{"id":341269,"date":"2026-03-11T21:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T21:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/341269\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T21:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T21:59:08","slug":"lessons-to-be-learned-after-couples-booking-com-booking-is-cancelled-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/341269\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons to be learned after couple\u2019s Booking.com booking is cancelled \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A reader and her partner arranged to travel to Dublin<\/a> on Valentine\u2019s Day for a matinee performance of The Crucible in the Gaiety, after which they planned to have dinner and stay in a hotel in the city before returning home the following day. <\/p>\n

But what was supposed to be a cultural and romantic mini-break ended in tears when the booking they thought they had long secured \u201cdisappeared\u201d at the last minute.<\/p>\n

An understandable fear of being scammed may well lie at the root of the problem. <\/p>\n

Last October after buying tickets for the play, our reader\u2019s partner used Booking.com to reserve a room in the hotel for February 14th and was sent a reservation number by the platform. <\/p>\n

Then on February 8th her partner got an email that \u201cappeared to be from Booking.com looking for credit card details to secure the booking. At 5.45pm on the same day, being cybersecurity-aware, he took the initiative to ring the hotel directly and spoke to a staff member for over three minutes, who confirmed that the booking was secure,\u201d Mary writes. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was still not 100 per cent certain that his booking had not been cancelled as he had not replied to the Booking.com message, so he phoned the hotel again at 10.02am the following day and spoke to a different employee for two minutes, who again confirmed that the reservation was on their system and that no further action was required.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was all grand. <\/p>\n

Then, on Valentine\u2019s Day the couple arrived at the hotel shortly after 1pm knowing they were too early for check-in but still keen to leave their bags with the hotel so they could attend the play unencumbered. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Too slow, Nespresso! Reader\u2019s \u2018infuriating\u2019 three-month wait for a coffeeOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

There were no problems.<\/p>\n

Someone at the reception desk \u201cassisted us by confirming that the room would be available for \u2018check-in\u2019 after 3pm and he called his colleague who took our overnight bag to store until we returned. He was genial in his demeanour and we told him we would be late back as we would socialise after the show.\u201d<\/p>\n

And they did that, returning to the hotel at about 11pm hoping to go to their room. <\/p>\n

Instead, they were told there was no reservation in their name and no room available. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou may imagine our disbelief and incredulity at this point,\u201d our reader says. \u201cWe asked to speak to the manager and we explained the earlier sequence of events that day, most particularly, that our baggage was being stored in the hotel but, to no avail. This discourse took over 40 minutes during which time frame, the responsibility for this debacle was firmly placed with us \u2013 the guests \u2013 and at no stage did the hotel staff accept any responsibility or show any concerns for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says they were \u201ctotally embarrassed and felt that the staff treated us very badly. As they responded indifferently to us and in a manner as if they did not believe us,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the hotel offered the couple a room at a \u2018special rate\u2019 and as a \u2018goodwill gesture\u2019 which matched the rate on the original booking, she says. <\/p>\n

The couple went home instead.<\/p>\n

She says she is left with a number of questions and concludes by saying: \u201cIn all of my time booking hotels I have never, ever encountered a similar situation. I feel seriously aggrieved that what should have been a very pleasant occasion, which we both had been very much looking forward to, it being a Christmas present, could have turned out so bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

We contacted Booking.com and a spokeswoman told us that the booking had been cancelled on February 9th \u201cdue to an invalid credit card\u201d. <\/p>\n

It would appear, then, that the mail that Booking.com sent to this couple a day earlier was entirely legitimate. <\/p>\n

We do understand that people will be suspicious of any unexpected correspondence from companies looking for credit card details \u2013 and indeed that suspicion is entirely justified. <\/p>\n

However, the problem here is that the readers took the wrong route when they contacted the hotel to check on the status of their booking rather than Booking.com who they had made the booking with. <\/p>\n

This couple might have been saved all the hassle \u2013 and rescued their romantic trip away \u2013 had they instead contacted Booking.com. <\/p>\n

We are not for a second suggesting our reader\u2019s partner should have resubmitted his credit card details without thinking about it. But he should have contacted the company using its official channels to make sure in the first instance that the mail was legitimate and secondly to update his credit card details.<\/p>\n

It is obviously too late to do anything about it now but other readers might benefit from their experience and save themselves any such heartache. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Allianz mileage mix-up costs reader hundreds of euroOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A reader and her partner arranged to travel to Dublin on Valentine\u2019s Day for a matinee performance of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,943,61,60,9825],"class_list":["post-341269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-cost-of-living","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-pricewatch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}