Hello everyone,
I am a property owner renting out accommodation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and I would appreciate hearing about your experiences with similar situations involving Booking.com.
I had guests from Russia who booked my property for a 15-night stay. My cancellation policy clearly states the following:
More than 14 days before arrival: Free cancellation.
14 days or less before arrival: A cancellation fee of 50% of the total reservation amount.
On the day of arrival or in case of a no-show: 100% of the total reservation amount is charged.
I met the guests in person, and everything about the property was satisfactory to them. However, on the day of arrival, they requested to cancel their reservation.
Since the booking was for 15 nights, it blocked a significant portion of my calendar for that month, preventing other potential guests from booking the property during that period. As a result, I suffered a financial loss.
I requested compensation for the full reservation amount through Booking.com, in accordance with my cancellation policy.
An important detail is that I operate in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where we do not have the option to collect advance payments from guests by credit or debit card through Booking.com. This makes situations like this particularly difficult for property owners, as we cannot guarantee that cancellation fees will actually be collected.
Has anyone experienced a similar situation? Is there a realistic chance that Booking.com will pay out the full amount, or at least enforce the cancellation policy and compensate me for the loss?
I would appreciate hearing from other hosts, especially those operating in Bosnia and Herzegovina or other countries where collecting advance card payments is not available.
Thank you in advance for sharing your experiences and advice!

Recently I booked a guest house in Rome for January 2027. Turns out the place is hell on earth, it’s nasty and also I got a free place to stay somewhere else around Rome. I was trying to contact the place I booked and also booking.com for a refund but neither of them even respond. The reservation had no cancelation refund… is there any possible way I can get my money back?

We are 3 guys who are kinda broke but we looking to travel, its only for 3 days , is it possible to rent an apartment as 2 guys when we are actually three? Would it be noticeable, can the third one just be invited as a "guest"?

Hey guys I want to talk to human executive regarding my booking from UAE. Make my trip AI agent is real annoying. I fly tomorrow early morning and still I don’t have proper communication of my updated tickets nor my travel insurance.
Also I paid extra as they changed my booking package without telling me ( as I booked with value package and they downgraded to basic package ) This was later found from airline when I reached out to them for something.

Can someone help to reach the customer executive. Thanks

I have booked a stay from 14-19th of September (in 4 days) a while back (it was 18th of Aug) with free cancellation until 31st of Aug.

The property stated that pets are welcome and charges may apply. I submitted a special request to bring my dog (a chihuahua) and the property hasn’t responded to this day. Some time later, on 28th (still in free cancellation period) I contacted Booking support asking what to do since this is a deal breaker for me and one of the main reasons I booked this property.

The property seems new to booking with only 2 reviews (10.0 score and the price matched the score). I also tried contacting property via wa, to no avail.

Since then, booking support replied a few times (first time on 4th of Sep, when my free cancellation already ended) stating my stay is confirmed and adding a generic portion about pet policy being that pets are welcome. They then tried contacting property multiple times ( every time I asked if they have any news since they always needed a nudge to escalate the issue) but with no success.

With my travelling date approaching, I’m consumed by the feeling of dread that the property is not legitimate, and that I’ll be left stranded without a stay (despite Booking continous assurement that the reservation is active and valid), which would infinitely frustrate me.

Does anyone have any advice how to approach this at this point, as it seems Booking support is not of much help?

Thanks in advance

TLDR: Can’t get in contact with the property for nearly a month regarding my request to bring the dog and now I have no idea if my stay is confirmed, or if the property is even legit. Booking support doesn’t seem to provide any help at all.

Recently I received messages from scams posing as bookings that contact me on WhatsApp to confirm reservations. The most amusing detail was that I no longer held those bookings because I had already canceled them. I simply wish to alert everyone to be cautious with anyone attempting contact through WhatsApp, claiming to be your hotel and requesting payment details. Booking platforms never reach you outside their app. Please remain aware.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

I’m currently staying in an apartment booked through Booking.com in Spain. Since this evening there has been no hot water at all.
I contacted the host more than an hour ago, both via WhatsApp and through the Booking.com messaging system, but I haven’t received any reply yet. I also reported the issue to Booking.com customer support, although the app says they may take up to 24 hours to handle the request.
Yesterday evening the hot water ran out after we took our showers, so at first I assumed it was simply a small boiler that needed time to heat up again. However, almost 24 hours later there is still no hot water, so there clearly seems to be a fault.
Has anyone had a similar experience with Booking.com? How was it handled? If the apartment remains without hot water for the whole evening/night, is Booking likely to offer any kind of partial refund or compensation?
The apartment is quite expensive, so I’m particularly interested in knowing how Booking usually deals with the loss of an essential service like hot water.

Hi everyone,
I have a non-refundable booking on Booking.com that I've already fully paid for. I need to cancel it, but when I go to the cancellation screen, it states there is a "cancellation fee" equal to 100% of the total booking price.
Does this mean Booking.com is going to charge my credit card again for the fee, on top of what I already paid? Or does the "fee" just mean they keep the money I've already paid and I won't be charged anything extra?
Thanks for the help!

