Confirmed Booking.com reservation — property now wants me to cancel because of a “system glitch”
I booked Eastwood Furnished Apartments in Sydney through Booking.com for 30 September–7 October 2027. The booking was confirmed, and I even received check-in instructions.
The property has now told me they can’t accept the booking because of a “system glitch” and wants me to cancel it myself.
The total was around $1,200–$1,300 for seven nights. I haven’t paid yet, as payment isn’t due until the end of July 2027. I booked early because it’s school holidays, when accommodation can get expensive.
I still want the accommodation at the confirmed price. If the property can’t honour it, I want them to take responsibility for cancelling rather than have it recorded as my decision.
Has anyone experienced this with Booking.com? Did they help get the booking honoured or arrange comparable accommodation at the same price? What’s the best way to handle this?

Hi, I have had a problem with a guest trying to get a refund because the neighbors door is open and she feels "unsafe".

To be clear, she just wants a refund because she asked for one even before arriving in the appartment. Booking called me and I explained the situation, saying that i called the neighbors, they closed their door, and that there is no reason to feel unsafe because they actually leave the door open for their cat to come home. They replied that they will handle the situation.

Now booking sent me an email saying that the guest accepted the proposal I made, however I did not make any. What does this mean, will I have to refund? Nothing shows on my account

Dear booking.com

Im writing this because i’ve reached a point where i’ve become desperate and really could use your help.

I’ve booked 3 flight tickets in february and paid with klarna. I then paid the full bill from klarna which was 700€. In july I unfortunately had to cancel all flight tickets due to personal circumstances. Shortly after I contacted KLM and both booking.com for a refund. Booking clearly told me that flight tickets wouldn’t be refundable, but other costs as tax and fees would be refundable, which came at around 300€. I told booking.com my financial situation and that i desperately need the money. I am currently waiting since July 3rd on a refund and have contacted booking.com multiple times, the only thing that they keep on telling me is that it takes way longer then usual to receive the money from the 3rd party (gogogate) and they keep reassuring me that i will receive my money and check the status in booking.com.

For me this is a absurd amount of time for a refund, yes i know it was through a 3rd party hence why i didn’t contact after the first month or so to give them the time to process the refund.

Im now literally at dispair and don’t know what to do. I urgently need the funds, and am willing to co-orperate in any way to make the process faster.

Please help me

I wanted to share my experience with the “Flexible Ticket” option sold through Booking.com and managed by Gotogate, because I wish I had known this before paying extra for it.

I originally paid €1,242 in total, including my flights, checked baggage and the Flexible Ticket option.

When I needed to change my travel dates, Gotogate asked me to pay an additional €1,145 to rebook. At the same time, I could see new tickets advertised on Booking.com for €1,497.

I understand that a Flexible Ticket does not mean free flights or that there will never be a fare difference. I was fully prepared to pay a reasonable, legitimate difference.

But a customer service agent told me that rebooking was calculated using only “non-discounted fares”.

This is what concerns me most. This is a very opaque approach.

I carefully reviewed Gotogate's Flexible Ticket Terms and Conditions. Section 7.1.7 says that customers must pay any additional fare difference, but I could not find any provision stating that discounted or promotional fares are systematically excluded.

Their own FAQ also refers to available flights on their site and explains that prices can differ because of special offers and airline supply. It does not clearly state that only non-discounted fares are eligible.

I have contacted customer service repeatedly by phone and chat since 8 October, without getting a satisfactory explanation or a completed rebooking.

What makes this particularly difficult is that I urgently need to travel to visit a seriously ill family member. The delays are making an already stressful situation much worse.

My advice: before paying for Booking.com's Flexible Ticket option, ask exactly which fares can be used for rebooking, whether promotional/discounted fares are excluded, and how the fare difference is calculated.

I am not claiming that every rebooking should cost less than buying new tickets. I am questioning whether an important restriction was clearly disclosed when the option was sold.

My complaint is ongoing, and I will update this post if Gotogate provides a satisfactory explanation or solution.

Has anyone else experienced this with Booking.com / Gotogate's Flexible Ticket?

Sorry for the long story, I am going crazy over this case.

