Pitfalls of Booking. How does booking write off money How does booking write off money
As you know, corporations do everything for the sake of multi-billion dollar profits. The company, in principle, is no different from the rest and uses cunning marketing tactics with some omissions and tricks so that tourists book a hotel as quickly as possible for as much money as possible. In this article I will tell you about these tricks and tricks that you should not fall for.
Delicious breakfasts
If you see the following inscriptions in the hotel parameters: “Very good breakfast; Amazing breakfast; Good coffee!; Delicious breakfast", then you can safely book a room without breakfast or choose another hotel.
I don’t like such inscriptions, because... they distract from looking at the really necessary things: room equipment, WiFi availability, swimming pool, hotel location.
At first I thought that such a rating was made by voting by tourists after visiting the hotel or according to some specific parameters, but after 2 times in a row in hotels we came across a disgusting, disgusting, tasteless breakfast, we stopped believing this inscription.
As I understand it, such inscriptions are made for SEO, because how else can you explain the use of various words added to almost all hotels?!
Here’s a look at the screenshot of one hotel, the price of a room without breakfast is € 233, and with a very good breakfast included € 255. As you can see, if you immediately book a room with breakfast, you will save € 4. Be aware that if you buy a room without breakfast, you can always purchase it separately at the hotel, sometimes for even less money.
Taxes
Now you have found a suitable hotel for your holiday in quiet place, close to the beach or attractions, now you need to be careful when booking because... the price may be indicated without taxes and various fees. Look at the screenshot below: the room rate is 22,694 rubles, and it is indicated that VAT of 10% and breakfast are included in the price. But taxes are not included. What does this mean, you ask? And no one will answer this question until you arrive at the hotel and they bill you. Agree, it’s not very pleasant to see + 1-100% on your bill while on vacation. It is not clear how such a corporation as Booking with a staff of programmers, managers, content specialists, support in a bunch of languages, misses such hotel descriptions without specific data on the final cost of the room.
If you browse the Booking website, then, depending on the city, you can see the following types of taxes, which not included in the bill: VAT approximately 10% to 20%. Tourist tax or City tax, which depending on the city can be € 1 — 5 per day. In Venice, for example, it is € 4.5; in Paris € 2.48; in Berlin - 5% of the cost of living. In New York you will be charged 14.75% tax and $3.50 city tax per night. There is no tourist tax for children in some cities, but in Berlin your child will also be charged a tax.
Hotel booking pages may show many different types of taxes and fees that are not included in the final room price, such as a 10-28% "Property Service Charge."
Parking at the hotel for an additional fee
If you are traveling by car, then when searching for a hotel on Booking, you can tick one of the criteria - this parking. A normal person, checking this box, especially on a phone, may not notice that parking will be paid, and hopes that the hotel has a private, guarded parking lot that the hotel client can use for free. Because this price is not added to the cost of the room, but is simply described in the hotel services.
As you can see from the screenshot, upon arrival at the hotel the person finds out that private parking will cost him some $18 per day. And in some Paris, the cost of a parking space at a hotel will cost € 25 per day. However, it is not written whether this is a guarded parking lot, because this is important for car travelers. When we travel by car, we try to find hotels with free private guarded parking. But normal hotels, for example in Munich, provide a free travel pass for public transport, if you arrived by car.
Rushing clients
The next trick that Booking uses is to constantly rush clients. Inscriptions such as “The number of available places is limited”, “Don’t miss your chance”, “Book the last room”, “Seven rooms left”, “Booked 10 times in the last 24 hours” seem to encourage people to make a reservation quickly. Any psychologist will explain to you that no one wants to be left without a bird in their hands and will try to book at least something, and red reminders throughout the site get on your nerves and help you make a decision faster. And then you arrive at the hotel and see that there are a lot of empty seats, three cripples come for breakfast, and only one family is splashing in the pool.
The same method is usually used by realtors or dealers in the car market. So you approach it and ask how much the car costs, how many owners it has had, whether it has been in an accident. And, having examined the car, you are about to move on, and they see you off with the words: “Don’t think too long, otherwise today many people were interested in the car, and, you know, whoever brings the money first gets the slippers.” And a month later you come to the same market, and this car continues to be sold, apparently the owner is holding the car for someone.
