Bad Experience with Booking.com

How frustrating!
I also am a long time Booking.com user, albeit only for hotels. If it were me, after basically 2 business weeks without the promised credit, I would start a claim with your credit card company. You have the Booking.com email to confirm. Then, keep watching, you can always cancel the claim if the credit does show up.
Good luck!

Hello Matt

I have used booking.com many times over but just for hotels. I do not believe that I would use them for other reasons especially after reading reports by persons like yourself. I clearly remember one other person who had a bad experience waiting on a ride they booked with booking. The ride never showed up and other arrangements had to be made which was difficult.

Like many others, I go directly to the airline site to book.

I suggest that you report the problem to your credit card company asap because unless I am mistaken, there is a time limit about informing your credit card company.

Vaguely, I remember reporting a problem to my credit card company and was told that I had waited too long. Too much time had passed and I think that I was told that any problem had to be reported within 60 days.

Sorry about your frustration and hope that it has a positive ending.

As soon as you involve the middle man, you are at the mercy of the middleman.

These third party sites make it sound wonderful to use. But if there is a problem, or you want a refund, good luck.

You will have to wait. But it's a good idea to get your credit card company involved.

Next time. Use Google Flights to find the best flights and then book directly with the airline.

Honestly, 11 days is not that long for this kind of credit. I canceled a flight on Delta directly last month and it took seven days for them to give me the credit.

I have booked via Expedia had a problem. I waited until the billing cycle and when the credit hadn’t been issued, I filed a dispute. that got them moving. I had it in about a day, but usually you have to wait at least one cycle before your credit card company will get involved

Who do I talk to to get some meaningful response? They couldn't (or wouldn't) say.

They wouldn't let you talk to someone higher up their organizational food chain?

You’ve received good answers. Another option is to call them again and see if the next person is more helpful or informative. I have done that for customer issues when the first person wasn’t able to help.

I haven’t ever had an issue with Booking and use them quite frequently. But just for lodging.

There's really no need to use third parties, always go direct. If you see a fare on a third party site, ask the actual purveyor to match it.

A short update: Based on comments here, I disputed the charge on my credit card, which opened a complaint and credited my charge card back pending its resolution.

Today, over two weeks later, I finally got notified by booking.com (in response to the complaint passed on by my charge card?) that a refund was processing for the price of the ticket (but not for the $200 seat selection charge I paid for along with the ticket, which it appears I will have to complain further about).

I spent a full year fighting for a seat reservation fee refund from Lufthansa after they randomly cancelled my flight reservation several years ago. The flight was not cancelled, just my tickets, BTW. They were cheap tickets bought directly from Lufthansa during Covid and prices had gone way up. They never even sent me an email - I just got a credit back on my credit card for the ticket price and had to call Lufthansa to ask why. My flights still showed up in my account. It was so weird. I figure they knew they could sell our seats for more. We booked with Delta at much higher prices about 2 weeks before our trip. I fought for that seat reservation fee on principle and I finally got it by calling Lufthansa every few weeks and re-explaining my story. Good luck.

one more thing all these website have different rates for ios and android, with android much cheaper option