Booking.com refund

thevinylword

Hi all,



Wondering if you've any advice on the below:


Booked a holiday to Lisbon for this Sunday for four nights. Ryanair cancelled our flights and have offered full refund. However, the accommodation are saying that as we booked on a no-cancellation booking they will not be refunding us.



I emailed them to appeal that these are exceptional circumstances but they just offered to book for later in the year - but this apartment will not be available, they'll try look for a different one for us and the price probably won't be the same. Obviously we can't commit to any date in the future until all this is over.



Booking.com are no help, they're just telling us talk to the apartment owner via their site and I gather people are having awful trouble getting in touch with them.



I haven't officially requested a cancellation yet, I wanted to talk to the owner of the apartment to see if they'd do the decent thing but it doesn't appear they want to. Plus I was afraid if I requested the cancellation and they said no that'd be that.



Any advice on what to do next?

thevinylword

Here was their most recent message -

"Thank you for your message and for the update.

We are truly sorry to hear that you might not be our guests.

Please rest assured that we are well aware of the current unpleasant
situation with the virus infections around the world and we truly
understand your point.

There was a change in the cancellation policy considering the
circumstances, which allows free cancellation for reservations made by
travelers from non-EU, non-Schengen and non-UK citizens, with a
check-in date between 16 March 2020 and 17 April 2020 (including). As
you are traveling from an EU area, we are obliged to follow the
cancellation policy of your reservation, which unfortunately means that
you will be charged the total amount of your reservation if you cancel
anytime.

This is why instead of fully canceling your reservation, we would like
to present you the opportunity of postponing it for later this year -
the autumn for example. Hopefully, the situation will be improved by
then and no travel restrictions will be applied.

We are looking forward to hearing back from you regarding which option
suits you better."

cooperguy

thevinylword wrote: »

circumstances, which allows free cancellation for reservations made by
travelers from non-EU, non-Schengen and non-UK citizens, with a
check-in date between 16 March 2020 and 17 April 2020 (including).

You are a traveller from a non-schengen region. They may not realise Ireland fits that category. So try that argument (and hope they don't insist that all 3 categories are met). Otherwise there's not much you can do.

thevinylword

cooperguy wrote: »

You are a traveller from a non-schengen region. They may not realise Ireland fits that category. So try that argument (and hope they don't insist that all 3 categories are met). Otherwise there's not much you can do.

Hey, thanks for the advice, appreciate it - I tried that and they said that we are EU so we don't meet the requirements for free cancellation. Is that our goose cooked?


I just find it insane that flights cancelled, Ireland on lockdown, Lisbon on lockdown, they offer rebooking (but not in that apartment, and probably not for same price elsewhere) and they're still able to hang on to our money.



I know it's only a couple of hundred quid but I'm unable to work/earn from the two jobs I used have so that money would put food on the table for a few weeks.

bigar

Why do you not call the hotel directly? All you seem to be doing is contacting the hotel through the booking.com platform, which is not very personal.
I had a non-refundable hotel in Berlin through booking.com and got a "no" on my request to cancel. I called the hotel directly and when I explained the situation, was given a full refund.

cannotlogin

Ring booking.com - they told me they have a covid protection policy and will work with the hotel to get me a full refund.

cannotlogin

Just an update...

I had 4 non refundable bookings via booking.com.

All 4 have now been refunded.
One hadn't charged me yet and won't.
Two returned immediately via booking.com wallet
Final one should be refunded to creditcard within 5-7 days.

Phone their Dublin office, nothing else worked for me.

Caranica

Yeah I finally got a refund at the weekend. Took from 10 March but refund at last.

.G.

Whats their Dublin office number? I've a non refundable one for April 30th that the hotel won't entertain a refund on.

cannotlogin

It's 01-9075882

Very short waiting time.

Just explain that given the circumstances you are unlikely to travel abroad for the foreseeable future so not in a position to accept a rebooking or a voucher.

You will need to have your confirmation number and pin number to hand and also have evidence you have been charged. They accepted photos of my banking app. All of my bookings were in Europe and all the countries have confirmed lockdown until a date after my planned stay.

.G.

Thanks. My dates are during our own lockdown. I'm due home on May 4th, ours ends May 5th. I'd be happy to take a voucher to be honest as I want to visit this place at some point but they are being completely unreasonable about things.

.G.

Spoke to them there, my trip is to Portugal whose lockdown doesn't currently cover my dates so until it does they can't force the hotel to deviate from their cancellation policy. Their lockdown is supposed to be extended this weeks so just have to wait and see if it is.

cannotlogin

.G. wrote: »

Spoke to them there, my trip is to Portugal whose lockdown doesn't currently cover my dates so until it does they can't force the hotel to deviate from their cancellation policy. Their lockdown is supposed to be extended this weeks so just have to wait and see if it is.

I was in the same position until last week so hopefully you'll get the same result in time.

If that doesn't work, contact your bank and request a chargeback on you card, with evidence of all correspondence& that Portugal is on lockdown for those dates. If there is anything on the hotel's website at that time stating they are closed send that too. It will take between 30-45 days but you will get the funds back.

