Reservation made on the site, immediate confirmation. Upon arrival at the hotel, no rooms were available. I contacted Booking by phone several times. The only alternative solution offered was on the other side of town, for almost the same price (2 euros less) and in a guesthouse instead of a city center hotel. I sent a complaint letter to Booking with arguments and photos, and here is the response I got:

"We would like to apologize on behalf of the Prohibicja establishment for not being able to honor your reservation XXX. On rare occasions, it can happen that an establishment no longer has any availability. In this case, we ask the hotelier to take the necessary steps to offer you an alternative solution, or, in order to minimize the inconvenience for you, it is possible that we take care of it ourselves. Booking.com acts only as an intermediary between the client and the establishment. Room availability is managed individually by the hoteliers. When you made your reservation online, we transmitted your reservation details to the establishment at the same time through a fully secure system.

We have received your complaint. We ask you to accept our apologies for the response delay. After receiving your complaint, we tried to reach you by phone but without success. After you indicated to us that the hotel was overbooked, we found you an alternative that you accepted which was cheaper.

We have noted this incident and we assure you that this is a rare occurrence. If you wish to pursue a commercial gesture, we ask you to contact the hotelier directly at the contact details indicated in your confirmation.

Again, we thank you for choosing Booking.com. We apologize for the inconvenience caused and we hope that you will choose our website again.

Booking.com Customer Service Team"

Review imported on 11/04/2020 from our old site Voyage-Net.com

I am appalled by the comments regarding the site Booking.com. Contrary to what is said, this site does not offer the cheapest prices, and it cannot! Booking can only apply the prices provided by the hotelier and nothing else. If you find a cheaper price for the "whatever hotel in Paris" on a specific date, it means that the "whatever hotel in Paris" is offering a discount for that specific date and has informed the Booking.com site about it. The hotelier signs a partnership with Booking that authorizes Booking to display the availability of the "whatever hotel in Paris" on its site. In exchange, the "whatever hotel in Paris" pays a percentage to Booking on the amount of the reservation made through the Booking.com site. The customer who makes a reservation through Booking.com pays nothing to Booking.com.

Booking does not charge the amount of the reservation. Booking asks for your credit card information to guarantee the reservation. If you do not show up at the hotel in accordance with your reservation without having given notice at least 24 hours before your scheduled arrival date, the room will not be rented out since it is allocated to you. In this case, you have not respected your reservation, and therefore your contract, and the hotel has the right to charge the amount of the first night via your credit card information. This information is clearly stipulated on the reservation sheet that you receive from the Booking.com site. Never forget that you are placing an order with the hotel and that any order is subject to the respect of certain obligations. If you know that you will not show up at the hotel, cancel that reservation (at least 24 hours before the scheduled arrival date) through the Booking.com site.

A hotel is not a non-profit organization but a business that has expenses (salaries, operations...). Ask yourself how your employer would pay your salary if their clients did not respect the contracts made with your employer.

The comments posted by customers, let's talk about them a bit! You should know that Booking.com does not filter the comments posted by customers. Thus, there is good and bad. Regarding the good, the hotelier finds nothing to complain about; if you are beautiful, you are not going to voluntarily poke out an eye and twist your nose to scare away princesses or Prince Charmings. On the other hand, the bad never feels good, but it is constructive when it is exposed without omissions or lies. To get a good idea of the truth about a hotel, pay attention: if some ratings show a significant difference compared to the average, be assured that they very often reveal a problem that is not mentioned by the person posting the comment. Often, these are services requested by the customer that do not match the hotel category (doorman, valet, garage space when it was not requested beforehand...). Or arrivals in the morning (before 2:00 PM) when the cleaning staff has not finished their work. Cleaning is not done with a magic wand, it takes a little time. I am not even talking about the dog left alone in the room that barks for part of the night while waiting for its owners to come back to sleep. You call the owners of the dog to ask for a quick intervention and you immediately become the hotelier who ruined the romantic dinner. The other hotel guests do not exist. Have a good day, everyone.

Dominique
Review imported on 11/04/2020 from our old site Voyage-Net.com