Booking.com Reviews 421

Booking.com is a well-known travel platform, but based on my recent experience, I strongly advise against using it for flight bookings. The lack of accountability, poor customer service, and technical errors caused me unnecessary stress and financial losses.

I booked a flight through Booking.com, assured that my ticket included 40kg of checked baggage and an in-flight meal. However, upon arriving at Kathmandu Airport, the check-in staff claimed my ticket was fake and stated that it did not include any baggage allowance. Their arrogant behavior only made matters worse, and I was left with no choice but to pay extra to courier my luggage.

After enduring the stressful check-in process, I boarded the flight expecting the in-flight meal that was supposed to be included. No meal was served for the entire journey, further proving that my booking had been mishandled.

When I contacted Booking.com, I requested a full refund, including the extra baggage charges and my ticket cost, as the entire experience was ruined due to their mistake.

Following an investigation, Booking.com admitted that a technical error on their end prevented my baggage allowance from being added to my ticket. As a result, they agreed to refund the baggage charges. While I appreciate this partial refund, it does not make up for the overall frustrating experience, the false ticket accusations, and the missing in-flight meal.

Instead of taking full responsibility, Booking.com distanced itself from the issue, stating that they are just a platform and not a contractual party in the booking process. They shifted the blame to third-party aggregators and airlines without acknowledging the errors in my booking.

This experience made it clear that Booking.com is unreliable for flight bookings. Unlike airlines or reputable travel agencies, they act as a middleman with no accountability when things go wrong.

If you are booking a flight, I strongly recommend using an airline’s official website or a trusted travel agency. Booking.com’s lack of responsibility can lead to unnecessary stress, unexpected expenses, and poor support.

For a hassle-free journey, avoid Booking.com for flight bookings.

SCAM ALERT!!!🚨If I could give zero stars I would! I wish I knew about Trustpilot reviews before I pushed the button to purchase my flights through booking.com. Please tell everyone you know about this scam. I found Booking.com initially showed cheaper rates for some of the the same flights on other sites with the Iberia flight I wanted so when I saw the flights to Spain were lower than the others I had seen after searching several internet sites I decided to purchase the tickets even though the system kept refreshing & taking me to different sites like Vueling, Iberia, Level etc. which I later found out are the same (separate scam!) & they use 3rd party GotoGate to lure you in with low base prices on the screen that get inflated when they upsell the baggage, fees, seats, flex plans etc which they told me may fluctuate at any time like their prices & it didn’t let me book seats & an agent said sometimes you’re offered baggage & seats & other times not. The agent said the seat availability opens & closes randomly & “mine” somehow had to be booked on check-in with the airline. I purchased multi-city tickets but when I selected the purchase button it didn’t give me the price breakdown for each flight. Instead, it only gave the total cost per person & taxes & fees & said I had to wait to receive email confirmation. As I wondered if the email would have the price breakdown for the flights, I later received it & of course it did not show a breakdown. Since it was still less than 24 hours later, I thought I’d check the website & see if I missed it on their site. Unfortunately, the prices were now showing $300 less & only now this time it let me pay for baggage & pick seats. I was shocked & then I remembered there was an FAA rule that you can cancel within 24hrs of booking flights. So I called & let the agent know of the consumer protection law but the agent informed me they don’t follow that U.S. policy & they could only cancel 1 leg of the trip & asked me to please, please, please do not cancel because I will only get a partial refund on that 1 leg of the trip which doesn’t include the taxes & fees & I would end up paying even more & the agent didn’t want me to end up paying more & I would have to go directly to the airline (who I didn’t book the flight with or give my money to) & have them cancel first & call them back. I asked for a manager but of course none available after they left me on hold a very long time. So I thought I’d give it a try & call the airline which they said was Vueling but the airline required a booking number to speak to someone on the phone & find your flight booking on the website & it didn’t recognize my booking number or email & I eventually found they didn’t even show they had flights from my origin in SFO. So I called booking.com back & the agent couldn’t locate my booking or SFO on Vueling either. So again I asked for a manager & none was available but this time they said they would have a manager call me back. I never received that call so I chatted online with another agent who closed the chat after I vented about what happened & said that this is a Scam! I only had 24 hours to cancel & they were wasting my time after wasting my money. I later received a random email from GotoGate with the booking number, a strange email address they created with my name & a link to Level airline website which was not Vueling & had very basic functionality. I found the flight & decided I made a bad decision to use booking.com especially after I tried to book seats & each seat had various prices in Euro with no U.S. dollar translation. So after picking seats I used the internet to translate & the seats cost me about $200 more. If I had waited until check in to pick seats I imagine the price would be much higher. This is a bait & switch scam & bad business & unfair practices &’pricing for consumers. There was no upfront notice about the options for baggage & seats & prices & how much (is it really offered on a random basis, if so they should let you know in advance so you can make an informed choice). They only show the per person totals they want you to see at the end when it’s time to purchase the tickets. I’m stuck with the tickets but I price I paid but I will report this to FAA & other regulatory agencies & post reviews to alert other consumers. It was not a good experience at all. I will not use booking.com again!

