Apologies for blurry screenshot.
TLDR: got charged nearly double the stated price on booking.com because of their shitty price displaying dark patterns
Wanted to add my voice to people warning about booking.com.
They let merchants add arbitrary fees to the room prices. It seems in Kuala Lumpur a lot of places abuse this. Imagine my surprise when my credit card got charged more than double the stated “price”. On closer inspection you can see the extra fees in small faded grey. What a disgusting dark pattern.
Of course booking.com do not give two shits about helping you as many have experienced. Seriously the worst customer service I’ve ever experienced, worse than budget telecoms. 8 hours on the phone later and many escalations to supervisors I have to admit that money is gone forever.
I’ve started using trip.com instead. I’m sure they’re not perfect but they’re still yet to do anything too egregious. And seems they have the same reach as booking.com? It is an easy way to switch away from the booking.com universe (Agoda, kayak etc)
by Impossible-Course-81