5 ms·

Just skimming through the comments, there is some negative sentiment about Booking.com. So I came to say, that over the years, I've used Booking.com numerous ti

by vondro 5y ago

Just skimming through the comments, there is some negative sentiment about Booking.com. So I came to say, that over the years, I've used Booking.com numerous times, without any single problem. Yes, there are dark patterns (13 people are looking at this offer right now, etc.), but free cancellation was always free for me, reviews matched my experience, information matched the reality. Sorry to hear about the layoffs, but customer experience has been great for me.

wodenokoto 5y ago
Same for me. The website has some dark patterns that really do suck, but their prices often beats the hotel directly and many hotels even refer you to booking.com I'm not a happy user, but also not a sad or angry one. I do consider their service trustworthy, though their salesmen ship is a bit slimy
kraag22 5y ago
Exactly. I have been using booking for years without single issue. Dozens of stays in many countries. Why it should be a problem to move some employees to different company? This is happening often...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
corford 5y ago
Have to agree. I've had an account for years and booked hundreds of properties all over Europe (hotels, self-catering apartments, houses), often travelling with a pet too. Never had an issue with free cancellation; places I've stayed at matched the photos and reviews; prices are generally competitive. Yes the UI has some dark patterns but on the flip-side it's also pretty good at what it does (i.e. making it very easy to quickly find and filter accommodation). For getting things done, I much prefer booking's UI to e.g. Airbnb's.
wraptile 5y ago
Booking.com is the _lesser_ evil imho. For one it shows total price 99% of the time right there on the search page where alternatives like Agoda show total at the checkout which is heavily inflated. Their loyalty program (Genius) is automatic and simple too where's competitors resort to various coupon and other complex "discounts". I surely hope Booking is not going away.
- xsist10 5y ago
  Booking owns Agoda https://www.bookingholdings.com/brands/agoda/ https://www.bookingholdings.com/brands/agoda/
  - wraptile 5y ago
    wow TIL. It almost feels that the hotel industry is just cancer all the way down.
    - vkou 5y ago
      If you think that's bad, talk to the people who actually work at the hotels. They... Do not have great things to say about their experience working with a lot of the aggregators.
    - em500 5y ago
      The online travel industry is now mostly Booking Holdings, Expedia Group (both of which own many sub-brands) and AirBnB.
xunn0026 5y ago
The customer experience has been great but consistently decreasing over the years. Last time I used them I think they pivoted into fighting with AirBNB so they took on smaller and smaller "venues" up to people (illegally) renting an apartment. The guy straight up threatened me in writing on Booking when I decided to cancel seeing how different the conditions were compared to the pictures.
telesilla 5y ago
The reality is, we need a functioning hotel aggregator, and AirBnB needs a competitor. For me, booking.com for European travel has been overwhelming positive in experience, happy with the increasing Genius offerings. I don't use them for apartments however, I don't feel I trust them for that and prefer AirBnB. I also hope they stick around and maybe find a way to make all the cash they feel they can make without ruining what should be a very mutually-beneficial experience between hoteliers and customers.
- mrtksn 5y ago
  The business revolves around bedbanks contracting hotels and selling them to retailers and aggregators. There are exchanges, there are hybrid models and what not. That's why "2 rooms left" kind if messages are almost always total BS because every hotel can have more than one bedbank contract or the contract can be flexible and you can't know exactly how many rooms are left but you can query if the number of room you want to book is doable. At the end of the day, what you have is multiple networks that somewhat overlap and provide API for finding and booking and Web interfaces for the high street retailers etc. Making an aggregator means, you getting an access to these API and therefore there are many aggregators out there. The problem is, the margins are really tight at that point and you can hardly do anything about it. The money used to be in the high street retail where you can have fat margins and sell extra services like city tours, paragliding - that also have fat margins. The industry have seen quite a bit of squeeze both because of AirBnB and the aggregators. A good way to make a lot of money is to contract all the hotels in an area and sell the company to a bedbank like Hotelbeds. Now hotels are opening every day, things change every day so there's quite bit of people on the ground chasing hotels making deals and getting paid handsomely for it.
  - clove 5y ago
    I travel a lot and find that my area rarely has the majority of its hotels listed on sites such as booking.com. What would I have to do, specifically, to get these hotels listed and get paid for it?
    - 5y ago
calcifer 5y ago
Thank you for your valuable contribution to this thread about employment practices. I'm sure the CEO who fired people over pre-recorded video appreciates your praise!
- vondro 5y ago
  My pleasure, always glad to help /s. On a more serious note, yes, the layoffs are bad and I am sorry to hear about it, but when I see people in comments posting about their negative experience with the service, I feel like it's relevant to balance it with my overwhelmingly positive experience with the service.
ErneX 5y ago
This has been my experience as well.
csomar 5y ago
This was also my experience. Never needed to call Customer Service and didn't know they had a functional one.
globular-toast 5y ago
The only problem I've had with booking.com was when I ended up in a place that would have been bad for an AirBnb. It seems to be a similar problem to Amazon. I had the impression that I could expect the places on there to all be at least professional. It seems I'm not alone as everyone I've told about it has been surprised that such a place was on booking.com. It would have been expected from AirBnb.
kylebyproxy 5y ago
From the perspective of someone on the front desk side of things, I always got a sinking feeling whenever I saw a reservation come through Booking.com. They must do 0 CC validation, because their customers were the only ones I ever had payment issues with, and it happened regularly.

