@dang: why was this title changed?
Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company
171–180 of 291 posts
Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company
#172Just skimming through the comments, there is some negative sentiment about Booking.com. So I came to say, that over the years, I've used Booking.com numerous times, without any single problem. Yes, there are dark patterns (13 people are looking at this offer right now, etc.), but free cancellation was always free for me, reviews matched my experience, information matched the reality. Sorry to hear about the layoffs,…
Thank you for your valuable contribution to this thread about employment practices. I'm sure the CEO who fired people over pre-recorded video appreciates your praise!
My pleasure, always glad to help /s.
On a more serious note, yes, the layoffs are bad and I am sorry to hear about it, but when I see people in comments posting about their negative experience with the service, I feel like it's relevant to balance it with my overwhelmingly positive experience with the service.
Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company
#173Too bad these companies handle customer support employees as third-class citizens within the corporation.
Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company
#174With remote work so popular, it's just the beginning. If your skill is not in high demand and can be done remotely, it's going to be outsourced (or just transferred within the company) to a lower cost of living region.
Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company
#175@dang: why was this title changed?
I think the title was changed correctly, I tried to follow HN's guideline of having the same headline as the source, but this is more accurate.
Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company
#176Just skimming through the comments, there is some negative sentiment about Booking.com. So I came to say, that over the years, I've used Booking.com numerous times, without any single problem. Yes, there are dark patterns (13 people are looking at this offer right now, etc.), but free cancellation was always free for me, reviews matched my experience, information matched the reality. Sorry to hear about the layoffs,…
The reality is, we need a functioning hotel aggregator, and AirBnB needs a competitor. For me, booking.com for European travel has been overwhelming positive in experience, happy with the increasing Genius offerings. I don't use them for apartments however, I don't feel I trust them for that and prefer AirBnB. I also hope they stick around and maybe find a way to make all the cash they feel they can make without ruin…
The business revolves around bedbanks contracting hotels and selling them to retailers and aggregators. There are exchanges, there are hybrid models and what not. That's why "2 rooms left" kind if messages are almost always total BS because every hotel can have more than one bedbank contract or the contract can be flexible and you can't know exactly how many rooms are left but you can query if the number of room you want to book is doable.
At the end of the day, what you have is multiple networks that somewhat overlap and provide API for finding and booking and Web interfaces for the high street retailers etc.
Making an aggregator means, you getting an access to these API and therefore there are many aggregators out there. The problem is, the margins are really tight at that point and you can hardly do anything about it. The money used to be in the high street retail where you can have fat margins and sell extra services like city tours, paragliding - that also have fat margins.
The industry have seen quite a bit of squeeze both because of AirBnB and the aggregators.
A good way to make a lot of money is to contract all the hotels in an area and sell the company to a bedbank like Hotelbeds. Now hotels are opening every day, things change every day so there's quite bit of people on the ground chasing hotels making deals and getting paid handsomely for it.
Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company
#177Meh. They are just terrible. We once booked a hotel with a children's bed, which was advertised as an option on Booking.com . When we go there, no bed, and they could provide one. After much discussion, they allowed us to cancel the room and they would refund the 125 Euro. Except the refund never came. So, we contacted booking.com and have been passed between support personnel for months. At some point they wanted mo…
Not to say you’re lying but I find this extremely unlikely. Speaking as somebody who works in fintech but despises booking.com.
The reason they wanted your bank statements is legitimate: you’re claiming you didn’t receive money they are convinced they refunded.
Did you yourself look at your bank statements? A refund doesn’t always show up as a refund, it sometimes shows up as a cancelled charge. A bank might not notify you of that. I have even used a bank which straight up would show a mathematically incorrect calculation in its app when this type of refund came through, and the only way to get to the bottom of it was by trawling through the statements.
Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company
#178@dang: why was this title changed?
I think the title was changed correctly, I tried to follow HN's guideline of having the same headline as the source, but this is more accurate.
That's the point, the policy is to retain the original title, no matter how nonsensical. And here the original title was perfectly correct and concise.
Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company
#179Timely and relevant: https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1492046480328523777?s=20... Apparently booking sites have the worst rooms reserved for their platforms. So its worth just booking directly through a hotel's website instead of using an aggregator.
If true, I'm wondering how those are assigned. Do they have rooms reserved for from those aggregators?
No, the hotel staff just know which hotel guests are worth more.
Reservations for guests that stay with the hotel brand frequently are designated with various tiers in the rewards programs. There are arrival reports that detail how much they stay at specific hotels and what their preferences are. It is also trivial to sort through people coming via travel agents such as Priceline, booking.com, or Expedia, which means the hotel has to pay commission, which makes those guests worth less than those who reserve directly.
Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company
#180Just skimming through the comments, there is some negative sentiment about Booking.com. So I came to say, that over the years, I've used Booking.com numerous times, without any single problem. Yes, there are dark patterns (13 people are looking at this offer right now, etc.), but free cancellation was always free for me, reviews matched my experience, information matched the reality. Sorry to hear about the layoffs,…
The reality is, we need a functioning hotel aggregator, and AirBnB needs a competitor. For me, booking.com for European travel has been overwhelming positive in experience, happy with the increasing Genius offerings. I don't use them for apartments however, I don't feel I trust them for that and prefer AirBnB. I also hope they stick around and maybe find a way to make all the cash they feel they can make without ruin…
Also positive experiences with Booking since 2005 :)
What AirBnB gets horribly wrong is hiding exact location of property. In some cases, 200-300m make all the difference, e.g. directly on the sea coast or 10min up the hill, which can happen when the road goes around. Or is it directly next to a noisy club or in a quiet street behind. Or for skiing, whether you’re directly on the track or not. Probably all my searches on Booking start with basic parameters and then immediatelly switching to map.
Also, even for locations I go often and know very well, and can easily find contacts of accomodations I’m interested in, I still choose Booking because it beats calling tens of different phones when single search shows what’s available for specific dates.