My wife and I were organizing a road trip for August 2014 around California back in October 2013 using Booking. We thought we had found a good deal for one hotel in San Francisco (the Hayes Valley Inn), reserved, but directly found way better (the Hotel California) so canceled first one and reserved second.

So, 9 months later when staying in San Francisco, I receive a "no show" email from Booking.com with a pricy bill to go with it. I directly call the Hayes Valley Inn explaining them the situation and they decide to contact Booking directly. Booking denies having any record of the cancelation my wife and I made back in October. And a couple days after that while checking my bank account, I find out that the Hayes Valley Inn charged me for the cancelation fees.

Before our trip, we went over all of our reservations online and didn't see anything concerning the Hayes Valley Inn, only our other reservations which happened accordingly.

I would NOT recommend going through Booking.com even though some of my experiences have been alright. Better go through hotels directly. Alot safer for your credit card information and if encountering a problem you can directly resolve it with the hatel in question and not some 3rd entity.

"I will also send a formal letter of complaint to the management, local and national, to the hotel concerned. I also think this practice is illegal and will be following up on this line of enquiry and shall report back here to let other people know what happened. I am also considering sending this information to UK national papers from them to investigate practices of this nature so that the UK general public is made aware of these practices." I will be doing the exact same.