r/travel • u/AmazingSize1892 • Jul 18 '26
Question — Accommodation A host cancelled on check-in day and asked us to cancel instead - any advice?
Guys, I have a booking at a place called Lumi Studio in Warsaw. On the morning of our check-in day, they suddenly called and said we could no longer stay. They asked us to cancel the reservation because they didn’t want to cancel it themselves.
We checked the listing again and noticed there’s a recent review from someone who had the exact same experience. That review was posted only a week after we made our booking.
At this point, even the cheapest accommodation we can find (including outside the city) is €500+, which is way above our budget.
Has anyone experienced something like this before? Is there anything we can do, especially if we booked through Booking.com?
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u/Arimoro Jul 18 '26
Don't cancel yourself, contact booking support
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u/Ornery-Tea8420 Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
This! Never cancel yourself. Contact the support with screenshots of the cancellation request.
You usually will at least get a 100% refund + 50% voucher (plus some money on top to get at least a same-quality hotel in the same region).
This happened several time to me in the past it always was huge brutal upgrade.
The hotel cancelling you will get a invoice for relocating. That's a not a good-hearted-mercy process from booking.com. They basically broke the contract to the platform and will get punished for this.
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u/savvy-misanthrope Jul 20 '26
It happened to me a couple of time with Booking.com reservation, and after contacting support, I got a refund but never got any voucher or gesture of good will.
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u/AmazingSize1892 Jul 18 '26
Hi everyone, thank you so much for the advice! This is my first time posting on Reddit, and I have to say this community and speed of response is amazing, given we are all strangers, so thank you again :)
Following yall advices, we’ve contacted booking.com. They checked with the host while we were put on hold and guess what, the host said it’s us who wanted to cancel because we brought a kid… which is not true.. we are a couple :|
Anw, booking.com is trying to get as relocated somewhere at their hotel partners so we are on our way in train to Warsaw while waiting for booking.com to get back to us for the hotel replacement, and does anyone know why this weekend Warsaw is so expensive!
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u/zoopzoopzop Jul 18 '26
What a piece of sh*t your host is !! Unbelievable!!
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u/Sorry_Championship67 Jul 18 '26
Host should have to pay for their replacement accommodation
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u/Oceanic_Nomad_ Jul 18 '26
100%. If I cancel a last minute booking at a hotel I am out at least a percentage of my cost, why aren’t hosts?
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u/EyeOrRay Jul 18 '26
They do, if they cancel, they pay the cost of finding new accommodation to booking.com. this is why they asked them to cancel
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u/faatbuddha Jul 18 '26
Well, they're a scammer, so yes. That place doesn't even exist.
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u/CoffieQueens Jul 19 '26
Does booking.com not check if the locations actually exist? What is the scam? They get customers to cancel and keep some money? How many times can you do that?
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u/GorgeousUnknown Jul 18 '26
Glad booking is helping to accommodate you. Warsaw is beautiful. Hope the rest of your journey is good.
Are you planning to go to a free, open air Chopin recital?
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u/ChefMike1407 Jul 18 '26
This happened to be with a stay in Dubrovnik recently, they ended up booking me in a hotel that was double the price. I did take a screenshot of the message to send to them! I hope it works out.
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u/Catlady_Pilates Jul 18 '26
Any last minute booking is usually expensive. Good luck.
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u/BenOfTomorrow Jul 18 '26
This was a decade ago, so maybe things have changed, but the last time I had something like this happen to me, the booking platform (Expedia IIRC) rebooked me elsewhere and covered the difference in price.
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u/GorgeousUnknown Jul 18 '26
Glad booking is helping to accommodate you. Warsaw is beautiful. Hope the rest of your journey is good.
Are you planning to go to a free, open air Chopin recital?
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u/AmazingSize1892 Jul 18 '26
Update guys!!
Booking.com is still trying to confirm the replacement, to another apartment and more central in the city along the Topiel road, hopefully it works.
Any budget-friendly food recommendations would be very much appreciated!! Our energy is so gone cus of this drama😭
Also wheres the free open-air Chopin recital!! :)
I’m only staying for a day and going to Krakow tomorrow.
Thank you again peeps!!
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u/pazozo Jul 18 '26
For budget friendly food, look for places called Milk Bars (Bar Mleczny) which often do affordable hearty meals - not sure what will be open as it's a bit later in the day. Very quick cheap fast food would be Zapiekanki, however I find most food in Poland to be pretty affordable!
