We tend to travel without booking a hotel room ahead but we do use Booking.com from time to time. Our experience in booking ahead for Helsinki has made us unhappy about some aspects of the service. We had a similar experience with Booking.com in Sicily two years ago.
This time we booked an apartment for two nights in Helsinki. After we paid and were notified that the payment was not refundable if we cancelled, a further notice appeared that the key had to be picked up from a different location in the city from where the apartment was. This is unacceptable to us as tourists, Arriving with your luggage in a strange city is bad enough but to then have to go to two different places is an awful burden.
We are unhappy that this was not made very clear on the listing for the apartment as we would have booked elsewhere. Listings need to be up front and transparent when you actually book, not afterwards. We would like to have cancelled but two years ago when we booked a room in Sicily, after payment there was a notice that a 30 Euro charge would be made for cleaning. For one night's stay????? We cancelled straightaway but it took Booking,com four days to decide, after consultation with the property owner, that we would not be charged. We did not want to face that uncertainty again so we stuck to the Helsinki booking.
Then, to add to all our woes, the airline temporarily lost our luggage when we arrived in Helsinki. It turned up and the airline was going to deliver it but the apartment we rented had no buzzer system in operation. As a compromise, our luggage was delivered the next day to the office where we had picked up the key to the apartment. Our two days stay in Helsinki was more fraught than it should have been.
No comments:
Post a Comment