Dark patterns at Booking.com and Eurostars Universal Lisbon Hotel

A warning for those using that service and this hotel

So, normally I use Booking.com for hotels; i've probably booked through them 50 times, and had another 50 where i've booked in advance and then cancelled when plans changed. For me that's always been their USP, the ability to book accomodation somewhere when plans are not yet firmed up and then confirm or cancel nearer the time. There is a premium for that ability to cancel, which is fine.

Then, the pattern changed. A month or so back I was invited to Web Summit in Lisbon which is next week. I was not sure if i’d make it, so I did my usual, booked a room on Booking with the plan to confirm or cancel when plans became clearer. So you can imagine my surprise when I decided to not attend, went onto Booking.com to cancel the hotel room on 29th October only to be told that it had gone ‘un-cancellable’ on 27th and that they plan to charge me for the full booking. That’s despite it being 2 weeks away and in a week when they can re-sell it many times over.

I was and am pretty sure there was nothing different about the user journey on this booking for me; so my assumption is that these ‘terms’ were buried somewhere. And that the hotel probably make a fair bit of money through doing so each Web Summit.

I’ve appealed to the better judgement of Booking and the hotel. Booking seem to agree, the hotel don’t. I’ve suggested a name change to allow someone else to use the room - nope. I’ve suggested they make it available to a homeless person as I will certainly not be in it - nope, that’s not allowed either according to ‘their policy’.

So here we are, at the will of some very dubious corporate practices. But then again, it gives me the chance to practice data portability and subject access requests and more to get under the hood of that user experience. I suspect this is going to cost them an awful lot more than it makes them.

Just flagging that up as a warning to others; I know many of you will use Booking in the same way.