Discount scam
When choosing a hotel on Booking, we often come across hotel rooms with similar inscriptions: “Save 33% today!”; "Today's Super Offer!". On the screen you see the price, which is crossed out and drawn new price bright red! In theory, you can be glad that just today you can save quite a lot on accommodation. And then you go to the website tomorrow or a week later, and there is the same inscription on the same hotel. It turns out that the discount can be valid not only today, but also tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.
Hotel payment currency
Another problem with Booking is the currency used to pay for accommodation. Yes, when searching for a hotel, you can choose any currency, but you will always pay for your stay in the local currency. And on Booking itself you can see the following wording: “You pay the hotel in local currency (€). The indicated amount (in RUB) is indicative and is based on the current exchange rate." In fact, the final amount of accommodation depends on the type of your card, the cross rate and currency in the country, and the error can be up to 10%.
That’s why I always pay for hotel stays only in cash and in local currency, so as not to spend extra money on cross rates and changes in rates.
Unauthorized withdrawal of money from the card
Don’t be surprised if suddenly after booking a hotel they start illegally charging your card cash. This happened to us in the winter: we booked a hotel in Phuket with free cancellation and payment on the spot. The terms and conditions also stated that not a cent would be charged from the card. In fact, after entering the card details when booking a hotel on Booking, they immediately wanted to withdraw the entire amount from us. We received a call from our bank saying that a hotel in Phuket was attempting to withdraw an unauthorized amount of money and the transaction was declined. We thanked the bank employee and said that we would sort it out. Immediately after this we wrote to the hotel and Booking, and they all began to pretend that they were just checking whether we had money on the card.
As it turned out, the site rules say: “Booking.com is not responsible for any (authorized or possible) unauthorized or erroneous) debiting of funds by the Supplier and will not refund any amounts legally charged or pre-authorized by the Supplier (including prepayment, no-show or cancellation fees) on your card.”
I don’t know how Booking does this, bypassing EU legislation, but in Europe you cannot indicate one thing in the terms of service, but in fact act completely differently and, moreover, transfer personal data (in our case, card data) to third parties .
Agree, it’s nonsense: you find a hotel on Booking with a specific price, enter your card details there, and your card details are leaked to the hotel, which can easily withdraw any amount unauthorized, and no one is responsible for this, because this is written in the Booking rules!
Booking provides services for free
The most epic lie of Booking is the story that the site’s services are free, you can take the time to find the following in the site rules:
“Our Service is free for you because, unlike many other companies, we do not charge you for our Service and do not add additional charges(for making a reservation) to the cost."
Suppliers pay a commission(a small percentage of the price of a Booking.com product (e.g. room) after a user has used a product or service provided by a Supplier or a guest has stayed at the property (and paid for the stay)."
If the hotel pays a commission, how can the service be free? This commission is included in the cost of accommodation, and you cannot make a reservation without a commission, and if so, then this is definitely not a free service. And according to hoteliers who ask not to disclose their data, Booking’s commission is approximately 15-20% of the reservation. Agree, this is not such a small percentage, which Booking writes about on its website.
Booking does not have the lowest prices
Conclusion
With all its small marketing tricks, it is still unrivaled, and most often you have to book a hotel on this service. In his ideal world I would like the site to contain only reliable, honest data. Until this happens, be extremely careful when booking hotels, because even the most advanced travelers fall for these tricks. Well, keep in mind that in popular tourist destinations numbers in good hotels really sorted out six months in advance, for example, in Barcelona, Paris, Rome, New York or London.
I was criticized, saying that I should have called the call center, where they solve all problems.
And just a few days later I had a problem again.
I tried to book a hotel in Warsaw, when booking I noticed that this was the last available room of this category.
I press “Book” and a message pops up on the screen informing me that someone has beaten me to it and there are no more available rooms in this category and I am asked to start a new search.
After some time, I decided to enter the address into the navigator and again I went to Booking and saw there that I had two reservations. It turns out that the first hotel is also booked. And thus I have two active reservations for one date.
Hotel Rialto, which I was refused to book due to lack of available rooms, and Hotel Bristol, which I booked next.