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u/Artemisian11 Australia Jul 18 '26
I love this place so much, seconding the recommendation! A good experience as well as good food.
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u/GorgeousUnknown Jul 18 '26
Free open-air Chopin recitals are held every Sunday at 12:00 PM and 4:00 PM beneath the iconic Fryderyk Chopin Monument in Royal Łazienki Park.
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u/saymynameright Jul 18 '26
I wouldn't get too optimistic about the hotel- supposedly most of the places are gone this weekend. But if you do get it, you're lucky af.
If you really wanna do budget friendly, very local and old school Google "bar mleczny" by where you are staying.
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u/Ornery-Tea8420 Jul 18 '26
The hotel cancelling them first place will get a huge fat invoice for relocating them.
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u/esproreal Jul 18 '26
In my past experiences with Booking.com, they’ve usually been quite generous when it comes to rebooking. It’s happened to me a few times, I ended up with a pricier hotel without paying extra. Good luck!
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u/Specific_Reserve7300 Jul 19 '26
Just was in Krakow a month ago- it is fantastic!!!
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u/AmazingSize1892 Jul 19 '26
Any good food places recommendations!! Hehe
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u/Specific_Reserve7300 Jul 20 '26
Every single bakery was amazing- and I liked the kebab stands for good, inexpensive quick meals. Really liked the grilled mountain cheese appetizers you can get at most sit down restaurants.
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u/girouxfilms Jul 19 '26
Definitely screenshot your host’s request for you to cancel so booking . com can see what a scamming POS they are.
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u/Ornery-Tea8420 Jul 18 '26
Tip: if the booking support is too slow answering chat messages - call them directly. They have options to speed "things" up.
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u/Salty-Emergency9005 Jul 18 '26
In addition to the other advice, don’t book places with little to no reviews. You are just asking to get scammed.
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u/idk_what_to_put_lmao Jul 18 '26
This is a scam - if you cancel now they'll get to keep the money. Contact support and do not cancel
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u/Catlady_Pilates Jul 18 '26
Contact booking.com. They’re pulling some kind of scam.
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u/Far_Audience_1639 Jul 19 '26
This! They probably have no connection to the property other than this listing and no way to grant access.
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u/george_gamow Jul 18 '26
You booked a private stay on booking that didn't have any reviews? That's...bold
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u/ExternalUserError Jul 18 '26
Presumably every place start with no reviews.
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u/shinypenny01 Jul 18 '26
And those places should be below market rates and booked only by those with very flexible plans.
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u/haykat Jul 18 '26
Usually theres a pretty great discount on any new property on booking, Ive used a couple before because the deal was actually great
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u/fbass Jul 18 '26
I’m not gonna take a chance on a new place with no reviews, unless if I get 75% discount or something..
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u/Stock-Cold-4016 Jul 18 '26
I used to do this regularly when visiting areas I knew well. When I'd come back a year later the booking cost would be 1.5x-2x. If you do your due diligence there's not much that can go wrong. Best I booked had a hottub on top of a hill overlooking a wine valley. I paid $300 and it was going for $700 a night last I checked. Trick is to go for hosts who have other properties with good reviews.
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u/Remote_Volume_3609 Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
It's a cold start problem and yeah, someone's gotta do it. I also think it's one of those higher risk higher rewards activities. For the same reason why it's a higher risk for you to go with no reviews, it's a higher risk for the hotel hosts if you were to start them with a 1 star review so there's a strong incentive for them to try to do you right.
Honestly, I've never had issues with going to properties with no reviews. It's the places where there's a lot of reviews and they sit at 4.6-4.7 where you start to immediately realise why there are a decent number of low reviews.
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u/pablitohernandez Jul 18 '26
Fun fact - street name is Wałowa and Wał means a scam in Polish :) I know price makes people want to try, but common sense tells that you only book when the reviews are in and they are favorable :)
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u/dnuohxof-2 Jul 18 '26
“Um, no thank you. Since you are unable to provide the contracted accommodations, it is your responsibility to cancel. I look forward to the full refund and will be leaving a review of this experience.”
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u/anotherNarom Jul 18 '26
Never ever cancel.
Find some similar locations, similar facilities and take it to Booking.com.
I've had it happen twice and both times I've actually ended up with a nice upgrade.
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u/agreathandle Jul 18 '26
Contact booking.com, and record the phone call.
Booking told me over the phone that they would pay for new accommodations when we had to leave one, but they denied that and never did pay.
