DEAR TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER: I prepaid for two nights in a hotel through Booking.com. But when I arrived, an employee said their confirmation system was down, and there was no record of the reservation or an ability to accept any reservations from Booking.com. So, I was unable to use this reservation.

Christopher Elliott, the Travel Troubleshooter 

I immediately contacted Booking.com and asked for a refund. The company asked for information about my reservation, which I sent. It’s been weeks since I asked for my money back, and I’ve repeatedly asked Booking.com about my refund. No one is answering. Can you help me get my $125 back?

— Justin Baribeau, Wickliffe, Ohio

ANSWER: You should have received an immediate refund from Booking.com — not a runaround.

I checked with Booking.com, and it says it experienced a system error when you tried to check in. This means that the hotel couldn’t see your reservation and couldn’t accept any new reservations from Booking.com, so calling the company and asking it to help wouldn’t have worked.

But your case brings up a question my advocacy team and I get from time to time: “What do you do if your hotel ‘loses’ your reservation?” If it’s a direct booking, you need to resolve it with the hotel right then and there. And fortunately, this almost always works.

If you made the reservation through a third party, like a travel agent or an online travel site, you’ll need to lean on them to make this right. I would have phoned Booking.com right away and asked it to find you a different hotel at the same rate. It could (and should) have done this.

It looks like you took matters into your own hands when the hotel fell through and found overnight accommodations on your own. This is fine, but Booking.com still should have refunded you quickly. I reviewed the paper trail between you and the company, and it looks like it wanted you to fill out lots of forms and wait for an answer. Come on! The refund should have been automatic and immediate.

If this ever happens to you again, you’ll want to appeal to one of the Booking.com executive contacts I publish on my consumer advocacy site, Elliott.org. Remember to keep a thorough record of your communication in writing to avoid any misunderstandings.

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I contacted Booking.com on your behalf. The company investigated your reservation problem and acknowledged that it was “due to a system error.” But the representative also suggested that Booking.com might have been able to fix the problem sooner.

“As always, we encourage customers to reach out to us to address any of their booking questions or concerns,” she added.

Christopher Elliott is the founder of Elliott Advocacy, a nonprofit organization that helps consumers solve their problems. Email him at [email protected] or get help by contacting him at elliottadvocacy.org/help/.
(c) 2025 Christopher Elliott
Distributed by King Features Syndicate, Inc.

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