I booked a room on bookings.com at 953pm on the 15th November. The hotel was actually shut at that time so I had to stay elsewhere. I called , visited but definitely shut.

I was late, cold , wet and hungry after travelling on a motorcycle from Auckland that day. It was the day of the storms.

I finally found a hotel with night staff at 130am on the 16th and paid 150. At that point I had been on the road since 8 am the previous day

I noticed recently that a late charge for 93 dollars hit my account relating to this booking. I politely asked for the money back but have been refused by the hotel.
Bookings.com tells you that someone has just booked a room in the hotel so there is quite room left, effectively pressurising you into clicking commit.


The hotel has not saved a room for me nor incurred any cost for the booking but refuse to refund. I have had email exchanges that I am happy to forward.

I am a tourist here for 7 weeks and have blatantly been ripped off by a) bookings.com and b) primarily by the hotel for not doing the right thing and refunding. They had closed for the evening so why is the room availability not set to zero? Blatant profiteering is your tourist industry is not a great publicity slogan

I am involved in tourism and travel at home and will certainly be publicising this episode.

Is there any way of arbitrating in this please?

I have contacted the CAB but they say they are unable to help.

This is akin to accepting a booking for yesterday's date- today which is a nonsense in anyone's country