Without delay, I call Booking support and ask them to solve this problem. I tell you how it all happened, they recommended that I cancel my reservation at the Bristol Hotel, since it was my second reservation. I’m trying to explain that I didn’t make the first reservation, or rather tried to make it, but was rejected by the system and it would be more logical to cancel what was booked by mistake, without my knowledge.
To this, operator Dmitry assures me that there were no failures in the system. Then I realize that I am in a stupid situation, and later I find out that the Rialto Hotel (which I booked by mistake) has already written off the entire amount from me and again I call the support service.
Dmitry tells me that if the money has already been debited, then there is 0 chance of getting it back and recommends blocking the card to avoid being debited from the Bristol Hotel. Afterwards, Dmitry asks for time to contact the Bristol Hotel and ask them to make a free cancellation. After a while, I find out that it was possible to cancel, but the penalty for cancellation will be 100% and if I do not reset the card, then 35,000 rubles will be written off from me.
Of course, I cancel the card and ask that they try to solve my problem in a less radical way, since logically I’m just throwing money at the hotel and the exact hotel that I booked.
Upon arrival at the Rialto Hotel, we are informed that the rooms in the reserved category have run out, but they are ready to upgrade to a premium suite. This once again confirms the fact that the reservation was made due to a system error.
Upon arrival in Moscow, attempts are made to write off money from my empty card, an amount of 35,000 rubles, a fine for canceling a reservation at the Bristol Hotel, which I have not been to.
I call Booking again and ask them to solve this problem, since I’m waiting for a transfer to the card and it’s more than the amount of the fine. Booking promises to call me back and disappears. I didn't hear them again.
I go to Sberbank and reissue the card.
I don’t know yet whether the Bristol Hotel will continue to pursue me to write off the fine. But now I know for sure that Booking is completely unprepared to solve customer problems, especially those that occurred due to a failure in the application.
It’s good that the card is a debit card and has no overdraft, otherwise I would not have been able to avoid being written off. So think before you link your credit cards. And when you link debit accounts, try not to keep large sums of money on them, as failures can occur. And then it will be difficult for you to prove something.
How would you solve this problem if you encountered something similar?
As a result, I unlinked all the cards from the booking and am not sure that by linking a new one, they will not try to charge me a fine for canceling the reservation again. For now I will use the Agoda application, although it also belongs to Booking.
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06.02.18 116 478 3
Who at the hotel knows your card details?
Six months ago I traveled around the USA and last hotel I booked using a friend's American card.
Irina Nikolaeva
travels a lot
The hotel found it suspicious that the room was booked by one person and paid for by another. To confirm that everything was ok, we had to indicate in special form all card data, down to the CVV code.
I was sure that only scammers ask for CVV, so I called the hotel. The conversation with the hotel operator dragged on, she was tired of explaining and said angrily: “Well, in short, enter the numbers 578 in this field.” It was CVV bank card, which we entered an hour ago on Booking.
This is how I found out that Booking transfers all bank card data to hotels. I’ll tell you what else I found out about booking hotels and how I now protect my money.
The best protection for money is an additional card
In any unclear situation, pay and indicate the details of the additional card. Apply it to your main account, set a limit and relax.
Set the limit to how much you are willing to spend on a hotel. When the card is not needed, set a limit of 10 RUR.
If scammers get your card details and try to cash out, they won't be able to withdraw anything, and you'll receive an SMS.
Additional card is free. To be completed via Internet Banking.
How Booking works
Most of the client’s booking actions take place on the Booking website. Therefore, clients sometimes believe that they “booked a hotel from Booking”, “paid to Booking”. This is wrong. At Booking, two independent entities meet - the hotel and the client.
The hotel sets the cost and other conditions of stay, is responsible for the correctness and relevance of this data and receives information about the reservation from Booking. It is the hotel, and not Booking, that confirms the reservation, corresponds with the client about the conditions, reschedules or cancels the stay and accepts payment. Booking only provides a platform and tools for interaction between the hotel and the client.
Why does the hotel need your card?
If you don't want to pay right away, the concept of a "booking guarantee" comes into play. The hotel promises to provide you with a room in exchange for your promise to pay for the room.
The hotel's guarantee is supported by its business reputation and the Booking reservation system. The client's honest word, unfortunately, is not enough to guarantee.