Booking.com did not forward the message from Pelita air about a cancelled flight, which meant that we had to book an extra hotel in Sorong and could bot use the hotel booking we had for Jakarta. They kept referring me to Pelita Air even though it was obvious thar booging.com made the error. Booking.com even sent me a reminder the day before the original flight to remember to check in (on the flight that was cancelled).
The customer service felt like talking to a robot even though it was probably not. Bad experience

I booked a flight which seems like a fair deal and was given booking reference numbers. They made it very unclear which was a booking reference number for the airline we were going on and as it was Iberia, they kept bouncing me between BA and Iberia website. I tried so many times on BA that it locked me out for 24 hours, but my flight was less than 24 hours time so I had to turn up very early even though I only had carry-on baggage to join a queue to get a boarding pass. It wasn’t a problem for BA to print one out and cost me no more money, but it was very stressfuland wasted a lot of my time. I had a similar experience when returning the BA staff couldn’t log on properly either I found it very hard to contact bookingcom. Well, let’s say impossible. I wish I’d read the reviews first. I will never use bookingcom for anything again

When booking a flight I got an error message "Flight not available" so I tried again and then found out that both flights had been booked and paid for. First GotoGate said they couldn't do anything until I asked to speak to management and hey presto! they said they could cancel one of the flights but that I would be refunded the full amount MINUS £300 (turned out to be £200). I then made a complaint and eventually they said they unsuccessfully tried to contact me but couldn't - duh! I was on the actual holiday that I booked. And that they considered they did nothing wrong. NEVER AGAIN! And I will not be using booking.com for hotels from now on either.

Horrible

When my flight got cancelled they gave no help at all and just wrote that the booking number they sent me didn’t work and they couldn’t do anything about it. I paid booking con to get the flight, so that’s their problem, and they should return my money and sort that out with the airline, but the refuse,

By the way, indigogo is equally useless, and booking con was a waste.

Here’s latest response
” Hi Burr,

I hope you are well.

We are contacting you regarding the schedule change on your flight booking for the only departure affected flight
We have checked your booking, but unfortunately we are unable to access it on the website.
Hence, we would like to ask that you please contact the airlines directly.
We know this must be inconvenient for you and wish we had a better solution, but the only option at the moment is to contact them to initiate the refund for departure flight only.

Airline reference number: S46EUQ

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you ”

Having flexible tickets and paying extra with booking.com is a waste of money. The airline cancelled my return flights and booking.com rebooked me with 2 connecting flights as alternative.

Then the airline cancelled again the alternative flights, so this time I decided to use my flexible tickets option that I paid extra. However, booking.com could not give me the return flights that I want as the flights available on their website are only for new bookings and not for rebooking to existing customers with flexible tickets.

No available supervisors to speak to as booking.com staff are working from home in INDIA. All they can do is email with no responses or updates from their superiors at all.

I ended up calling the airline’s customer service directly. They initially advised me to contact booking.com but when I informed them that booking.com is unresponsive and uncooperative, the airline rebooked the return flights that I want with ease.

I will not be using travel agents like booking.com for flights again.

Book your flights directly with the airline’s website so it’s easier to rebook when your flights are cancelled and much easier if you have a flexible ticket option as well.

I’ve used Booking.com for years, but this experience has completely shattered my trust. We entered the correct information when booking our flight, but their system/agency overwrote it with incorrect details. Because of this, when our flight was delayed, the airline sent an email notification, but we never received it since it went to the wrong email.

As a result, we were stuck at the airport for four hours, missing a paid tour, with no warning or chance to adjust our plans. When we reached out for help, Booking.com’s customer service was beyond useless blaming the airline instead of acknowledging their own system’s failure. Despite showing proof, they refused to take any responsibility.

As a Level 3 Genius member, I expected much better. This experience makes Booking.com feel like a scam rather than a trusted platform. If this is how they handle flight bookings, I’d strongly recommend booking directly with airlines instead.

Avoid!

Booked a flight with flight scanner, the booking said 'awaiting confirmation' then I was refunded for the flights. I have tried getting in contact with customer service 7 times and cannot get through at all.

⚠️ WARNING: NEVER BOOK FLIGHTS THROUGH BOOKING.COM! ⚠️

I made the mistake of booking a flight through Booking.com, and it was a complete disaster. If your flight gets delayed, canceled, or changed, you will get NO real support as fast as the Airline. You’ll be stuck between the airline and Booking.com, with neither taking responsibility.

