Booking.com are a JOKE, I am a hotelier who had partnered with this company in the UK and now dropped them over bad partnership practices, they are happy to take a large commission from a hotel but any time there is an issue that needs attention they do not respond and the "market manager" has no concept of how to do their job properly and particularly with the customer service call centre team they will hide behind a barrier that seems to be in the interest of the customer only, the customer service team always "interpret email or telephone conversations wrong" and in some cases will actually can make a situation worse for both hotel and for guest, In most cases the issue is over a cancellation penalty charge, what guest does not know is Booking.com penalise a hotel for ranking when a booking is cancelled which means not only does the hotel loose revenue from the cancelled booking but they also then have to pay more commission to keep same ranking - i. E paying 30% commission to be listed on page one, hotel gets 2 cancellations and then have to then pay 35% commission to maintain same position, this maybe why hotels are adamant about enforcing penalty charges to the guest, of course Booking.com wash their hands of all responsibility to deal with it and say if the hotel cancels without penalty the hotel pays no commission on the booking, however a guest who doesn't stay and doesn't want to pay just initiates chargeback with credit card company anyway and Booking.com do nothing.
With regards to the Booking.com review system a customer can write any form of crap, lies and rubbish they want and the hotel has no recourse to address or respond, especially when it is anonymous and by having a Plus and a Minus they encourage the guest to post something negative to fill both boxes up, most reviews are fake anyway written by booknig.com
Booking.com is a bit like a pimp it whores out hotels for a kickback, you are the Johns, the only difference is what they do is considered legal
Hi Andrew, I'm sorry to hear you had trouble while being our partner. If you need assistance with anything, please post your hotel ID and I will be happy to contact you. Regards, Mac