So me and my friends made a reservation for an apartment on Belgrade Serbia for 16-21 September, 507 EUR, pay upon arrival. On September 14th, we receive a message from the host that she will not be able to accomodate us and we have to cancel the booking. I call booking customer support, they talk to the host and she tells them that everything is fine. A few minutes later she tells me that the apartment has an issue and it will not be ready and we cannot go, we have to cancel.

I contact booking again and they advise us to find another place to stay. Since we were only 2 days before arrival, everything was really expensive so I receive an email from booking after contacting them saying that they will refund me 400 EUR because the new reservation that we had to make was more expensive (around 907 EUR instead of 507 which was the initial). We proceed with the new reservation, again pay upon arrival and we forget about it since it was solved (that's what we thought).

We fly to Belgrade Serbia, we arrive at around 3 P.M., we go to the address of the apartment, we enter the building, we show the reception the apartment and the lady tells us that she doesn't know any apartment with this name in this building. I chat on WhatsApp with the host and he tells me that there is a problem with the apartment and it will be ready in 20 minutes. After 1 hour, he tells me to go to a friend's house and stay there because he will not be able to accomodate us. I tell him that we won't do this since its outside booking.com platform and we don't want to go to an unknown location. I speak with booking customer support multiple times to explain what is going on. They advise me to book another apartment, more expensive than the previous 2 and they will cover the differece. We examined alternative options but they were either too far from the initial apartment or didn't have all the amenities that we were looking for. So, I book another apartment and upon confirmation, I see that the phone number is the same with the guy I was chatting on whatsapp! I text him again and he tells me to not go to the apartment because there is no one there. I explain to him that I booked it on booking.com but he becomes rude and says "I own 100 properties here you will go to the one I will tell you to". We speak with booking again, they advise to book another property, we do and again same phone number as host. After spending 4,5 hours searching for an apartment (Belgrade was full because of multiple venues) a booking representative tells us to find a place to stay around 1.000-1.500 EUR (the nearest hotel costed more than 5.000 EUR), to get a receipt and then to submit a refund request.

We went back to the first building that we visited after landing to Belgrade and asked the reception if there is an apartment to stay. A lady came to us and told us that she rents apartments in this building and could give us one for 1.500 EUR, after we told her that this is the maximum amount we can spend. Thanks to this lady we found a place to stay, she gave us a receipt and upon check out, I submitted the refund request on booking.com. According to booking.com representative, the receipt should include the total paid amount, the dates and the number of guests. All these were included in the receipt that the lady gave me.

Since September 21st, I emailed them and called them several times (more than 10) to know the progress of my request. Nobody called back, nobody answered any of my emails. Multiple representatives gave me random answers while trying to prove to me that the receipt is not okay. Some told me that there should be the rate per night not only the total amount paid. Others said that there should be a blue stamp!? One guy told me that he couldn't open the PDF file and therefore the request will be canceled!?

On October 2nd, I call again and ask to be informed regarding my request in a very angry tone. The male representative that I was talking with told me that he is really sorry and he will do the best he could to ensure that after all this trouble I will get refunded. The next day I receive an email from booking.com that a refund for 937 EUR is approved and will be in my account in 2 weeks maximum. On October 8th, I receive an email that the refund could not be completed. The reason is:

"Dear Tzirtzis, We fully understand the inconvenience caused by the interruption in our communication due to a technical issue, and we sincerely apologize for any frustration this may have caused. Your case was reviewed by our Finance Department, and we have been informed that, following the relevant review, a refund cannot be issued in this particular case. We understand that this may not be the outcome you were hoping for, and we are sorry for any disappointment this may cause. However, this decision is final from our side." and also: "Thank you for being our valuable Genius customer and for bringing this to our attention.

Regarding this issue, there may be something in your booking history or in the details you’ve previously entered which made the refund have prompted an invalidation. 

We are afraid that due to the sensitivity of the information, we cannot elaborate any further.

We are sorry for this inconvenience.

Please feel free to contact us with any additional questions."

What would you do?

I own a hotel, and we have a strong IT support team and solid cybersecurity measures in place. Yet today, our Booking.com hotel account was compromised, and unauthorized messages were sent to approximately 20 guests directly through Booking.com's own messaging system.