by vondro 5y ago

wodenokoto 5y ago

Same for me. The website has some dark patterns that really do suck, but their prices often beats the hotel directly and many hotels even refer you to booking.com I'm not a happy user, but also not a sad or angry one. I do consider their service trustworthy, though their salesmen ship is a bit slimy

kraag22 5y ago

Exactly. I have been using booking for years without single issue. Dozens of stays in many countries. Why it should be a problem to move some employees to different company? This is happening often...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

corford 5y ago

Have to agree. I've had an account for years and booked hundreds of properties all over Europe (hotels, self-catering apartments, houses), often travelling with a pet too. Never had an issue with free cancellation; places I've stayed at matched the photos and reviews; prices are generally competitive. Yes the UI has some dark patterns but on the flip-side it's also pretty good at what it does (i.e. making it very easy to quickly find and filter accommodation). For getting things done, I much prefer booking's UI to e.g. Airbnb's.

wraptile 5y ago

Booking.com is the _lesser_ evil imho. For one it shows total price 99% of the time right there on the search page where alternatives like Agoda show total at the checkout which is heavily inflated. Their loyalty program (Genius) is automatic and simple too where's competitors resort to various coupon and other complex "discounts". I surely hope Booking is not going away.

xsist10 5y ago
Booking owns Agoda https://www.bookingholdings.com/brands/agoda/ https://www.bookingholdings.com/brands/agoda/
- wraptile 5y ago
  wow TIL. It almost feels that the hotel industry is just cancer all the way down.
  - vkou 5y ago
    If you think that's bad, talk to the people who actually work at the hotels. They... Do not have great things to say about their experience working with a lot of the aggregators.
  - em500 5y ago
    The online travel industry is now mostly Booking Holdings, Expedia Group (both of which own many sub-brands) and AirBnB.

xunn0026 5y ago

The customer experience has been great but consistently decreasing over the years. Last time I used them I think they pivoted into fighting with AirBNB so they took on smaller and smaller "venues" up to people (illegally) renting an apartment. The guy straight up threatened me in writing on Booking when I decided to cancel seeing how different the conditions were compared to the pictures.

telesilla 5y ago

The reality is, we need a functioning hotel aggregator, and AirBnB needs a competitor. For me, booking.com for European travel has been overwhelming positive in experience, happy with the increasing Genius offerings. I don't use them for apartments however, I don't feel I trust them for that and prefer AirBnB. I also hope they stick around and maybe find a way to make all the cash they feel they can make without ruining what should be a very mutually-beneficial experience between hoteliers and customers.

mrtksn 5y ago
The business revolves around bedbanks contracting hotels and selling them to retailers and aggregators. There are exchanges, there are hybrid models and what not. That's why "2 rooms left" kind if messages are almost always total BS because every hotel can have more than one bedbank contract or the contract can be flexible and you can't know exactly how many rooms are left but you can query if the number of room you want to book is doable. At the end of the day, what you have is multiple networks that somewhat overlap and provide API for finding and booking and Web interfaces for the high street retailers etc. Making an aggregator means, you getting an access to these API and therefore there are many aggregators out there. The problem is, the margins are really tight at that point and you can hardly do anything about it. The money used to be in the high street retail where you can have fat margins and sell extra services like city tours, paragliding - that also have fat margins. The industry have seen quite a bit of squeeze both because of AirBnB and the aggregators. A good way to make a lot of money is to contract all the hotels in an area and sell the company to a bedbank like Hotelbeds. Now hotels are opening every day, things change every day so there's quite bit of people on the ground chasing hotels making deals and getting paid handsomely for it.
- clove 5y ago
  I travel a lot and find that my area rarely has the majority of its hotels listed on sites such as booking.com. What would I have to do, specifically, to get these hotels listed and get paid for it?
  - 5y ago

calcifer 5y ago

Thank you for your valuable contribution to this thread about employment practices. I'm sure the CEO who fired people over pre-recorded video appreciates your praise!

vondro 5y ago
My pleasure, always glad to help /s. On a more serious note, yes, the layoffs are bad and I am sorry to hear about it, but when I see people in comments posting about their negative experience with the service, I feel like it's relevant to balance it with my overwhelmingly positive experience with the service.

ErneX 5y ago

This has been my experience as well.

csomar 5y ago

This was also my experience. Never needed to call Customer Service and didn't know they had a functional one.

globular-toast 5y ago

The only problem I've had with booking.com was when I ended up in a place that would have been bad for an AirBnb. It seems to be a similar problem to Amazon. I had the impression that I could expect the places on there to all be at least professional. It seems I'm not alone as everyone I've told about it has been surprised that such a place was on booking.com. It would have been expected from AirBnb.

kylebyproxy 5y ago

From the perspective of someone on the front desk side of things, I always got a sinking feeling whenever I saw a reservation come through Booking.com. They must do 0 CC validation, because their customers were the only ones I ever had payment issues with, and it happened regularly.