assistance. I was placed on hold numerous times while my grandmother sat outside in the dark of night. The issue continued for well over 2 hrs until I gave up and had to search for another option, which ended up costing $200 extra dollars but I would have paid anything to get my grandmother to safety. I stay an 1hr and a half away from [redacted], so it wasn't something easily handled. The best solution offered from booking.com was to find a different room and have my grandma pay extra upfront. My experience with booking.com was a complete disgrace and would recommend them to my worst enemy.

I was just about to file a complaint but I believe they resolved the problem. I had booked a three night stay which had included free cancellation up to the day before our stay. Plans changed and we were unable to keep our reservation and I went online and cancelled my booking. I found out a few days later I was charged a no show fee. Never received any email stating I was going to be charged. I contacted booking.com and the guy stated I needed to provide proof of the charge on my account. So I sent in a screen shot of my account, which I don't believe is necessary. Anyway that was not acceptable because the screen shot did not include my name, my debit card number, the charge, and the date of the charge. Well unfortunately just viewing my account online does not provide all of that information. I would of had to wait a month to receive the statement with that charge. So, the next lady I talked to hung up of me. I admit I was getting angry but I don't see why I need to jump through all of their hoops for their mistake. Fortunately when I called back I reached a lady that was able to help me. Now I must wait to see if I actually get the refund. I have waited on hold with them for over an hour to try to get this fixed, not to mention all of the time trying to find the right document with all the required info.

This is more a "for the record" in case I have similar issues to the one I've just gone through.

To me this is an internal issue between the hotel and booking.com.
I have 2 questions
1) is there an arrangement between the hotel and booking.com about fees payable to booking.com?
2) is the hotel either willfully or by accident trying to classify my stay as a "no show" to avoid paying fees to booking.com?

These are company policy questions and obviously the procedures for booking.com to get feedback from the hotel are not adequate. There is no reason why I should now have to watch my credit card statement every day to make sure I'm not having a fee imposed for no reason, why the attitude from booking.com is a non-caring "we don't care we've inconvenienced a customer" and booking.com's attitude of "we're trying to protect the hotel" which is obviously a smoke screen.

In my opinion booking.com were trying to scam me out of $377 in the form of a no-show and/or cancellation fee. They wanted me to ignore their first email so they could do so. I don't want to spend time on this site or writing emails for an issue that should never have happened.

Again, I'm fearful for my upcoming trip that I'll have to go through the same waste of time experience

Summary
I had a booking for thanksgiving week 2016, referred to a booking-**
I have 2 upcoming bookings in [redacted], 1 for myself, 1 made on behalf of friends, both in the final week of December 2016

For booking-**
Booked through booking.com, stayed at the hotel, no problem, great time. We checked out of the hotel on 11/24/16

On December 5th I received this email (edited to remove confidential information and to shorten the text)
===

Dear ,
We're sorry to hear that you were not able to complete your stay at . (Did you stay at the hotel? Please let us know with our apologies for any inconvenience). We hope you are satisfied with our services; if there's anything we can do to facilitate a better booking experience for you in the future, please let us know.
Reservation first made on Wednesday 16 November 2016, at 23:09:38 [CET]
Cancelled on Monday 5 December 2016, at 22:27:24 [CET]

Cancellation policy:
Total cancellation cost US$ 377
Your reservation details
Check-in Monday 21 November 2016
Check-out Thursday 24 November 2016
If you want to make a new reservation, please visit our website: www.booking.com

====

I did click on the link and clicked that we stayed at the hotel as per the reservation.

I also replied to [email protected]
"What is this? some sort of scam? I get charged when I check in . Now you want to say I didn't stay there and want to charge a "cancellation" fee? That's disgusting."

They replied the same day

===
Thank you for contacting the Booking.com Customer Service team.

We apologize on behalf of [redacted] for any confusion caused, and thank you for taking the time to write to us.
We're sharing your response with the property to ensure that our records are correctly updated.
Thanks for your understanding. We hope to be of service to you again soon.
Kind regards,
Booking.com Customer Service Team

===

I replied for them to stop trying to make it look like the hotel was at fault.

They replied 12/7/16 with a cut of paste reply with no contact info and sent from "[redacted]".

=== Below, please find the response to your inquiry:

This is in response to a no-show notice you have received. These notices are sent automatically when the "Hotel" not Booking.com changes the status because the booking guest did not show up on the day they were scheduled. Since you made this reservation through Booking.com, whenever a no-show status is chosen by the "Hotel" you are immediately sent the notice to call/email Booking.com so we could follow up with the hotel to see what caused the no-show in the first place. Most of the time it is because the guest has not shown up and the applicable fees are charged, fees that are never charged by Booking.com. but by the property in which you stayed. Our job at Booking.com is to be an advocate for the guest when the "Hotels" do something out of policy. In this case the property accidentally marked a no-show on your reservation and reversed it in their system; which means you were not charged a penalty, but for the actual stay. I hope this reply clea

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us at any time.

Kind regards,

Booking.com Customer Service Team
===
I am certainly impressed by the way the cut and paste response was not fully copied and ended "I hope this reply clea"

They can hear from me again through this platform.

I had a terrible experience with Booking.com. The experience was very misleading and the person I spoke to was rude.

I had tried to make a reservation using booking.com. I was supposed to have received an email confirmation. Never received the confirmation. Wasn't event sure if the reservation went through. I called the hotel directly to find out since I could find a information to call or email booking.com . The hotel provided me with the confirmation number. I told them my plans had changed and I wanted to cancel my reservation. They said I had to cancel it through the booking.com website. The website would not accept my hotel confirmation number. I finally found a phone number online for Booking.com 1 (888) 850-3958,1 778-374-2700. They told me the hotel wouldn't allow them to cancel the reservation. That it was a hotel policy and that there was nothing they could do about it. I called the hotel directly and cancelled the reservation for a full refund. This was the first and last time I will ever use Booking.com.

Used booking,com to book rooms all over Europe and as long as you don't have a problem everyone is happy. I made a reservation for one night at Jugendherberge in Nuremburg for one night. Apparently the name of the hostel means "youth hostel" in German as was rudely pointed out to me by the desk clerk. Well I don't speak a word of German and the website advertising this place on booking.com is English. Everything is in English except the translation of Jugenderberge. This place looked like Disney world with pre teens running all over the place. I asked management to please cancel my reservation, as obviously there was a mistake. They said sure for a 100% charge. I call booking.com I Frankfurt to try to resolve the situation and all the answer I got up through the supervisor was "you should have read the fine print". Well I read the damn fine print and NO where does it list this place as a youth preteen hostel. I expected a better response from booking.com. I'm going to slam booking.com over the Internet in a bad way unless I get some answers by Monday October 12 2015. I'm am really very disgusted with booking. com's reply. You better come up with something better than "read the fine print". Not only will you loose a customer but I will personally do everything I can to post booking.com in a negative light for false advertising and piss poor customer relations.