# Booking.com

16 Hacker News commenters recommended Booking.com and 46 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend it for its wide catalogue of hotels and frequent deals, and for saving them from re-entering their details. Critics report cancellations and payment problems, especially where hotels take payment on arrival.

## Why people recommend it

- Wide catalogue including hotels (2 comments): "has a much wider catalogue including hotels." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48679307)) "if it could integrate with all hotels, activities, mapping tools, flight system, etc could be hugely powerful" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47352958))
- Good deals, especially in Europe (2 comments): "in Europe booking.com seems to have better deals" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49622005)) "Lately, however, I am using booking.com more." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50203625))
- Enter data once for bookings (2 comments): "Meanwhile, for Bookingdotcom, I enter my data once" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46035346)) "This makes it more likely I'll use booking.com." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46035215))

## What people warn about

- Cancellations and lost reservations (4 comments): "By burned, I mean not getting the room I paid for." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46035370)) "About an hour before I checked in I got a message from Booking.com saying my reservation had been canceled." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46040443)) "booking.com made a mistake in applying the wrong policy, and is trying to cover up for it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46034747))
- Pay-at-hotel card failures (4 comments): "Booking.com is predominantly "pay at the hotel" across most of India, which means it's a dice roll as to whether they'll accept card." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49339612)) "The host didn't allow prepayment, and when the payment time arrived, they cancelled saying there is a problem with the credit card." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50192587)) "when you pay on booking.com, they don't charge your card. Instead, they send all your information (including CVV) along to the hotel" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48734690))
- Prices differ between search and listing (2 comments): "the prices shown in search results list are frequently significantly different from those in a single result" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48719410)) "Prices on Booking are uniform everywhere from Australia, through Thailand, to Europe." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47831279))
- Fake urgency popups and slow loading (2 comments): "The guy who added the Booking.com fake flashing warnings that this room is being viewed by N people right now" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49471805)) "Booking.com took 40 seconds to load with all its weird JavaScript, popups, and blocks." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46064411))

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://www.booking.com/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Booking.com", https://hackerapproved.com/p/booking-com/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).