I'm out $9200 for a reservation a year from now
 

I was price shopping for my daughter to find a low cost place to stay the following summer if she got an internship in London in the summer of 2024. I put in arbitrary dates that totaled 70 days. Booking.com listed the prices in British Pounds so I wanted to see the costs in US dollars and the total with the VAT tax. Somehow when trying to get the total I accidentally booked a NON REFUNDABLE room. I promptly canceled the reservation totaling $9200. (it never showed me this total until AFTER I booked it). I called Booking.com the second this happened and they said it was up to the hotel TITIWAGNSA ONE PADDINGTON whether they will refund the money. They told me to dispute it on my card as well. My card is not honoring the dispute because they said I entered a contract when agreeing to use the site even though my lawyer says the contract is not valid as there was not "intention" behind the contract. It has been a 2 month nightmare trying to get this resolved to no avail
It gets even better, because I canceled the room the TITIWANGSA ONE PADDINGTON does not have even honor the reservation and they are keeping the entire $9200 AND I have no room that I really dont want anyhow! And there is NOTHING BOOKING>COM will do about it.
DO NOT USE BOOKING.COM

Curious how this accident occurred...you need to provide credit card details on the booking page before making a reservation - at what point did you provide your credit card info?

because I have used this site before and my credit card is stored on the site. I never entered it for this transaction

Which is a good reason to never store your credit card on any site.

I would continue to pursue this with your credit card company, telling them what you just told me - that your card was stored and not used for this transaction.

yes, a cautionary tale

Following over from your posts on the Europe forum. As everyone on that thread has tried to tell you several times . . . Booking did not steal anything and your fight is with the HOTEL. You accidentally made a non-refundable booking and the hotel is holding you to it. I would ask the moderators to either edit the title of your thread or have it taken down completely.

Wait, you say you put in "arbitrary dates" for the purpose of research and in order to get the total amount, you had to click on the reservation button.

Not buying it.

Other than potential taxes and fees, the total of that 70 night stay would have shown you in your search well before you hit the "I'll Reserve" button. You would see the cost (probably in pounds) of that total time. Booking only shows the rates per night when you select ONE night.

In addition, rates fluctuate during time periods so selecting "arbitrary" dates will do nothing for you if you do not intend to travel during that time period.

The only accident here, it seems, is you did not realize that non-refundable truly meant non-refundable and that you actually reserved the stay.

Mmmmm I've used Booking.com a few times and always, always had to hit "I'll reserve" in order to do so. I'm not sure how anyone could accidentally do that.

In any case - it is utter rubbish to claim "Booking.com 'Stole' $9200". They did not. You reserved non-cancellable accommodation. Accidental or not, the responsibility is on you. I hope you can manage to have the hotel over-ride their non cancellable policy and refund the $9200 to you.

In all the dramatics on the two threads I completely overlooked that detail. Yes - on Booking when you plug in dates, the amounts displayed for all properties is the total for the entire booking period. That's before selecting a specific property and well before 'accidentally' clicking Book it. No surprises.

If she is unsuccessful disputing the charge and her daughter does get the internship - that would be a reasonable cost unless she did a flat share. $9200 = $132 a night. £107 bed & breakfast with ensuite bath is pretty cheap.

For what it's worth, I plugged in that accommodation name with 73 nights next summer.

ALL over the page it lists "non-refundable" NO matter which lodging one chooses. Each one. And, guess what, I got the estimated total (before taxes, yes) in dollars.
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fod...8063d0eca7.jpg

Edited to add a screenshot...

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fod...07cbbbd935.jpg

To get to the stage where the credit card is charged, the booking had to have been purchased, ie the purchase button clicked. If that's a mistake, that is one of those things, this should have been taken up with the hotel immediately and see if they can on this occasion refund the amount as it was a genuine mistake, or plead something along those lines. But since the OP also went ahead and cancelled the reservation, that only made things worse, there was no chance for the hotel to assess the situation and decide what to do and if they agreed, the hotel might have cancelled the reservation and issued a refund.

And entering a credit card into a booking site profile is for the purposes of purchasing or guaranteeing new bookings and will default to that payment type. The argument that it was stored but was not supposed to be used for this new booking will not stand. It was entered for this & every new future transaction, that's how saving data in accounts/profiles work.

From the United States booking.com website, you will not get a final price calculated (with taxes and cleaning fees, etc.) until you hit "I'll Reserve" but there would have been ANOTHER final step after hitting "I'll Reserve" before a booking is purchased.