If the client changes his mind and forgets to inform about the cancellation of the reservation, the room will remain empty and the hotel will not receive a profit. Therefore, hoteliers want to receive a financial guarantee: if the client cancels the reservation after the specified date, he will have to pay a fine.
To be able to collect a fine, the hotel needs your bank card information. Booking provides this data to the hotelier immediately at the time of booking.
Who knows your details
When you enter your card details on the website, Booking transmits them via an encrypted protocol - if an attacker intercepts them, he will not be able to read them. The vulnerability occurs when your data is received by a hotel.
Booking provides two-factor authentication for access to Personal Area hotel: only an authorized hotel employee can see the client’s data. Theoretically, he should only withdraw or freeze the amount due under the terms of the booking and cannot use the card data for other purposes. As a result, the fate of the money on your card depends only on the decency and responsibility of this employee.
In the agreement between the hotel and Booking, the hotel undertakes to process card data in accordance with the payment card industry data security standard. However, the contract does not stipulate either verification methods or sanctions for violating the safety standard.
If a hotel carelessly stores printed reservations, for example leaving them at the front desk, then card data may become available not only to hotel employees, but also to other guests. If, a couple of months after your trip, someone in China buys a bike with your card, you won’t even immediately understand where the attacker got your data from.
At the moment when the hotelier saves your data to his computer or prints it out, Booking declines responsibility.
How to book a hotel safely
If you do not want to transfer your card details to the hotel, you can do without it. I'll tell you about several methods that I tried.
Independent prepayment to the hotel. There are advertisements on Booking with the note “You can make a reservation without credit card" To find them, select the “Reservation without a credit card” filter from the menu on the left.
To guarantee your reservation, the hotel will offer to make a bank transfer, PayPal transfer or to a bank card. The reservation will only be confirmed upon receipt of such advance payment.
The advantage of this method is that the hotel will not recognize your card details.
Personal agreement. In some cases, in correspondence with the hotel it is possible to keep the reservation without financial guarantees. After my letter, two guest houses in the Seychelles agreed to keep a room for me without prior transfers or freezing money.
Such a concession is a right, not an obligation of the hotel. If the hotelier has already encountered dishonest or unnecessary guests, he may refuse to book a room for another tourist without prepayment.
Separate card for booking. I chose this method because this way I don’t have to perform unnecessary actions every time and enter into correspondence with hotels. At the same time, I am completely confident in the safety of the money on the main card.
Before booking a room, I transfer the required amount to a separate bank card and make sure that there is no money left on it after the trip. Even if my data is obtained by an attacker, my savings will remain safe. I only use this card for hotel bookings.
The main thing in 30 seconds
Immediately after booking, Booking transfers to the hotel all the bank card details you entered. Even CVV, if you specified it.
This occurs regardless of the terms of payment and cancellation of the reservation. Even if the hotel does not withdraw or block your money, all your card data immediately appears at its disposal.
Access to card data is available to authorized hotel employees. If they neglect security rules, an attacker may find out the card details.
It is possible to book a hotel without a card, but this does not work with every hotel and will require more transactions than paying with a card.
A smart way to protect your money is to use a separate card for booking.
(archive) / GreeceCanceled. Contacted booking, they sent a fax to the hotel with an explanation and a request not to fine. The hotel did not answer their fax, but quickly began to try to charge me money- 600 euro penalty for late cancellation. I'm calling again booking, they got through to the hotel, but neither which one do not agree to forgive the fine. Between cancellations... . The card is a debit card, it can only be replenished from a bank deposit when I want to deposit it on it money. Booking advised me to reissue the card and was like, “then there won’t be any problems.” Have you talked to your...? Can they How- write off a fine if there are no funds on the card? The hotel is small - apartments - do they have which-opportunities to get at any cost money? 600 euros, so...
Brook... once I talked to booking asking them to contact the hotel and explain the situation to them. At the same time I reported booking that the card was blocked. We contacted, talked, the hotel agreed not to try again write off money, but I didn’t really understand the motives. According to the employee booking- "we said that your card is blocked." After booking sent me official letter, in which he notified that the hotel would no longer try to rent money. Hope...
