They certainly use nefarious UX patterns like “10 people just booked this location!!” But I’ve always found the “free cancellation by” dates to be reliable.
On the other hand, booking hotels directly is an absolute nightmare of interfacing with whatever broken systems the underfunded “IT” departments of said hotel have bolted on. At that point you might as well just call the front desk and wait 20 mins to be transferred to 3 different people.
When they don't tell you to book from booking.com directly...
Booking.com has made hotel reservation much easier.
The only problems we had with booking.com is that they give you no protection whatsoever. One case, the hotel clearly gamed the reviews and posted false info. It was so bad that we had to leave. But we were still charged the full amount, and booking.com just stood aside.
Just recently, my wife booked a hotel in Tel-Aviv. The hotel charged her card twice (booking.com seemed to have passed the card info to the hotel). We cancelled, and still waiting for the refund/release of the funds. Booking.com does nothing to help. We have to bounce between the unhelpful hotel and the slow-as-hell bank/credit card company.
OT: but are there any banks or credit card companies in Germany that actually help you when you're in this situation or need a chargeback? it seems like the low card fees in EU means much worse customer service compared to the US, or is it just my wishful thinking?
In my experience the Sparkasse is pretty decent, but since they're regional institutions YMMV.
> it seems like the low card fees in EU means much worse customer service compared to the US, or is it just my wishful thinking?
We just don't have much credit card usage since SEPA-ELV works pretty well. SEPA Direct Debit stuff you can chargeback at almost all institutions via online banking or self-service ATMs, credit card depends on your institution.
Draw your own conclusions here.
I’m not sure sales tax excluded from prices is a matter of vigilance if it’s a nearly-universal national norm. It’s a bit like someone from the US complaining about being charged for bottled water at a restaurant in Spain after assuming they’d receive free tap water.
To me personally it's weird. I come to shop with $5 but I don't know what I can actually buy...
The obvious exception is for marketplaces that sell to other markets. For instance, the prices on Amazon.de (Germany) change if a Swiss shipping address is entered due to the different VAT rate.
I hate to stereotype but I've found Germans in my experience to take particular offense to this practice. I'm married to someone from the UK and British people complain about this as well but probably only 1/10 as much. I feel like if I asked most Germans their least favorite thing about the US this is would be the MOST common response. I don't get it.
You may be fine with it if you live there and have learned to instinctively add 9% - but to a foreign traveler, one doesn't even know what percent they should add! _Of course_ it's annoying.
P.S. I am not German.
edited to add: It's just like the insane tipping culture in US. If you don't tip, somehow _you_ are the monster. It's not a problem that restaurants don't pay a living wage, it's not a problem that they don't even have to pay the minimum legal wage (!!!) - no, the problem is not with America. It's with the monsters that don't tip, because how else are those poor servers going to survive? Basically, when you look at the price in a US menu, you have to remember that the real price is at least 130% of that. And somehow, americans seem to be fine with it, and consider that it's the foreigners that are the oddballs here.
Do note, I don't have a problem with tipping, and I do tip even in my country, quite generously so sometimes (e.g. 50% at barbershops because I feel their prices are just too low, and also the person providing the service is actually doing most of the work too). But I don't like being forced to do it. It's one thing to tip as a sign of "thank you, good job!"; and it's a completely different feeling to tip as "here, this will give you something to eat this month"
Are there "service charges" too? :)
Either this or the Imperial units.
A few percent higher prices aren't as much of a deal when paying with credit card, the transaction works exactly the same, but when paying cash, it might look very different (up to "don't actually have enough with me. oops.")
That's kinda funny to hear, as these hilarious comedy clips have been some of the most popular on YouTube the last months:
German Learns about U.S. Sales Tax - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CYokP6YIKw
German learns about Tipping in the U.S. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEQhA-JJlH0
Both are worth a watch, just 1 min each.
The "only x room left with these conditions" false claim is used also in the EU.
As it is a lie, it should not be allowed.
When you go to the hotel website instead, you see plenty of rooms left and sometimes with a nice offer.
Edit: It might have gotten better since, but I still remember all those sad/defeated/angry faces of people who had booked trough Booking.com that I had to send away / find alternative hotels for because we were full. Back then when.
Beware, Marion had a higher price after I visited trivago
Source: American expat in Europe.
Well, I don't know what to tell you. For instance, in the US you have 24 hours to cancel a flight booking for any reason if booked more than 7 days out. In Europe, you might get a 4 hour window if you're lucky, but often times not (especially with the vicious European LCCs).