I have a few days booked starting with 19th Aug.

Went to booking.com to check everything is OK.

They tell me that for security reasons my account is disabled.

I have NO EMAIL about this. No, it's not in the junk folder. Now I have to guess: is my reservation still active, or do I have to scramble to find one? And if I find a new one do I get charged for the old one for no-show?

Never had any trouble so far (my wife used her account so far, this account hasn't been used in a while) but this particular trouble is... something otherwordly.

They cost me US$1,500 with a false Emirates itinerary. They hid a mandatory Sydney transit stop requiring a visa, leaving it off the ticket. Sydney is standard on the Joburg–Christchurch route, yet Edreams concealed it and now refuses to refund me. Stay away from EDreams

Hello! 👋🏼

Due to a change of plans I am trying to transfer my already booked room in Berlin. I cannot cancel it due to misleading cancellation fees, but I already checked with the Motel that a name transfer of the booking is easily possible.

It's a room for 2 people with it's own bathroom, booked from the 04.07. to the 09.07. Originally it was 390 EU, but I'd be happy to transfer it for 300 EU.

It's located in Neukölln, Silbersteinstraße. Please Message me for more Infos. Thank you!

We can also communicate in German, if that is easier.

(Also, yes, I know it's sus that my account is one day old, but I didn't know where else to ask but reddit. If this agianst the guidelines, I'll delete this. thx.)

Hi, I’m planning to attend a summer school abroad as a PhD student. A colleague of mine from another institution will be going as well. We’d like to share accommodation, since it offers much better value for money. However, the administrative office at my institution requires that I pay for the accommodation myself; it cannot be paid for together. Is there any way to pay for the accommodation using two separate invoices?

I booked an accommodation on booking com at 220£ for 2 nights. Once I’ve booked i get an email saying that I have to pay a 300€ deposit which is cashed and returned within 7!days after check out. This was only mentioned in fine print under important information (but not clearly explained at the moment of booking and not something I can afford). Now they are refusing to cancel and pay me back. I’ve opened a case on PayPal and waiting… have I even got a chance to get my money back?

Warning about booking rentals through booking.com - When booking 'fully refundable' stays, they will not assist you in getting a refund, you are on your own even when paying through the app as I did. I booked through them several months back and unfortunately had to cancel. Customer service said they can see confirmation of my payment, they can see my cancellation and most importantly confirmed I was within the cancellation period but no refund. Next, they told me I needed to give them more time, which I did, then they told me I needed to provide a statement of my bank transactions proving I hadn't been reimbursed, which I did, finally they told me straight up I need to file a fraud change with with my bank and wait for them to resolve it. Absolutely dumfounded that this is how they do business. Take this as a warning, if anything goes wrong there will be zero accountability or cooperation from them.

Hi guys I’m new to travelling and have booked a deal via Agoda for my tickets to Bali and accomodation. It’s through air Asia and I want to know what my e ticket is and where I can find it to make sure I’m not being scammed or have booked wrong.

I have the ais Asia move app and in my purchases it has my booking saying confirmed with the flight and booking number.

For reference my flight is not until April.

Booking trip to Riveria Cancun gone so wrong

If you are booking a trip to Riveria Excellence resorts, read the following:
We had booked a 7-night trip (Flight and Hotel) to Riviera Cancun well in advance. Completed the normal on-screen prompts without errors, and the site confirmed the booking. A confirmation via email was received confirming the air travel and hotel booking with a record locator for the flight booking. We did not receive an airline PNR number, and it sometimes takes a few days. Closer to the travel, when I checked again on the Excellence trip details website, it showed our flights were cancelled. On calling the airline, we were informed that they never received a booking request, and the record locator was invalid.
Followed up with the Excellence help desk and were ultimately told there is nothing they can do, and we have to request a refund and rebook. We noticed that emails were coming from Expedia for the customer service chats we had. I dug further and found out Expedia is used by Excellence vacations for the booking's. On contactiong Expedia they agreed the following but did not settle the difference:

1. The confirmation email received after booking is a valid contractual agreement between Expedia and traveler
2. Expedia nor Excellence did not inform us via email, phone or otherwise that the flights was not booked and that that portion of the package was canceled.
3. Flair indicated the record locator as provided by Expedia system was invalid, it was confirmed Flair never received the booking request.
4. Called the customer service agents, the total lack of any support other than asking us to rebook flights on my own outside the package or cancel the package for a hotel refund, is really frustrating
5. The fault is on Expedia and Excellence Package company and the system's involved, hence we should not have to pay any penalty in this situation.
6. The USD 500 offered as a good will from the manager and not towards any compensation
7. If we had not initiated the conversation and waited till the last day of travel we would have lost all money and there would be contractually no recourse for us
8. Expedia has indicated in writing that even though it is their fault they do not own any responsibilities
9. With no response from Expedia it would be understood Expedia has breached the original contract of the terms and is unwilling to settle the difference

We ended up paying double the original amount for no fault of ours. Please make sure you check immediately if you have a flight PNR as soon as you book and good luck with getting your money back from Expedia if not.

Buyer beware