Everyone is all worked up about Hostelworld but how come I don't see people pushing back on booking.com. We signed up with them this past fall and they are really awful to work with...they insist on writing the content - which i'm convinced is being written by college interns - you can't get all the room designations right - they insist on listing one of our dorms as an 'quad room' which makes it sound like someone is booking entire room for $35 - and they are bullies, bullies, bullies on billing.
Now, they just enacted, in the USA at least, a new 'option' whereby a guest can make a last minute booking without a credit card. This 'option' automatically opted everyone IN. Supposedly they notified us on the back end...yeah... I found it but in the Contact Us section - who looks there for a message FROM booking.com? ...oh, and they only posted it for one of our cities, not all three - yet all three cities were opted in.
We only found out about this new feature because, yeah - a guest no showed and there was no credit card number on file.
They charge a minimum of 15% , don't take down reviews and are really high on their horse so to speak trying to tell us how to run our business..and you can't make a billing mistake at all - no money back if you are overcharged... why don't i see complaints about them?
BTW...in hostelworld's defense, yeah they raised the price for the first time in 10 years to 12%, but they raised the hotels to 15%....perhaps they should have communicated that to the hostels.
10 years
I think one of the reasons people are upset at HW is that they purchased HB claiming it would 'create more competition'. Barely after the merger, they put the percentage up. If HW had not purchased HB, what were the chances of them putting commission up? They might have put their service fee up to the customer, and this is probably the next thing they will do now - increase the service fee.
10 years
Yes I understand your argument but going into a contract with Booking.com you already knew they charge 15%.
We also know that they have bad service and there new backend message service is clearly a way to reduction to number of interactions between us as their customer and them.
I used work with a service company that made some changes to their website to reduce the amount of contact and it really does work.
Anyway what can happen in regards the two commission differences is in the future b and bs will start listing as hostels or Hostelworld will more than likely increase us to 15% as all properties have to be inline.
10 years
No argument here – from a hostel perspective Booking.com is just plain lousy all around.
I think most hostels who signed up with them were willing to suck it up and accept a 15% commission because Booking is a hotel site rather than a hostel site. Some hostels only listed their private rooms anyway. It was considered to be an alternative market; a source of supplemental bookings to compliment our already stable business from our own websites and from hostel-specific booking sites. Booking was just supposed to be the cherry on top of the cake, not the staple ingredient.
Now those sites that we all thought were hostel-specific have declared their intention to pursue hotels at our expense. As such they have adopted a higher commission and justified it by saying that they have to compete with Booking.
Hostels don’t like Booking any better than HW/HB, but they don’t feel like they have been betrayed by Booking in the same way as HW/HB.
10 years
I think guests like the convenience of booking on a site they are familiar with. I know sometimes we do it ourselves when we travel, even though we know about the fees.
OTAs all seem to operate the same way and unless someone comes up with a better solution, it is all we have now.
Try contacting one of them to get some text changed and it can take months - don't pay a bill and they are sending you emails/calling you everyday!
I thought the internet was supposed to do away with agents and middle men. I am sure there is a huge business opportunity out there for someone who can solve the problem.
10 years
I hate Booking.com too
One of the many reasons is they charge my bank account for them commission instead of guests (so for example, in case of no show I've to be ready and careful to cancel the reservation, if I forgot of doing it 15% commission will be charged, and after that it will be not so easy get money back).
And they don't make me always know which guests made reviews so I can't understand when and about what my business have been not appreciated (in fact if the review is bad it is not so easy understand what didn't work because guests often write bad reviews following emotional and feelings point of views, they are not always so objective; knowing who and when help a lot).
My clear impression is Booking.com don't take care of hotel/hostel owners, they want only our money, they are bullies.
They take care only of guests.
excuse my English
10 years
Thanks for all the feedback. Let me respond to all at once.
I really still don't get why people feel 'betrayed'. Hostelworld is in business and businesses raise prices over time. While i'm none too pleased either about adding every crap hotel on the planet, nor am I happy about hotels listing as hostels...they've never discriminated on hostels either, allowing hostels to remain listed that are actually lower rated than the limit stated on their contract. So is the feeling more about adding hotels or about the price increase? I think it's kinda short term thinking to not expect them to raise prices after they were bought by the Capital Venture company. They truly ceased to be the original company when that happened.
Now booking.com. I don't see anyone lobbying to protest them. They are impossible to work with. Like Kungfusion stated above, they are quick to harass if a bill is late but it's a constant fight to get them to write a coherent and sales oriented description. I've fought with my reps (and I have to deal with 3) over and over to get my listing to make sense. I'm absolutely convinced the editors are college interns. They won't take down completely off the wall reviews and yet i'm constantly being told they want to 'partner' with us. I've made it my mission to educate my reps here about the differences between a hostel and hotel.
BTW Kungfusion - we refused to allow them to debit our account. We send them a check. They will tell you debit is the way it has to be, but that is not true. We refused to sign up until we got our way on this.
I had no idea what we were getting into with them. And they are cannibalizing sales from our website and hostelworld. I haven't been able to convince our owner of this yet, but i'm trying... they are even haunting me now on my own personal facebook page...they are just an internet monster. Okay, got that off my chest.
