So, let me tell you a story.
I’m planning my first trip to U.S. for next year because I will be at the XenaCon in Los Angeles in August (I’m a big nerd).
Since me and my friends know we will be in Los Angeles, we decided to book a room in the hotel where the convention will be and we did that by using the Booking Mobile App, because I’m have the Genius status and so does my friend Frank, which app we used to book the room.
So we did as we always do: we select one room, 4 people and the duration of stay. We chose a room for four people with free cancellation and to pay directly to the hotel in August.
Except Booking did not approve our selection apparently.
We found ourself with 2 rooms for 3 people. That’s weird.
We are four people, we select four people and one room: why do we have now two rooms for three? So we booked the right room, the one we originally selected and booked, and then we, of course, decided to cancel the wrong ones.
But SURPRISE! One room, the double one, had the free cancellation, while the other, the single, did not. That’s a problem.
Within an hour we already contacted the Booking assistance. “Something is wrong. These rooms aren’t the one I selected and I can’t cancel the single one. Please, do something.” said Frank.
But Booking did nothing.
They said they contacted the hotel and the hotel refused to cancel the room. Keep in my mind this reservation is for august 2020 and now we are in mid october 2019. The hotel also, in the meanwhile, already took our money.
We contacted Booking again. “It was not our mistake. It was your app that malfunctioned. We selected the right room and you gave something we didn’t want”
But Booking did nothing.
We tried again. And this time Booking actually told us that the number of people you select is arbitrary, it is just a suggestion.
“So fuck you, I guess” (this last part is my commentary, but the message was loud and clear).
That’s actually worse. What do they mean about selection being a suggestion? It’s just the number of people that is a suggestion or everything is a suggestion? What if I search a hotel in London? Do I find myself with a hotel room in Paris?
For two weeks now I’ve been talking with Booking assistance. They said it’s not their fault, that we can’t prove that it’s their app that was wrong.
I guess we could be the one that made a mistake. It seems strange, don’t you think? Two people, both in the second level of the genius loyalty program, they searched for something and booked a very different thing. They selected two rooms for the wrong number of people and one of the room did not have the free cancellation even if we decided to book 10 months in advance? Seems weird, dude.
So yeah: that’s my experience with the booking mobile app. But also with Booking in general. I want to underline that we contacted the assistance within a hour from the wrong reservation.
My fault was to use Booking, because hotel website offers you a free cancellation until 2 days before your reservation. But rest assured. I’m not going to make the same mistakes twice.