.G.

Yeah I'm watching the hotel website too, chargeback is the plan if they don't see sense. Hopefully the lockdown covers it and I can get it sorted that way. Thanks for the help.

.G.

Just an update, Portuguese lockdown is now extended to May 2nd which covers my dates but the Hotel still won't refund even though they won't be open or able to provide me my room even if I was able to travel. Booking say they can do nothing without agreement of the hotel.

I'll try a card chargeback and see but otherwise I'm out of luck!

cannotlogin

.G. wrote: »

Just an update, Portuguese lockdown is now extended to May 2nd which covers my dates but the Hotel still won't refund even though they won't be open or able to provide me my room even if I was able to travel. Booking say they can do nothing without agreement of the hotel.

I'll try a card chargeback and see but otherwise I'm out of luck!

Very strange. I spoke to a lady called Melody who was amazing. She told me booking.com have a Covid protection policy, was this mentioned to you at all?

Afterwards I got an email from booking.com re one of the hotels which said "the accommodation was unable to offer a satisfactory solution for your booking, so we have referred this to our specialised team".

Within 24 hours, I had a refund.

.G.

cannotlogin wrote: »

Very strange. I spoke to a lady called Melody who was amazing. She told me booking.com have a Covid protection policy, was this mentioned to you at all?

Afterwards I got an email from booking.com re one of the hotels which said "the accommodation was unable to offer a satisfactory solution for your booking, so we have referred this to our specialised team".

Within 24 hours, I had a refund.

No nothing mentioned. I did this over chat in the app just now so I'll be calling them tomorrow. I figured it'd be straight forward since they are in lockdown and can't open!

Since I finished the chat I went on to the hotel website and from there to their parent website on which is a very clear statement that they have changed their cancellation policy for all bookings up to May 31st to now include free cancellation or postponement so the hotel themselves are breaking their own parent company rule!

.G.

A final update. I sent an irate email directly to the hotel linking them to the notice on their own bloody website and sent the same to booking.com. 5 minutes later I had an email from booking.com apologising sincerely for the confusion and saying the hotel has now cancelled and refunded my money!

Persevering pays!

cannotlogin

.G. wrote: »

A final update. I sent an irate email directly to the hotel linking them to the notice on their own bloody website and sent the same to booking.com. 5 minutes later I had an email from booking.com apologising sincerely for the confusion and saying the hotel has now cancelled and refunded my money!

Persevering pays!

Delighted for you. Knew there couldn't be different rules for both of us!

thevinylword

My saga is still ongoing - apartment refusing to refund in all correspondence, offering us a new booking in a future date. Rang booking.com, they tried ringing the owners while I was on the call, no answer. Said they'd email the apartment.

The apartment get back to me two days later, saying they've had no contact from booking.com (a lie), there'll be no refund and if we choose a different apartment and a future date by the end of the day they'll book us in. An hour later they put us down as a no-show thus not allowing us to contact them via the messaging service on booking.com!

I asked booking.com via Twitter to pass a message on about us booking a future date but no answer back.

Rang booking.com again today and back to the same rigmarole - they're going to ask them to give us a refund or find a different date for us.

To be honest, even if they were to tell us we're booked in for next year, I'd be worried about that booking when the time comes that they'll find some other way to shaft us.

It's bananas - even if I was able to magically take my flight, Lisbon is in lockdown so I wouldn't be allowed travel to the apartment.

We had a non refundable apartment booked for Lisbon from 27-30 th April.
Booking.com got in touch with us & offered us a refund. Very happy

wmpdd3

thevinylword wrote: »

My saga is still ongoing - apartment refusing to refund in all correspondence, offering us a new booking in a future date. Rang booking.com, they tried ringing the owners while I was on the call, no answer. Said they'd email the apartment.

The apartment get back to me two days later, saying they've had no contact from booking.com (a lie), there'll be no refund and if we choose a different apartment and a future date by the end of the day they'll book us in. An hour later they put us down as a no-show thus not allowing us to contact them via the messaging service on booking.com!

I asked booking.com via Twitter to pass a message on about us booking a future date but no answer back.

Rang booking.com again today and back to the same rigmarole - they're going to ask them to give us a refund or find a different date for us.

To be honest, even if they were to tell us we're booked in for next year, I'd be worried about that booking when the time comes that they'll find some other way to shaft us.

It's bananas - even if I was able to magically take my flight, Lisbon is in lockdown so I wouldn't be allowed travel to the apartment.

Ring Booking.com again and tell them you are making a claim for refund under Force Majeue due to travel restriction in your country and in Portugal.
For some strange reason BDC is only doing automatic refunds for non EU citizens and Spanish and Italian who booked in Portugal for during the lockdown. No idea why. Buy keep pushing because they are doing blanket refunds for Ireland within lockdown period.

Does your bank statement say 'booking.com' or the hotel name? The reason I ask is, its easier to get a refund if it says booking.com because that means that BDC handle the payments for the hotel and they dont relase that money to the hotel until the 15th of May so can dip into it easily otherwise they would 'request' the hotel to refund you which is harder.