After sharing a recent negative experience with online travel agent Booking.com – our Mother’s Day weekend away was left ruined after we were greeted with an unclean property, and my mum was left £90 out of pocket – Daily Mail readers have contacted me with similar stories.
Thankfully, my mum has now been refunded – but other Booking.com customers say they’re still battling for their money back after checking into ‘unclean’ holiday lets that they claim didn’t match descriptions on the platform.
Earlier this week, the holiday giant made headlines after it suffered a major security breach that led to customers’ data being leaked to a ‘third party’.
And while there’s no denying the site’s popularity – Booking.com has millions of satisfied customers, the Daily Mail spoke to three users this week who all say they’re struggling to get refunds.
‘NEW YEAR IN DUBAI LEFT US THOUSANDS OUT OF POCKET – OUR CONCERNS OVER A FLIMSY LOCK AND MATTRESS STAINS FELL ON DEAF EARS…’
A Booking.com customer, who does not wish to be named, told me she’d booked an apartment in Dubai for New Years Eve with her sister and the pair paid £1,300 for three nights.
However, when they arrived, they realised the property wasn’t quite what they envisioned. After dropping off their bags quickly to spend the evening with family, they returned to the flat and noticed one bed was ‘dirty’.
The sisters, from Warwickshire, decided to properly inspect the property in the morning and realised it needed a ‘deep clean’.
The customer explains: ‘When we had a look around, it was really unclean and the door handle for the actual place was really flimsy and unsecured.’
Initially, Booking.com was, she says, ‘really helpful’ and it seemed like a refund would be possible.
Keen not to spend New Year’s Eve in their sub-standard holiday let, they were left scrambling to find a new hotel at such short notice – but then they were told no refund was possible after all.
After contacting the owner over WhatsApp, someone came to the apartment with fresh bedding and offered to clean, and Booking.com promptly closed the case.
However, the sisters, 34 and 35, didn’t feel comfortable staying at the property and felt a quick clean was insufficient – with no solution offered for the property’s flimsy lock, so they decided to spend £870 on a new room at a hotel.
With Booking.com and the owner of the property refusing to refund, they attempted to do a credit card chargeback but this was unsuccessful – leaving them thousands of pounds out of pocket for their three-night New Year’s trip.
What has Booking.com offered? A £243.35 voucher as a gesture of goodwill.
‘THE PRIVATE APARTMENT WAS DIRTY AND LOOKED DIFFERENT TO THE PHOTOS ONLINE – AND THE OWNER BECAME AGGRESSIVE WHEN WE TOLD HIM…’
Martina Andretta’s surprise birthday trip organised by her boyfriend in January got off to a bad start.
The pair jetted to Tenerife and were let into the private apartment they’d booked by the host.
Martina, 33, explains: ‘The flat just looked, immediately as I came in, dirty, badly kept, just awful… but I didn’t quite know what to say there and then, because I didn’t know anything.
‘So we waited for the host to leave, and then I saw that my boyfriend is on his phone checking that we are even in the right place.’
The Italian, who lives in London, admits she even asked her boyfriend if the situation ‘was a joke’ because of how dire it felt.
‘He showed me the pictures of the listing that he thought he was booking, and it looked so different,’ Martina continues.
‘A lot of the furniture had been changed, and some of the stuff that was there was much more scuffed and old,’ she says.
‘In the kitchen, the sponge was dirty, the fridge was dirty, the bed sheets were dirty.’
The couple noticed scuffs and marks on the walls and there were stains on the sofa.
‘It was late in the afternoon, so our first thought wasn’t to alert the host because we thought even if somebody comes and cleans, we’re not going to be able to sleep here tonight,’ Martina explains.
‘So immediately, we just found alternative accommodation, moved there, and then alerted the host and Booking.com.’
However, she claims the owner was ‘immediately very aggressive’ about her complaints.
Martina and her boyfriend have only managed to get £36 in travel credit from Booking.com and a partial refund of €220 (€110 per night).
They’re still missing the first night’s cost and cleaning fee of €70 (£61) – totalling €180 (£156).
‘IN 42 DEGREE HEAT, WE HAD TO FIND SOMEWHERE ELSE TO STAY AFTER OUR £300 MADRID STAY CAME WITH NO BEDDING AND NO TOILET ROLL…’
Another customer, who would like to remain anonymous, had booked accommodation through the platform in Madrid, towards the end of a road trip across Spain in July 2025.
When she arrived, with her husband and three children, they couldn’t properly access the property for 45 minutes.
After eventually being let inside the apartment, the holidaymaker says the family found it ‘filthy’.
The mother-of-three explains: ‘There was no linen, there were no bed covers, there were no toilet rolls,’ despite it being advertised as a fully furnished apartment.
The customer managed to get hold of the property owner after some time and was told linen could be brought the next day.
‘We told them we couldn’t sleep in the bed, there was no bedsheet, and they said, “Well, there’s a problem, we can’t do anything about it”,’ she recalls.
Feeling they had no choice but to vacate or face an uncomfortable night, they paid around €550 (£478) for a new hotel, as well as the taxi there.
The family had already spent €343 (£298) on the Booking.com rental.
The holidaymaker says: ‘We just had to leave the apartment that we paid for and find somewhere for five people in 42 degree heat.’
Booking.com did offer the customer a €35 (£30) voucher but she insists she’ll never use the site again.
‘I’d recommend people to stay clear of them, I would use them now as like a search engine. It can be cheaper to book direct anyway. I would never, no matter how good of a deal it was, use them. I wouldn’t give them my bank details.’
A Booking.com spokesperson told the Daily Mail: ‘We have stays for every budget, and to help customers find the right one for them, there are a few things they can check before booking – including the reviews and the property score that is calculated based on customer feedback.
‘The apartment or hotel is responsible for making sure their property lives up to expectations, and for providing a refund if a customer is dissatisfied.
‘We’d expect our accommodation partners to be on hand for everyday issues, like bed linen and towel availability, to put them right, which we understand did happen when the host was contacted in the cases shared.
‘If more support is needed, customers can reach out to Booking.com, so we can provide assistance.’