However, even before the Reserve stage they do show the booking conditions. I don't have any issue keeping my credit card on file at all, comes in handy trying to make a same day reservation on the road.

As others have said, it is the lodging's choice to refund you. Booking.com has done nothing wrong. One of the reasons I default to hotels.com for searches is that they do show the total price upfront without having to go to the "I'll reserve" stage. But they don't both carry the same lodgings.

Thank goodness the thread title was changed!

Booking.com has since changed this hotel for this very reason. At the end of the day, anyone who is going to fault me for a shoulda coulda woulda etc. does not see that this is UNETHICAL of the TITIWAGNGSA HOTEL and Booking.com feels the same way: The total, in dollars, did not show up for whatever reason. i have booked many many times with Booking.com and this has never been an issue. My receipt on their website shows 7300 (and some odd) POUNDS not dollars.
all consumers should demand that hotels operate the same as all businesses and allow for a “cooling off period” or 24 hour cancelation within a certain time frame. Even airlines have this

Since the very first you have been blaming Booking -- now all of a sudden a change of heart and its the hotel at fault?? Is that because the title of your thread was changed?? Laws in the US have no bearing at all on laws in the UK. For that much money you might want to contact a UK based consumer rights organization or barrister -- complaining to a bunch of Americans really won't get you anywhere!

I dont really understand your aggressiveness towards me and defense of Booking.com, I honestly question your motives, I have noticed there are a few posts of yours where you come to the defense of Booking.com, why is this, do you receive financial benefit from them or work for Booking Holdings?
This is BOTH the hotel and Booking.com's responsibility to find a reasonable resolution, I place blame on both if them. Both are profiting from at my expense. And yes, laws in the US do have bearing in the UK when you are a 3rd party site conducting business, all be it via the internet, in the US.

I, for one, doubt very much that Janis works for Booking.com!

If you did not leave your credit card stored on their website, this could not have happened 'accidentally'.

It is not the fault of booking.com or the hotel that you made this mistake.

This is a buyer beware type of situation. Whether you are booking on booking.com or a hotel's website, before you hit "purchase'" you must double check the details, particularly if you are looking at non-refundable prices. It sounds like you have retained an attorney who hopefully also practices in the UK. I hope you are able to get this resolved.

Really? Please state a statute, case law or otherwise in support of that statement.

If you have a case, file in small claims court, then. Good luck suing a foreign entity or entities in US Court. Btw, Booking is not based in the UK. So you you have two foreign entities to deal with here.

Rest assured I have nothing to do with Booking. And I will not make any further posts on either thread you are involved with. I am not being aggressive -- I merely noted that all your previous posts vehemently blamed Booking then all of a sudden at post #14 above It is " . . . this is UNETHICAL of the TITIWAGNGSA HOTEL". Maybe having the thread title changed ended up changing your primary target?? I have no idea.

If you will notice I did offer constructive advice "For that much money you might want to contact a UK based consumer rights organization or barrister -- complaining to a bunch of Americans really won't get you anywhere:

I wish you luck

UK consumer law is very helpful in so many ways, you might like to look at section 75 which might give you a way out. 75 is a unique piece of legislation which puts the onus on the credit card company. I'm not sure where you are based but the hotel appears to be in the UK for tax purposes.

But blaming all this on Booking and then the hotel when the cause is much closer to home is disappointing.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/re...our-purchases/

Bilboburgler's post/link probably won't be helpful. It states that claims for refunds are not covered if:
"Bought something from a third party seller. This includes things like buying a ticket from a travel agent or something through Amazon Marketplace, as these are also treated as third party sellers. But you may be able to use chargeback."
Fwiw, I did once make a mistake booking a reservation. I reserved the wrong dates. I arrived at the hotel only to discover I'd booked the wrong date. I emailed hotels.com about my error. They said I couldn't cancel my reservation. I said I didn't want to cancel, only change it. This was upon check-in. The hotel was willing to change my reservation. Sounds like your hotel in question is being pretty asshole-ish. I can see them insisting on some sort of penalty, but the full amount?

I have to agree that something isn't right with this hotel. I used to book through a 3rd party until the pandemic when they wouldn't refund my money when the hotel said it was ok and this was after the hotel canceled on me. My amount wasn't as much as the OP but I ate the loss and refuse to do business with them again. Most often, a hotel will offer just a penalty to cancel like bald0ne says if there isn't a full refund policy offered. I do wonder if the OP hadn't canceled so fast and then bought trip insurance if it would have been covered. Granted the loss of the insurance payment but still wouldn't have been out the full amount. Something to consider if someone finds themselves in this situation in the future. Mistakes do happen.