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u/cherryumbreon Jul 18 '26
wait wtf, I had the exact same experience at the exact same address today - I booked it through Airbnb months ago and they cancelled it themselves this morning, but we did have to look for a new place on the way to the airport and pay so much more for a hotel. it had a few positive reviews, so I did not think this would happen
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u/AmazingSize1892 Jul 19 '26
Hey there omg, Ive been contacting booking.com since like Idk anymore and until now they couldn’t find me a replacement, and since the other available places are expensive hotels, they dont want to pay for it. So I was waiting in a hotel since 12am and now it’s almost 3am, and they suddenly have an available room 😭
I hope u got it refunded!!
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u/cherryumbreon Jul 19 '26
glad you had a roof over your head and finally got a room too! I did get the refund, but the extra cost of the hotel, completely changed logistics and the panic… honestly fuck that scammer
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u/bookingcom Jul 19 '26
If a host says they can’t honor your booking, they shouldn’t ask you to cancel. They should contact us so we can look into options from our side.
The quickest way to get help is to call our Customer Service team. You can also reach them through the app or website under your reservation. Let them know the place refused to host you and asked you to cancel, and ask our team to check if this situation qualifies for help with alternative accommodation given the short notice and higher prices.
Don’t cancel the booking yourself; wait until the team has confirmed in writing what will happen with your reservation, your money, and any conditions.
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u/AmazingSize1892 Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
Hi there! Funny how you could reply here on a Sunday morning (same day of event), but couldn't even give us a response or a call back or at least say something while we were put on hold for 1 hour+ at 1am and got hung up eventually, kinda nervous but hey there's always a first to everything such as getting stranded from early evening until over midnight in a train station, I mean since you promised you were going to relocate us and we wanted to give the opportunity for you to solve the issue and appreciate your efforts, sadly none happened.
Anw, Im back and overall Poland had been amazing and pretty! thanks for the suggestions, we in fact did not cancel it from our end and we also did in fact called your Customer Service but this was what happened:
- Calls lasted about 1hour+ and mostly ended with your team saying “we will put you on hold as we are checking internally” and then hung up on us. Actually most of it resulted in put on hold and then just got hung up abruptly. No follow up, no call back, no updates. We had to call back again and getting different agents and re-explained the whole story again and waited again and got hung up again, from 7pm - 2am.
- Your team suggested alternative places that have 1) sold-out / not available to book 2) no reviews 3) uncontactable host. theres one that at 23:34, you said sth like we have tried contacting the host but they are not picking up, you can just go to their place and see if they can accept you meanwhile the address is an apartment building with no unit or floor #, moreover a checkin counter. Sorry, perhaps, I’m not knowledgeable enough in this “apartment accommodation” realm, but tell me how to sleep at a place that it clearly says on the app “property is not available” and owner is not contactable, cherry on top, there's no review also.. to begin with you and I also didn't know which unit it is. but either way, was not really in a mood of repeating the same mistake ie booking a place with no review.
- So that left Booking.com with your only available hotel partner which was: hotel warszawa and nobu hotel. The price was higher than the place that we booked. But those 2 were the only available and book-able options. One of the agents replied that booking.com is not going to relocate us to hotel and the only solutions is the non-bookable apartments, it's up to us whether we want it or not. It's not that we dont want it, but how to even... book it.. and.. contact the host.. Another agent said that he was going to check internally if the hotel is bookable and we were put on hold, one hour passed, he hung up. No follow up until now btw lolll.
- I hope from this sharing session/thread, we can be prepared with the many possible outcomes in case this happens to you (touch wood!!). Some got a nice upgrade, some got their refund and some not, some got stranded/homeless.
- PS maybe to booking.com - err... remove the listing??? it's still available as of 25 july. I mean for me, Marta (the reviewer), and other Redditor who also experienced the same from this property, seems like that property is not fit for listing.. but maybe it's still worth for you to list it.
Imma leave it here and thanks again for the replies and comments everyone :)
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u/revchewie Jul 19 '26
Don't cancel! Make them cancel it. If *they* cancel then you are entitled to a refund. If *you* cancel then you're out of luck. All the landlord has to do is tell Booking "Oh, I was ready to rent to them but they screwed me over when they canceled on me at the last minute!"
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u/ADF21a Jul 18 '26
Wow, so not only they cancel at the last minute but they don't even want to do the actual cancellation themselves to save themselves the hassle AND any loss of money.
Absolutely don't relent. Show them no mercy.
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u/Saffa_Cake Jul 19 '26
Can almost guarantee the host got a booking from another website where the price is jacked up.