Had I booked directly with the airline, I could have managed my booking easily and received real-time help. Instead, I dealt with slow responses, useless customer service, and no way to modify my flight and bagage quickly.

I ordered checked baggage together with my ticket and paid for it. The receipt from booking.com also showed that I had paid for checked baggage.

But then the day before I should fly, I started online check-in at LOT - and to my surprise it appeared as if I had NOT bought checked baggage.

I contacted booking.com - and they told me, they had made a mistake and would try to fix it.

Later that evening booking.com called and told me they couldn't fix it and would have to return me the fee for the checked baggage and that I had to try to resolve it myself with the airline company.

I later found out, from others, that it's apprently something booking.com often does. Sell you extra services, make you pay for them and then never informing the airline about these extra services. Probably hoping the customer won't remember or notice until it's too late...

I wonder how many people have found out at check-in that they have to pay (again) for checked baggage they have already paid booking.com for....

I booked a flight with Booking.com because I have always found them to be very helpful and easy for arranging hotels all around the world, and therefore assumed that their service for flights might be more reputable than other OTAs (Online Travel Agencies). Unfortunately, this is not the case. Booking.com is good for hotels, but they work with a third party for flights (GoToGate) who are dreadful.

I booked the wrong dates for my flight (thanks to either Booking.com or SkyScanner refreshing the page and resetting the dates I was searching for), and despite quickly speaking to them to try and rectify it I was charged only a few pounds off the full price again as a change fee. If I had booked with the airline instead I would have been charged only £11 instead of £70, and the tickets would have cost almost exactly the same - I can only imagine the frustration if larger sums of money were involved. I will only book from the airline directly in future, and should really have known better.

Tldr; stay away, the potential savings are not worth the risks.

Booking.com has terrible site where the chat does not work and the telephone does not recognise the booking references they give you. I had had a nightmare and lost money until l contacted the airlines and resorts directly avoid. When you speak to them on the chat they sound nice and promise to put things write but do nothing. I lost a lot of money and my son's birthday is ruined. Avoud

Wanted to cancel my flight, airline told me I would get a 75% refund, but booking never responded to any of my texts/emails. Telephoning customer service costed me an extra 20$ (foreign number) and still nothing was fixed...

They might offer competitive prices but if everything goes wrong, like if your flight is canceled by airliner, which is nowadays quite common, prepare to live through the nightmare.
3 weeks before the departure day I was informed my flight was canceled. Booking.com immediately offered me an alternative route. I clicked “I accept” . I got a message saying something like “my request is in processing and will be informed accordingly”. From that moment until less than two days before the flight I could not get any new update. Customer support practically does not exist. They only respond with generic messages like “ Thank you with your patience. We are in the process of handling your case and will let you know as soon as we get new information. Have a nice day!” There is absolutely no live person that you can have meaningful and helpful conversions with.
So two days before the flight they sent me this “We have checked your booking, but unfortunately we are unable to action it due to urgent flight departure.Hence, we would like to ask that you please contact the airlines directly. We know this must be inconvenient for you and wish we had a better solution, but the only option at the moment is to contact them to make changes”.
They are the worst and most unprofessional business out there. Avoid at all costs.

I would love to sue them, they are thieves. The worst experience ever. If only I've known! Horrible. SCAM. Bougth a flight 5 months in advance. They send a email from this GoToGate partner scamers saying the airline did a major change and they want to reschedule (the major change was an hout difference upon arrival to the destination). The were blaming the airline and blah blah.. never solve it!

Very bad service. Please don't buy any tickets from them.

I booked a flight via booking.com. The airline changed the date of the flight. Booking.com has not forwarded this information to me. We arrived at the airport and were informed that our flight was postponed for one day. I am now trying to get some information from booking for 10 days but they only say they have to wait for the airline or some other excuses.

Do not book flights with booking.com! They use a third party called GoTo Gate who provide absolutely terrible customer service. Our outbound flights were changed by 24 hours making our trip shorter. Booking.com (GoTo Gate) said they need authorisation from the airline to change the flight back to the original day with a slightly different route. Days later we still have no confirmation of any outbound flights. They just keep blaming the airline (JAL) for not getting back to them. Word of advice to not use booking.com for flights, book directly with the airlines.

I so so so wish I’d seen this Trustpilot site before my Booking.com flights and I so so so wish I could give them zero stars.

We had major issues on a cruise which arrived a day late in our required destination, causing a ripple effect through our Booking.com itinerary. Attempts to contact Booking to reschedule were simply painful as delays with the globally clueless Philippine call centre were ridiculously long and Kafkaesque in nature, even on chat. The eventual outcome was inevitably to blame a 3rd party, and the culprit to hand was almost always the airline.
We ended up having to rebook 2 of 3 flights, at full cost to us, as our timings were tight and I couldn’t fight the battle any longer.
I would NEVER book flights on Booking.com ever again.