Carcassonne: a guesthouse owner is still waiting for € 9,370 from Booking.com

The online reservation platform, the famous booking.com, owes them the sum of € 9,370. This company has not paid to Maison vintage, which offers five guest rooms, rue Crozals, in the center of Carcassonne, what it owes them for the month of August 2021. € 9,370 therefore, or 80% of their turnover for the month of August. This sum was to be paid to them on September 15, since the Vintage House has opted for monthly payments.

“It is the contract, the month of August was to be paid to us in September. The 15th, like every month”, explains the owner of the premises Denis Tourrès. Since then, nothing. However, the owner of the Vintage House joins or tries to reach the Booking company two to three times a week. Its platforms in Nice or Paris and when that does not respond, that of Amsterdam. Always the same answer: “Sorry, this will work out.”

The problem is precisely that the situation does not unblock. In front of us, this Tuesday, November 2, Denis Tourrès called Booking and came across their Dutch site: “We’re sorry sir. A request has been sent to finance. There may be a problem with the system. Normally, it shouldn’t take long.” Response from Denis Tourrès: “Your colleagues all told me the same thing…”

The operator continues to apologize, but the conversation does not move forward. “Good luck”, ends up dropping the Booking employee. “It’s the same thing all the time, the same speech. I’m on 20 calls since September. Once, there was even an operator who made me understand that I was boring him.” In Carcassonne, in August, another lodging had to face a delay in payment, but in the end, the platform settled it.

“Once, I was told that there was a bug at Booking in August, another time, I was told that it’s weird… I don’t know me.” La Maison vintage has been a partner of Booking since it opened in 2017. “We were happy, we were coming out of the Covid, and after a fairly calm month of July, we left full force in August …”

If the online reservation platform has not paid for the month of August, it has on the other hand paid September, to Denis Tourrès, ten days in advance. The owner is now preparing to send a registered letter to Booking. “Well, my banker trusts us okay, but that causes a hell of a hole in the treasury. And I pay my suppliers every month. In short, I now consider this situation to be really ludicrous”, annoys the owner. In the hope that the platform will submit to the contract between the two parties and pay it its € 9,370.

The Booking company informed The Independent, Tuesday evening, that she had taken cognizance of Maison Vintage’s request in Carcassonne: “Our goal is to find a solution as quickly as possible”, she comments.