Oct 24, 2017 03:49 PM
2081 Views
Beware, Friends.Booking.com is a fraud. I will share my experience below:
We were planning a trip to Dubai in March'17. Decided to use Booking.com to do Hotel bookings since it gives "Best Price guarantee".which I realized is a total farce.
Their game is to rush you to do the booking by continuously displaying messages like "Hurry! Last 2 rooms left!"
The website is designed to take advantage of the traveller's mindset that if he does not do the booking immediately, he would lose a good deal.
In my case, I chose the Hues Boutique hotel, Deira, Dubai.
Booking.com price:
AED4120 from Booking.com, and did not include any taxes.
AED 15 Tourism fee per night is excluded.
10% Municipality fee excluded.
10% service charge excluded.
Of course, it showed that the last 2 rooms were the only ones available. I panicked and did the booking at this exorbitant price.
To my horror, immediately after I did the booking on Booking.com, I checked on the Hotel's own website and found that the prices were much lower than Booking.com. It was only AED 3852, including VAT, Service charge and Local tax
I realized that I got cheated, and wrote to Booking.com, as they have a "Best Price guarantee" policy.or so I thought.
Booking.com replied as follows:
"Even though the price on the hotel's website is lower then the one on booking.com website your booking is Non refundable. If you read our terms and conditions on booking.com front page you will see that the Best Price Guarantee claim does not apply on Non refundable rates.
Therefore Booking.com's Best Price Guarantee cannot be fulfilled in this particular case."
Terms for Cancellation of the Booking: Lose all the money.
I found this very unfair.when you prominently display "Best price Guarantee", it should be the truth. If not, you are blatantly lying. And once a customer is "trapped", you tell him that the booking is non-refundable.
To add insult to injury, the rooms we were given were on the rear side of the building.facing another building.
Truly a horrible experience, thought I would share to create awareness. Booking.com.frauds of the highest order.
