I showed up at a (cheap) hotel booked on Booking.com earlier this year. They had no record of my booking. They couldn't help me. I spent the next hour on the p

I showed up at a (cheap) hotel booked on Booking.com earlier this year. They had no record of my booking. They couldn't help me. I spent the next hour on the phone or on hold with a booking.com rep. They claimed the hotel had made a mistake and should be the one to fix it. They attempted to contact the appropriate person at the hotel but were unable to. About four hours later somebody appropriate from the hotel responded to the booking.com rep and "found" the "lost" booking. I brought up the policy you mentioned, and the booking.com rep told me that they hotel gets a chance to fix it first. They seemed quite surprised the hotel ghosted them for four hours, and told me that eventually at some point at night they would book me some other room. So I'd say the booking.com policy you mentioned isn't quite as valuable as you might think at first.