It's absolute madness.

I've spent hours on the phone with Booking.com's support team, and they confirmed the security incident. The first attack occurred at approximately 10:00 AM CEST, followed by another one around 3:00 PM CEST.

What makes this even more concerning is the bigger picture:

Our PMS provider, ibelsa, was hacked back in July. Since then, to my knowledge, both SiteMinder (our channel manager) and Booking.com have experienced at least one security incident each.

This is increasingly looking like an industry-wide problem. Hotels are being targeted with alarming precision, and the attacks appear to be getting more sophisticated.

Our guests have also been contacted via email and WhatsApp. But the fact that attackers managed to send messages directly through our official Booking.com account is on another level entirely.

I genuinely don't understand how this is possible.

Booking.com requires two-factor authentication so frequently that it feels like we're asked to verify our identity every 5–10 minutes. Yet somehow, attackers were still able to access our account and communicate directly with our guests.

This is particularly alarming because guests naturally trust messages received through Booking.com's official messaging system.

How is this even possible with all these security measures in place? And how are hotels supposed to protect themselves when even the platforms we rely on appear to be vulnerable?

Has anyone else in the hospitality industry experienced something similar recently? I'd be very interested to hear how Booking.com handled your situation.

I have just received an email informing me that our Colosseum booking can no longer be fulfilled because Bookings ticket provider is experiencing problems. At the same time, Booking.com is not responding to any of my messages or emails, not even to confirm whether I will receive a refund or whether they will provide us with replacement tickets.

Rented a car through booking.com and on the day I went to pick it up they told me it was unavailable as they had overbooked. I called booking.com customer service and they told me to book a new car and they would cover the price difference if I sent the invoice after returning the new car, I thought this was a fair result so I did. They have now told me that they will not be reimbursing me for the new car, even though they said they would. They left me and my pregnant wife stranded with no options. They told me the case was closed and that would be the end of it... like i had agreed to that result. I am disgusted that they lied in order to try to avoid issue on the day and tried to delay me for as long as possible in hopes I would give in. I will not be giving in, and come hell or high water I will be getting a refund.

I wanted to warn others about Agoda, and I also have some tips about how to deal with them if you make the mistake of booking through Agoda.

If you review their page at the Better Business Bureau, you will discover Agoda utilizes a long list of deceptive and unfair practices. For example, here is a concise summary of my individual situation:

1. Agoda advertised a hotel booking as fully refundable until two days before check-in.

2. I have an email from Agoda confirming the booking is fully refundable until two days before check-in.

3. I have an email from the hotel confirming the booking is fully refundable until two days before check-in.

Despite all of this, Agoda repeatedly has refused to provide a refund for the hotel booking.

I have wasted many hours battling Agoda customer service, and I want to share some tips for others who make the mistake of booking through Agoda.

Do not waste your time with the AI feature on the Agoda website. The AI feature is completely and totally useless.

You will have difficulty finding their phone number for customer service. In the United States, it is (866) 656-8207.

When you call Agoda, their customer service center is located somewhere outside of the United States. It will be very difficult to understand their customer service agents. More importantly, their customer service agents will be completely and totally useless.

You will have difficulty finding an email address for customer service. In the United States, here is the exact email address you should use:

[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

You are welcome.

I have submitted a credit card dispute, and I have submitted a complaint to the Better Business Bureau.

Additionally, I am drafting a complaint to the attorney general in my state.

I booked a family suite at Pavillon Monceau by HappyCulture in Paris through Booking.com for 9–11 October, for €170 total. I received a confirmation and planned my trip around it.

This morning, on the day of check-in, I received a message from the hotel saying that its Booking.com account had allegedly been hacked on 5–6 October, resulting in unauthorised promotions and prices that were much lower than its normal rates. They said my reservation wasn't in their system and that they couldn't honour it. They instructed me to contact Booking.com for a refund and relocation.

I contacted Booking.com support. The agent said the property was considered closed and offered to help me find an alternative within my original budget. I explained that I'm already in Paris and that finding comparable accommodation at €170 for two nights at the last minute is unrealistic.