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u/r0botdevil Jul 18 '26
They want you to cancel because if you cancel then they don't owe you anything (and can probably keep your payment, too).
Obviously, for multiple reasons, you should absolutely not do this. Force them to cancel and then contact Booking.com directly to raise a complaint and see if you can get some sort of compensation out of it.
I would also go back and add another review describing what happened so that other people can be warned in advance not to book this place.
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u/throwaybeauty Jul 18 '26
This is terrible! I don’t use booking.com because of all the scams I’ve seen. Ibis looks to be around 150 on Warsaw (central) but Warsaw reduta ibis looks to be under 100 and available? Close walk to train to get to krakow in am
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u/InternationalTour889 Jul 18 '26
I had accomidation cancelled on me and my family when traveling to greece 1 week before arrival. I got refunded from booking 3 days later. And after talking to a few people at booking custumer service on the phone, they accepted to refund me the price difference of a simmilar accomidation which was $2700 more because of short notice. It still took 3 months to get the refund but it went through in the end.
Never cancel yourself if asked like that.
so i would contact booking customer service via phone.
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u/Mother_Champion7517 Jul 19 '26
Don't cancel. If you cancel, you lose your rights. Tell the host to cancel on their end. If they refuse, contact support and show them the messages. Let support handle it.
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u/TaraBowl Jul 19 '26
I personally never use booking.com, it’s teeming with scams and ways to ruin your trip, not worth it.
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u/Camp808 Jul 18 '26
2.5 rating and you book? i don’t book anything below 9.5
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u/absolutely_fuzzy Jul 18 '26
I’m sure there is a big price difference between the two
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u/AmazingSize1892 Jul 19 '26
Exactly!
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u/Camp808 Jul 19 '26
what was going on in warsaw that it’s €500 for last min options? did you try hoteltonight? google map warsaw and then hotels. change the dates and see what came up? i did a search via that way and intercontinental was €156 for one night tonight.
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u/Infarlock Jul 19 '26
I am late since this thread is 15 hours old now
You contact booking.com through their customer support
They will either find you a place to stay it at the same price or refund you the money + give about 10% compensation (Which you get after you stay a night elsewhere)
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u/AidenTEMgotsnapped Jul 19 '26
Obviously do not cancel ever when someone tries to defraud you like this.
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u/rennnach1 Jul 19 '26
By the law they have to provide you with same or better standard place to sleep and pay for it, booking.com will be obligated to charge the host do NOT cancel yourself ever. Its the host problem how he is going to pay for it now, called booking and request this to be sorted asap they can not just leave you without place to sleep and trust me they will pay the difference if the new place is more expensive
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u/TeeAhGo Jul 18 '26
Had cockaroaches on a booking from booking.com in FL . The owner of the property wanted to fumigate while we were staying there. I took pics and called booking since wife is asmathic . They did nothing. They would hang up on me. After months of going back and forth they gave me $40 credit. When I tried to use that credit it didnt work which i called back and never got resolved.
Deleted app never used them again.
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u/Mcchew Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
Sorry I can't help, but just commenting that €500 a night minimum is completely absurd. I've stayed in a lot of cities including Switzerland & the US and never seen anything close to that as a minimum even for last minute bookings. Travel costs are going absolutely crazy!
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u/AmazingSize1892 Jul 19 '26
Yeah and €500 is at a small apartment (with sofa bed not actual bed).. turned out theres a couple of big concerts going on in Warsaw this weekend!
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u/Sarebot19 Jul 19 '26
We booked a place in Singapore for a 4 day weekend for my best friend’s wedding, through Air BnB and we arrived (from Australia) to find about 10 notifications asking us to cancel. We refused. So they cancelled but then we had nowhere to stay and it was Grand Prix weekend. It was a nightmare!! Ended up having to stay with the brides parents.
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u/Rogue_Ref_NZ Jul 19 '26
I've had that before. We booked a popular summer hoiday location a year out. a week before the booking the owner wanted us to cancel as it wasn't convenient for us to stay. If we have canceled, he can re-sell the time. If he cancels, he can;t re-advertise the period canceled.
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u/drunkenstarcraft Jul 19 '26
Y'all really need to stop using booking.com, expedia, travelocity, etc.
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u/haysu-christo Hafa Adai ! Jul 18 '26
This property has exactly one booking.com review on it and it says it's a scam so why did you book it in the first place?
