Inevitable I guess. People just can't really travel much these days
Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company
71–80 of 291 posts
Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company
#72The one time I used booking.com I got screwed over. Their website is riddled with dark patterns and has probably been A/B tested into oblivion. The tactic they used that screwed me over was that they advertised 100% refunds on last minute cancellations. I used booking.com for this exact reason as I didn’t know if I’d be staying the night in the city I was driving past. Well turns out I didn’t need the booking but whe…
Here's a Booking.com employee that was part of the Consumer Psychology Team coming forward and arguing that what they've been doing is not illegal in the EU, after they were forced to change course because what they've been doing was incompatible with the law. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29472233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29471213
> not illegal
> incompatible with the law
This is amazing.
Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, cannot understand people still fall for that though. But I guess if you are a first time user… As it is a lie, it should not be allowed.
Yeah, and 20 people looking at this room, booked 10x in the last hour, last one left. When you go to the hotel website instead, you see plenty of rooms left and sometimes with a nice offer.
Agree, but the hotel will not alocate the all the rooms for booking/other platforms, just N rooms at Y$ price.
Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company
#74One of the most unpleasant companies that I ever interacted with.
It baffles me how hard it is to avoid them when booking hotel rooms online.
The first time when I tried to avoid them (because I was so mad at them for screwing me over), I booked the same room on another website that I found by searching, only to get a confirmation email from booking.com...
Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company
#75Timely 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.
Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company
#76I find this service good for one thing: if a hotel assigns you a crappy room (loud neighbors, loud construction site outside, similar drawbacks), they'll upgrade it with zero issues. I have never had an issue with getting room replacement in such cases and never had to say anything but stating the issue.
Some hotels seem to be terrified of getting bad reviews on this site.
Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company
#77Just 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,…
Exactly. I have been using booking for years without single issue. Dozens of stays in many countries.
Why it should be a problem to move some employees to different company? This is happening often...
Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
They exist for EU users of booking.com And several of the dark patterns don't. Because of fairly mild regulations that protect the consumer. Draw your own conclusions here.
Consumer travel protections in the US are much stronger than in Europe. I’m not really sure what regulations you’re thinking of. Source: American expat in Europe.
How so? Afaik you don't even have proper laws for normal online purchasing returns. It's kinda hard to believe that in this section the US somehow managed to actually protect their people better than Europe.
Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company
#79The one time I used booking.com I got screwed over. Their website is riddled with dark patterns and has probably been A/B tested into oblivion. The tactic they used that screwed me over was that they advertised 100% refunds on last minute cancellations. I used booking.com for this exact reason as I didn’t know if I’d be staying the night in the city I was driving past. Well turns out I didn’t need the booking but whe…
10 people are reading this comment right now, 3 people have upvoted it. And it's you, dear HN folks, who implements all this.
Of course the entire rest of the chain is cleared of all wrongdoing, because the CEO, the VP and the product manager didn't write the code. Nice.
Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company
#80In Germany this isn't a legal move. One of my former employees (global telco everyone knows) tried to do the same, namely moving the contracts of the employees to an other company. 200 of them started a class action and won easily. The company had to terminate their contracts (which means the employees are eligible for unemployment benefits, etc.) and had to pay a good severance. Something like (years of employment)…
Why is it illegal to fire people in Germany?