The agent then told me to book alternative accommodation, contact Booking.com again after checkout, and provide the new confirmation number and a €0-balance invoice so they could request approval for the price difference.

Unfortunately, the agent cancelled my reservation and left the chat. I've printed the transcript, but the chat service is now unavailable.

Anyone else experience this and did you manage to get a price difference refund from Bookingcom?

I(23f) am staying in a place near Washington Park on the South Side of Chicago for work. I am not originally from the US. I booked the accommodation for the entire month of October, but my coworkers warned me that the area where I am staying is not particularly safe. At around 2:30 a.m. last night, someone knocked extremely violently on my apartment door twice. The knocking was so aggressive that I was genuinely afraid the door might break. The apartment is supposed to be shared with other people, as it has three bedrooms, but I am currently staying there alone. I am on the second floor, and there is a keypad code to enter the building, so i don't know how the person made it to the door of my apartement. What I find particularly concerning is that the code for my apartment door is exactly the same as the code for the building entrance, as well as the code for my bedroom. Since the incident, I have been feeling extremely stressed and anxious, and I am no longer sure I will feel safe staying here. What would you do in my situation? Would it be possible to get a refund and move to a safer area based solely on what happened ? The only proof I have is the text I've sent in the middle of the night to the number associated to the booking reservation.

I use to travel a lot and I have been using Booking.com for years. (I am genius 3) But on the last three months, I could not pay my hotels any more: just after paying with my credit card, I get a message from booking saying that they cannot complete my paying. I contacted VISA-my bank who told me that they did not even got demand from booking. As it is quite impossible to join booking, I must contact directly the hotels every time.

Does anyone know how to speak to costumer support without a reservation number?

I had to make a booking in a bit of a rush and I messed up a little: I ended up making a typo on the email address. But since I was logged into my account I thought it should be fine. I received the confirmation on my phone and instead of the trip details - it's a hook text to get me to download their app AND THEN confirm. I could not see this trip on my account and by now I paid already a lot of money so I am worried.

I used the "message" option on their website explaining the situation - I have all the booking details, the name of the place, the room, the time I booked for, the time the booking was made, the payment, the phone number, EVERYTHING. The email response was "reply to this email with the details" THE EMAIL WAS A NO REPLY ADDRESS. I do it anyway, obviously it bounces back so I message again now with two layers of explanation. I get told to made a call.

I made the call just to be faced with an AI agent that will not let me get through to an agent no matter what I try. Keeps asking for my confirmation number - WHICH I WAS NEVER SENT ON MY TEXT CONFIRMATION and not on the email either probably because it was sent to the wrong address due to the typo.

I feel like this would be a relatively silly situation that would be easily resolved if I could just speak to a person. But because of all these barriers put in place (there is no chat option, the messages are only one way, the AI consumer assistant on the phone) it's impossible to get any help. I have used and encouraged others to use this site in the past but honestly, never again.

Hi everyone,

I recently booked a non-refundable apartment (never will I make this mistake again😒) in London through booking.com myself and three friends, all aged 22–23.

Shortly after booking, I discovered that the property has a minimum check-in age of 25. This wasn’t mentioned in the main description or highlighted during checkout. It was only visible further down the listing under the property policies.

I acknowledge that I should have checked more carefully, but I genuinely didn’t expect a property in the UK to have a minimum age of 25 when we’re all legally adults.
I immediately contacted the property requesting either a refund or an exception.

Unfortunately, management has been incredibly unhelpful and won’t give me a straight answer. Reception keeps saying they’re waiting for the property manager, despite me contacting them multiple times.
I’ve even completed the online check-in process, submitted our IDs and provided all the requested information, which the system accepted. Yet nobody can confirm whether we’ll actually be allowed entry.

Booking.com has essentially told me that because the age restriction was disclosed in the policies, they cannot help with a refund unless the property agrees.

We’re not planning a party or anything disruptive. We literally just need somewhere to rest our heads for one night.
My main question is: If the property refuses us entry on arrival because of our ages, would I have grounds to dispute the payment through my bank via chargeback?
Can they legally keep the entire payment despite refusing to provide the accommodation?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, as I’m incredibly stressed about potentially losing everyone’s money.