So...anyone want to venture the mood at the hostelworld conference this year? i'll be going.
10 years
From Ria:
Now booking.com. I don't see anyone lobbying to protest them. They are impossible to work with. Like Kungfusion stated above, they are quick to harass if a bill is late but it's a constant fight to get them to write a coherent and sales oriented description. I've fought with my reps (and I have to deal with 3) over and over to get my listing to make sense. I'm absolutely convinced the editors are college interns.
They told me that they have a professional team of editors in Amsterdam who can describe my hostel better than I can. You would never know that they are describing my (or any!) hostel by reading the description though. They didn’t even get my hostel’s name right, and yet they still refuse to change it… Horrible!
So why do I still work with them? Because they target people with higher budgets - I only list my most expensive rooms that are the least likely to sell through my regular channels. Because every once in a while I get some extra cash from someone I wouldn’t have otherwise reached who wants to book one of those room. Because there is still some Billboard Effect from being listed on their site. And because I get so few bookings from them that I don’t have to care one way or the other, and I can walk away at any time without feeling any loss.
I really still don't get why people feel 'betrayed'. Hostelworld is in business and businesses raise prices over time. … So is the feeling more about adding hotels or about the price increase? I think it's kinda short term thinking to not expect them to raise prices after they were bought by the Capital Venture company. They truly ceased to be the original company when that happened.
To be sure! The company is left with no soul to be found today – only a cold hard cash register.
The feeling of betrayal is not just because of the commission increase or adding hotels, but because of a long string of actions that are all detrimental to hostels. The fact that they were once thought to be our partner (albeit long ago) as well as the leading booking site for our industry makes the culmination of these actions all the more painful for us. They have taken advantage of us plain and simple, and that hurts.
I’m sure that this is an incomplete list of their offenses, but in the recent past since the VCs took over HW has:
Every one of these actions was a wise move for a company like HW whose only goal is to increase short term profits in order to sell off the business to the highest bidder – which, of course, is the sole objective of their Venture Capital owners. But every one of these decisions also involved damaging the hostel industry and abusing their hostel partners – which HW was more than happy to do. Hence, the feeling of betrayal.
Incidentally, I'm thrilled that you'll be at the conference this year. I have a feeling it's going to be a fiasco.
10 years
Hi all, I'm new to here. I was just google-ing "I hate Booking.com" and found you.
I've only been with booking for less then a week now and I've already contacted them and asked to be removed. That hasn't happened yet so I've blocked 100% of my hostel's availability.
I was wondering if any of you are having the same problems I am with them.
It seems like everyday I get a reservation or two from Booking.com, so I'll make adjustments to my other reservation sites to accommodate Booking.com's reservations.
Now this is where the BS starts kicking in. The Booking.com's reservations will have the dates changed multiple times and then 70% (or more) of them will end up canceling the same day or a few days later.
Its too much headache for me to keep changing all my other sites availability for this BS. Not to mention that Booking.com charges more then any other sites and makes me send them their commission, unlike hostelworld's where they simply take it out themselves. I'm also not a fan of loosing thousands or $$ to either site.
Has anyone experienced this reservation problem?
I'm taking a wild stab in the dark here but do you think it could be Booking.com trying to show me lots of potential activity so they are backing reservations and checking the dates then finally canceling them? Maybe it sounded good to some board members to do this to new members. I have no idea but its a pain in my A** and I've decided to just end it asap with them.
I've also just be sent an email from a new booking site that looks like its going to be By Hostels & For Hostels. Meaning that we are in control of reservations and we get to make the 10% deposit from every reservation made at our hostel or by our hostel for a guest.
Have you any info on this new site? Has anyone else heard of it and used it?
Lets help this new site out and keep 100% of the reservation deposit. http://www.opentravelexchange.net
Any and all info is appreciated :-)
Blue skies
10 years
Welcome Salem to this forum.
In regards the booking.com issue I would advise to try the following.
Firstly maybe use a channel manager to connect all the OTAs you are with. This will reduce the workload.
Put a 10% cancellation fee on bookings from booking.com
This will reduce your cancellations with them.
Add the commission on. If you are paying 15% commission have your base price on your website and add 15% on to this for the booking.com price.
At least you still get visibility with them but you dont lose if they book through them.
Yes I am also connected with opentravelexchange.
10 years
…do you think it could be Booking.com trying to show me lots of potential activity so they are backing reservations and checking the dates then finally canceling them? Maybe it sounded good to some board members to do this to new members.
Booking is too big to spend their time on this. There’s no money in it for them. It’s more likely because Booking lets people reserve without any payment and cancel without any penalty, so they have nothing to lose by changing or cancelling their reservation. A lot of people know about this and use Booking to secure fake reservations in order to get a visa. Frequently they don’t even have the courtesy to cancel, they just don’t show up.
As John suggested, adding a cancellation fee may greatly reduce the number of people who waste your time, and including their commissions in the price will prevent you from losing money on any bookings that you do get through them.
Whether it’s even worth working with Booking or not is debatable. If you have already cut your ties, then wash your hands of them and walk away happy.
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