I had a booking for a hotel in Lisbon through booking.com in May of this year, for obvious reasons that had to be cancelled. I contacted booking.com and the hotel (both through booking.com and directly) in April to cancel my reservation and then for the next 6 weeks kept contacting booking.com and the hotel to make sure my reservation was cancelled and that I would receive a refund for my reservation under the booking.com rules at the time. I was even told that I would receive a refund and that the hotel should have processed this already, and we were just waiting for the hotel to confirm if this has been done yet. I had booked this holiday in November (pre-pandemic) and had paid for the non-refundable booking as this was cheaper. I could cancel my reservation if the hotel accepted my reservation. In the six weeks before my reservation, the hotel did not respond to any communications from me asking for my reservation to be cancelled. I have since discovered this is because the hotel was closed during this time (and at the time of my reservation) in line with the Portuguese government’s lockdown rules. Despite the hotel being closed, booking.com have refused to give me a refund (or even provide me with their vouchers to cover the money that I have lost) since it is for the hotel to provide the refund and they solely act as an intermediary. The hotel have not responded to any communications since April and even though they are now re-open, there is never anyone available to speak to in order to process the refund. I have spent the last 4 months complaining to booking.com and the hotel, but they have been beyond useless and are refusing to return my money or even offer vouchers to cover the fact that a hotel has kept my money despite being closed at the time of the reservation. Throughout all of this, the hotel is still advertising on booking.com’s website and taking bookings (and were doing so throughout the pandemic when they were closed!). The only advice from booking.com is to keep contacting the hotel, even though I am sure we all agree 4 months of chasing is enough time, or to cancel through my insurance which does not cover pandemics, as well they know. All I want is my money back, or even a voucher so we can put this whole shenanigan to bed, but it seems that booking.com should change it’s name to booking.con and wave goodbye to any shred of the good reputation they have left. As you can tell, I am thoroughly disgusted with their behaviour throughout, do not book through booking.com, they do not care about you despite being in the midst of a pandemic!