This is a very good example to not save a credit card.
I use booking.com a lot. Sometimes will book through them and other times directly with the hotel. Since the pandemic I usually only book fully refundable stays.

I think bald0ne has come up with a good remedy ... if changes are permitted you could change your booking by reducing it down to a financially manageable sum (say 2-3 nights). You or your daughter wouldn't have to stay there, you could just forego the booking.

Could you do that?

Lavandula

First of all very sorry to hear of this predicament. I can certainly understand your frustration. Who wouldn't be upset not only about losing $9200.00 but the position of the hotel as well to keep all of it and still have a year to resell that block is unconscionable. They are double dipping and yes its in the contract but to me its cut throat business practice to do this. They could as has been mentioned keep a portion of your money and return the bulk of it as a gesture of good will.

I saw another similar review to yours and I certainly would never consider staying there. There are enough fair to poor reviews to convince me to look elsewhere and it makes me think they will just keep your money.

No one here works for booking dot com AFAIK and its not the fault of them to begin with.

Personally I never book anything through 3rd parties. I have found that hotel fees are about the same booking directly with the property anyway. Once I did get a better rate through a 3rd party co., so I called the hotel, provided my info and got a matching rate.

Good luck going forward.

Always book with the property itself. Usually you put down a CC to hold the reservation and can cancel say a few days before the date of stay w/o a penalty.

the problem is, I canceled it right away thinking my credit card company would just stop the charges (boy was I wrong). I think if I used my AMX or Apple Card I would have had a different outcome and they would have have intervened. I used my Bank of America Alaska card (I have had it for 24 years) and they were terrible to deal with.
Now I am out the hotel room and the $9200, the hotel is not budging at all. I will say the representatives who have tried to help at Booking.com are flabbergasted when talking to the hotel and are embarrassed to even relay their response. The representatives at Booking.com tell me to get my credit card to cancel the charges but it is Booking.com who is fighting the reversal (and yes, I am aware they are just representatives )
It is a crazy situation. One that needs to change!

I agree, I really only use Booking.com for over seas travel when I want a small local hotel and sometimes it is the only platform to contact them with. I was not really intending to book this, just price shopping. The lawyer I consulted with this said I may have a case because although I agree to the contract when booking on the site, a contract needs to have "intent", which clearly I can prove. But what a mess litigation will be!

Yes, and that is what is so weird about this situation and why I went several screens into the reservation. I was logged in to my Booking.com account and it has always done my overseas travel in US dollars. For some reason this particular day it was it pounds. My final reservation was even sent to me in pounds.

good luck!
hopefully they will do the right thing. There was following the letter of the contract then there is being customer, friendly and extending a professional courtesy, especially in such a case like this.

It has been beyond upsetting to say the least. This Titiwangsa One Paddington is being awful. They only have a cell phone, no other way to be contacted.
Booking.com also receives $ from this booking, they could refund their commission.

Travelingmom72, I do not have any advice, but want to say how sorry I am this has happened. It is rotten that a business is ruthless and benefits so greatly from an obvious mistake. I hope you will be able to resolve this with some degree of compensation. If not, I hope that with time, you can go on to enjoying other things and not spend much time on remembering this. We all make mistakes: physical, financial, behavior based on emotions, rushed, last minute and tired, etc. I have made some doozies, some I just could not fix or mitigate the damage. I have cried many times in frustration and anger with myself. Hard to do at the time, but remember, mistakes are part of living.

Sorry this happened to you, but the copy of listing you provided in this forum clearly states "Non Refundable" -- We have used Booking.com for overseas and domestic trips for about 15 years and think they are wonderful. Always get updates when cancellation dates loom ahead, etc. Sorry for your loss. As the saying goes "let the buyer beware."

this was a very nice response. It shows some sympathy for what happened and moving on from this mistake. We all make mistakes.

Consider contacting Chris Elliot. He settles travel disputes.
How do I contact Chris Elliott?
Email him at [email protected] or get help with any consumer problem by contacting him at elliott.org/help.

Consider contacting Chris Elliot.
He helps with travel issues.
How do I contact Chris Elliott?
Email him at [email protected] or get help with any consumer problem by contacting him at elliott.org/help.

Contact Chris Elliot
He is an advocate for travel issue. I tried to post his website and email, but it wasn't permitted. Just google him.

thank you! someone else suggested that too:)

I did and posted a camouflaged link. Do it. You won't be sorry.