Quality of life is highest in most respects there, but only really so long as you're happy to go along with things and not rock the boat. Get paid well, enjoy the contryside, but know your place were the vibes I got ha.
For the first 6 months, the legal assumption is that any defect was present at purchase which means - in practice - you can return pretty much any defective item no questions asked.
What did you want to return and could not?
Back when I was in the US, I could have bought a wetvac from a major chain store, shampoo my carpets, then returned it for a full refund. It would have been a fully functioning item that I gained beneficial use from, but the store would still take the used item back and return all my money.
This comes with a huge caveat. It’s a semi-official store policy, but not a legally binding requirement. If the manager doesn’t like you, then you’re on your own. Granted, the manager doesn’t care that much, because they’re just going to put the used wetvac and sell it to someone else. That person might discover that I broke the unit and they legitimately can’t use it. However, if they don’t have the same magic sprinkles I have (e.g. a title, a midwestern accent, white skin), the store might decide not to give them a refund, even though I’m the one that broke the appliance in the first place.
Since leaving the US, I haven’t had a store try to unload used merchandise on me and I like that I don’t have to put on a performance to get a refund on faulty items, but I’ve encountered other expats who found it a culture shock.
Most instances were in Switzerland as I mentioned, although a few were in the EU. Some weren't defective items but rather unneeded items. Returns based on changing one's mind, even if the item is in unused condition and remains re-sellable, seems to not be a "thing" in at least several European countries whereas American consumers typically expect these consumer protections not by law but by convention.
Another electronic device was defective, and even after selecting this in the online purchase return form I was charged a restocking fee despite returning the item within a few weeks of purchase. Not budging on this and refunding the fee would be unheard of for any serious US retailer.
As far as conventions go, I check some larger retailers from Europe, like Zalando, and they offer a 100 day return policy [1] by convention.
Maybe Switzerland is the outlier here?
[1] https://en.zalando.de/faq/Returns-and-Refunds/About-our-100-...
By contrast, in the US it all depends on store policy and, apparently, luck. I had some pretty bad customer experiences in the US, and there was nothing I could do then.
For example, this whole Saga on GamersNexus (check other videos) is a good indicator that the US system may not be perfect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fnXsmXzphI
As Steve says in the video, in the US you have no recourse. There's no law. The shop in question didn't feel like being "nice" and the person is out of 500$. For Steve, this amounts to a scam, but the burden of proof is on him. For specifically this reason, the EU has a law that says otherwise.
In practice some stores do accept returns if you have a receipt, but personally I have never done that, didn't know it was even an option before an expat was asking about this online. The default is to sell forward in online second hand marketplaces. Especially gifts you receive, those are never returned (as apparently happens in the US said that expat).
On my first trip to the USA (traveling from South Africa), Travelstart managed to somehow inject the word "DOCUMENT" into my name that was on the tickets.
So my name e.g. "JOHN DOE" became "JOHN DOCUMENT DOE". At the customs/border control in Atlanta they noted that my ticket's name didn't correspond to my passport, which was actually a huge problem. Luckily they eventually let me into the country because the TSA agent was super friendly and "vouched" - which is bizarre on its own.
Needless to say, I always order tickets directly from the airliner now.
> incompatible with the law
This is amazing.
A much better -- and honest -- defense would have been to state that it wasn't against the law when written, because the law didn't go into effect until January 2020, and the press release was from December 2019, and they would become in compliance within the six months as agreed to.
I never, and I mean never, got the genius welcome cocktail they always advertised for. No hotel ever heard of that
They should have the power to fine a firm that's found to not actually be checking whether other people are online, whether a hotel is actually empty, etc.
So, if booking.com cannot guarantee the very basics, why should I use them as an agent? It makes no sense to me - it's much better to book directly.
However, with flights and flight search websites I do sometimes see close to equal pricing, and in that domain I almost always check the airline website itself and book directly when possible.
Usually booking maximal a week before arrival. So maybe that's why?
Maybe it depends on where exactly, or what kind of hotels, how late you are with your booking, or the booking genius I have, however I had the exact opposite impression.
With flights it's a different thing, but it can happen as well.
Usually I'm more worried that their places usually just get my credit card number in plain text, write it down in a notebook and some frontdesk person simply uses that CC numbers to charge me on my first day there or so, manually entering it into CC terminal.
Lesson learned: never use any third party service when you can book the place directly. Also last minute cancellations probably just don’t exist