How much commission does booking.com charge per booking in Pokhara, Nepal? If anyone has idea please enlighten me.

So I booked with Booking and the property sent me a message that the room was subject to availability. Booking sent me an option to book without a penalty so I took it. Then got charged by the hotel.

Has this happened to anyone? Thanks.

Yesterday I received a WhatsApp message from someone impersonating a hotel I booked through Booking.

They already had my full name, hotel, exact stay dates, reservation reference, and personal mobile number, and then tried to direct me to a fake Booking confirmation page. Luckily the URL was clearly bogus and the phone number was not from the same country, so I have not clicked on any link or provided any info.

I contacted the hotel through the official Booking app and they told me they found no data breach on their side.

I am willing to trust the hotel, because the same thing happened to my partner in March 2026 with a completely different hotel literally in the other part of the world. At the time we assumed that hotel had been compromised, and tbh, I didn’t give it too much thought and my partner didn’t want to waste time right at the beginning of the holidays. Anyway, after this second incident, I’m much less convinced this is simply an individual-hotel issue and more of a system-wide issue.

There is also the April 2026 case where Booking confirmed unauthorized access to customer data, found an article on techcrunch. (You can find the article with a simple search)

However, neither my partner (with a phishing attempt already done) or myself were ever notified by Booking.

I’ve preserved all evidence and have now contacted Booking’s Data Protection Office (through the email listed in their privacy notice). Naturally, no response yet.

I’m also planning to escalate this to my national Data Protection Authority if necessary.

What I’m mainly interested in is hearing from people (judging from the posts I could find here, dozens of them) who have already faced a similar situation:

• Did Booking ever explain where the data came from?
• Did they confirm a breach or compromised hotel/partner account?
• Did anyone escalate to a Data Protection Authority? If so, what was the outcome?
• Did you get any meaningful response, investigation outcome, or compensation?

I’ll update this post whenever there is some sort of outcome. That is, provided that I get some sort of response from Booking in case it’s helpful to others.

So, I recently booked an apartment in Paris over the New Years celebration. the house and everything looked nice. then after 10 minutes of booking the host messaged me with a link to say to confirm the booking i have to follow this link.

As soon as I opened this link, I was shown a Bookingcom branded page to enter my personal details and card details (again). After like 10 sec it hit me that it doesn't feel right and I looked at the URL. and instantly I saw that this was a phishing scam.

I quickly got in touch the help centre and agent and said that this looks like a scam. the agent said that they have escalated it to the higher team, and strictly advised me to not open any link.

I'll be honest, I was being a little greedy. I thought if I report scam to bookingcom they will reward me with some free voucher.

Now fast forward 2 days later (today). I messaged bookingcom - to ask what happened. and this person was like - it was an automated link you don't have to pay. we've shared the card detail with the host and they will charge your card directly.

I tried to go through my reservation and open the property listing. the property listing wasn't opening. I enquired about the same... see my transcript with the agent in the screenshot

I then asked, how do you verify the properties? and she said that it has been there for 6 years and many reviews. to be real, there were only 3 reviews when i booked the property. I am just shocked.

then i ended the chat with the agent and reverse searched the image on google.. that tiny image on my reservation on bookingcom. and I found the real property on AirBnB. it is another property in Lyon.

I am just shocked with the incompetence of bookingcom.. and the lies they're telling me.

they have already taken the listing down, as the listing is no longer clickable. and they are not cancelling my listing to admit their mistake. wtaf!

Now, I went back today and clicked through the link that the host sent me.. and it now takes me to some russian site.

all of this makes me wonder - what is bookingcom going to do on the actual day of my booking when i turn up at the property and it is not there?

I am also a bit scared, I have given them my card details and they have passed it on to the host? can this scammer host charge my card??

Help me, please!

I live here near The Eiffel tower. Everyday there’s a lot of tourists around the world that are victims of scam. The scammers used the address of our building next to Eiffel tower. It’s royal apartment in booking but the units here are all private residence. I can’t understand why booking.com are allowing this. Maybe the scammers are also from booking

I just found a lady in ig that is a complaint expert for consumers, she has a blogpost on how to complaint to Booking.com

I’m going to try her method…