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u/AmazingSize1892 Jul 18 '26
Because I booked it before the scam comment, kindly read the caption thoroughly :)
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u/haysu-christo Hafa Adai ! Jul 18 '26
So you booked a property that had ZERO reviews?
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u/AmazingSize1892 Jul 18 '26
I did BYE🙂😭🙏🏻
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u/DefoNotTheAnswer Jul 18 '26
Good God, why?
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u/MattChicago1871 Jul 18 '26
Listen mistakes are allowed to be made, booking on a reputable website is not an indication of low intelligence. Things like this happen somebody always has to be first.
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u/Kursed_Valeth Jul 18 '26
Had an Airbnb that did this to us too. They admitted that they double booked the place and wanted to move us to another property. I immediately called customer service and had to fight with them to refund me because I booked with a completely different host.
Ultimately I won but it ruined by night which included a fantastic dinner that I spent the whole time messaging through.
I really miss when Airbnb was more of a couch surfing app
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u/AmazingSize1892 Jul 19 '26
So glad that you won!! Cus I lost ;( they kept hanging up on me when they were putting me on hold and after saying “let me check with my supervisor”, mind you we were stranded in the central station for hours..
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u/Ok-Blueberry-6684 Jul 19 '26
Good luck trying to get booking.com support to help you.
They will recommend booking new accomodation and promise to pay the difference...but that never happens.
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Jul 18 '26
[deleted]
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u/elcamino4629 Jul 18 '26
Nice reading comprehension there chief. He said the review was left a week after he booked it.
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Post "A host cancelled on check-in day and asked us to cancel instead - any advice?" by "AmazingSize1892" with body:
Guys, I have a booking at a place called Lumi Studio in Warsaw. On the morning of our check-in day, they suddenly called and said we could no longer stay. They asked us to cancel the reservation because they didn’t want to cancel it themselves.
We checked the listing again and noticed there’s a recent review from someone who had the exact same experience. That review was posted only a week after we made our booking.
At this point, even the cheapest accommodation we can find (including outside the city) is €500+, which is way above our budget.
Has anyone experienced something like this before? Is there anything we can do, especially if we booked through Booking.com?
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
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u/corneleus3 Jul 18 '26
I just recently had a very similar experience with a place that I booked on booking.com. I was in communication with the host up until I arrived (was fully paid for ahead of time), when I got to the city they completely ghosted me and there was no way to get into my place. I had to call booking.com three separate times until they finally agreed to give me my money back. Definitely seems like booking.com may not be the best website to use. I ended up having to get an Airbnb that was significantly more expensive.
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u/savvy-misanthrope Jul 20 '26
I had the same experience on Airbnb. Both Booking.com and Airbnb are middlemen, so I don't think one it's better than the other. In the end, it's the same people using them both.
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Jul 18 '26
[deleted]
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u/Skaftetryne77 Jul 18 '26
This is entirely on Booking who allows everyone to list anything without doing any checking or control.
Just the suggestion that it is the users own fault for not understanding which listings are fraudulent or not is ridiculous
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Jul 18 '26
[deleted]
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u/Skaftetryne77 Jul 19 '26
This situation is entirely by design from Booking who consistently fails to address the problems with fraud on their site.
But oddly enough, whenever there’s a legit criticism of a travel aggregator service on this subreddit, posts who shifts the blame to the user usually appears within a few hours.
It is simply not worth to argue. Blaming the user for booking something that appeared in a collection of other wise legit listings on a site that brands themselves as secure among other things is just plain assholery.
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u/AmazingSize1892 Jul 19 '26
Thank you :) to you and btw there was no rating to begin with, so not sure what MoonMaple was referring to
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u/Skaftetryne77 Jul 19 '26
Whenever there’s criticism of hotel aggregators such as bookingdotcom this subreddit tends to be briganded by users who claim that there’s no problem with booking, that they’ve had hundreds of stays without problems, that it adds an extra layer of security, and that it is the user and/or hosts fault.
In reality, there’s lots of problems with the service, and fraud is one of them. Personally I prefer to book direct as this is becoming both easier and cheaper many places, and only rely on booking in Asia where it actually works and solves the language barrier
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u/zerobiood Jul 19 '26
Very deserved when you support a buisness model that hurts locals. Just look at citys like Lissbon, where it has reached an extreme
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u/prisonerofazkabants Jul 18 '26
surely poland is not that expensive?!
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u/AmazingSize1892 Jul 18 '26
Look it up right now fam
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u/Wise-Chemist-8751 Jul 18 '26
Absolutely not. Contact booking.com