One woman isn't a happy camper when it comes to Booking.com. She claims that the platform canceled her $4,000 hotel reservation. They then offered her the same rooms for $17,000.
Speaking with CBC, Erika Mann said she booked a hotel for the 2026 Formula One Grand Prix in Montreal last May. She booked a four-room unit at at Montreal's Holland Hotel. Booking.com advertised the price at $4,300.
"I was super excited and yeah, jumped right on it," Mann said. Fast forward several weeks, and the hotel and Booking.com reached out. They told her to cancel the reservation and said that it was mistakenly advertised for that price. "That was just so outstandingly outrageous that I almost couldn't believe it."
When Mann refused to cancel the reservation, Booking.com did it for her. But Mann had already booked flights for family members.
Booking.com Cancellations
"It felt like Groundhog Day, to be honest," she said. "Every time it was the same thing. You call in, you're on an immense hold, you talk to someone, you tell the whole story over again."
The Holland Hotel says the prices were listed at the wrong price briefly on Booking.com. Instead of honoring the original price, Mann says the hotel service offered other places in her price range.
"One was a single-room studio with two beds," she said. "Another had one bathroom. We're a group of adults, not backpackers."
Book.com spoke out about the incident.
"Our procedures do allow for cancellations in limited circumstances where a genuine rate mistake has occurred," Booking.com wrote. "That being said, we recognize that communication to the customer fell short of our usual standards."
Booking.com says it has the ability to cancel in "rare cases where a property identifies a clear rate error."
However, after this went to the media, Booking.com decided to honor the original booking and cover the price difference. Mann says it shouldn't have had to get to this point. She said, "You're basically left holding an empty bag and have no power."
